Turkish cuisine: famous dishes that add an exceptional flavor

Turkish cuisine is famous all over the world, with the delicious dishes that have developed over centuries of merging civilizations in one place. During your visit to Turkey, you can taste the most delicious of these varieties. In this article, learn more about the most famous and attractive Turkish dishes.

Origins and culture of Turkish cuisine

One feature of Turkish cuisine is the mixture of the civilizations of the East and the West, due to Turkey’s location between the continents of Asia and Europe, which made it a window into both cultures. It is also unique in being influenced by several cuisines, such as Indian, Kurdish, Arab, Persian, and Armenian, due to the control of the Ottoman Sultanate over the eastern Mediterranean for 500 years, while some believe It is inherited from the Ottoman era.

The culture of Turkish cuisine varies from one region to another. Some regions of the Black Sea are influenced by European cooking methods, such as Zonguldak, and some cities are dominated by Ottoman traditions, such as Istanbul and Bursa, while the southern regions, such as Mardin, are influenced by Arab cuisine.

The most famous Turkish cuisine

Turkish cuisine offers a variety of delicious dishes that add an exceptional flavor to your trip, the most famous are:

• Turkish Doner: consists of pieces of chicken or meat grilled on a skewer.
• Adana Kebab: It is minced lamb pieces that are grilled with spices.
• Salt-crusted chicken: The chicken is covered with salt and placed in the oven, where the heat of the salt cooks the chicken tenderly.
• Meat by dough (lahmacun): The minced meat is placed on the dough and placed in the oven.
• Imam Bayildi: Eggplant is stuffed and cooked with vegetables, garlic, and onions with tomato sauce.
• Sirma: pieces of meat and rice with vegetables and spices, rolled into fingers.
• Sweet potato Kumbir: baked potatoes tossed with butter and cheese and topped with a variety of flavors.
• Manti: boiled pies stuffed with marinated meat in oil and spices.

The most famous appetizers offered by Turkish cuisine

Turkish cuisine offers a group of the most delicious types of appetizers that decorate the tables, such as:

• Eggplant Mutabal: Mashed grilled eggplant with tahini, garlic, pepper, and olive oil.
• Turkish Kofte: It is called chikofte, it is made from semolina, spices, walnuts, pomegranate molasses, and thyme.
• Sirma Yaklanci: grape leaves with minced meat and rice, rolled into fingers, and cooked with lemon juice.
• Turkish hummus: It is made by mixing tahini with boiled chickpeas in a blender, then adding Turkish spices.
• Turkish Su Borek: Burek stuffed with cheese and parsley or minced meat.
• Zucchini omelet: Zucchini with eggs, chopped parsley, and cheese, fried in oil and served hot.

The most famous Turkish cuisine sweets

The sweets offered by Turkish cuisine are varied, the most famous are:

• Turkish Baklava: Flake-shaped dough stuffed with pistachios or cream, and covered with syrup and pistachios.
• Turkish delight: jelly, sugar, starch, and flavorings stuffed with nuts.
• Ashura dessert: It consists of wheat, in addition to various types of grains, and is covered with nuts.
• Kunafa: It consists of dough and cheese, with nuts and syrup added on top.
• Ermak: It is made with semolina, milk, ghee, and sugar, and is covered with nuts.

The strangest dishes of Turkish cuisine

Turkish cuisine is characterized by richness in exotic foods, which highlights the Turks’ ambition to search for foods that are specific to their cuisine, the most prominent are:

• Bigi Bigi dessert, or as the Turks call it “frost dessert,” is a delicious popular ice cream. The city of Adana is famous for it, especially during the summer. It is served on ice cubes, gelatin, fruits, rose water, and sugar.
• Stuffed okra is one of the most difficult and strangest types of stuffed vegetables due to the difficulty of filling the thin okra fruits with minced meat. The city of Adana is famous for it and is considered the strangest Turkish food. The head of the okra fruit is cut off, then the heart is emptied with a thin wooden tool and the lemon is squeezed inside the fruit, and then it is stuffed using a small spoon. Then cook it over the fire after providing it with spices and tomato juice.
• Eggplant jam is famous in the cities of Antalya and Agdirukagisman. It is prepared by peeling the eggplant fruits, soaking them in water, salt, and sodium bicarbonate, then washing them, stuffing the edges with cloves, preparing the syrup, and placing the inside of the eggplant on the fire until it is cooked.
• Lavender biscuits are famous in the city of Sparta, where eggs, ghee, sugar, vanilla, and heated lavender flower sticks are prepared, the ingredients are mixed in the form of dough and then placed in the oven.
• Chicken breast candy is a type of candy similar in texture to “pudding,” and what is strange thing about it, is that the taste of chicken inside is unnoticeable. It is made by grinding chicken meat to become dough and mixing it with starch, rice flour, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla.

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