Turkish Cuisine – Even More Delightful Dishes

Turkey has such a huge variety of dishes to feast upon that we’re going for round 3 of Turkish cuisine you need to try. For more great Turkish dishes, check out our other pieces on the subject here and here.

Hamsi

Fishing, as you may have guessed, is a pretty major industry in Turkey, a country with 5000 miles of coastline. Hamsi, a fish from the Black Sea, is possibly the most popular fish in the country with frying generally being hailed as the best way to consume this aquatic delicacy.

Whole, flour-dusted fish is placed in a wheel formation around the frying pan and cooked whole. You can place a plate on top of the first side cooked fish, flip it over and slide it back in to finish cooking. Once done, the fish is served with a side of green salad.

Manti

Take Italian ravioli, reduce it to a third of the normal size and then slather ut with tomato sauce, garlic yoghurt and some decanted chilli pepper-infused melted butter. The dish is made from scratch in most places, with dough properly rolled out, cut into squares and then folded around a small mixture of meat into neat evenly shaped parcels.

Şakşuka

There is a term in Turkish cuisine, “zeytinyagli yemegi” which translates to foods cooked in olive oil. These are mainly vegetable-based and include artichokes, green beans and eggplants.

Within this array of dishes, specifically, the eggplant ones, lies Şakşuka. In this tasty dish, the eggplant is diced up into little pale green cubes with purple skin and cooked with tomatoes, garlic, zucchinis and chilli, with the quantity of that last ingredient varying quite a bit depending on which part of Turkey you have it from.

Kisir 

Kisir is a vibrant salad that consists of fine bulgur wheat, parsley, garlic and mint. There are a variety of variations when it comes to this Turkish cuisine though one we particularly recommend is the one from Antakya. This version adds sour pomegranate molasses and turns up the heat with a nice helping of red hot chilli flakes.