Türkiye · Turkish cuisine of Bursa
İskender kebap
Paper-thin slices of seared marinated lamb or beef laid on cubes of warm pide, covered with a hot buttery tomato sauce, cool garlic yogurt and sizzling melted butter: the celebrated dish of Bursa.
Cookhuddle Editorial Cookhuddle | Turkey
Editorial selection: recipes cross-checked against several documentary sources. They have not been tested in our kitchen: follow the precautions given and adapt times to your own oven.
original Original text, written in English.
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- Servings
- 4
- Preparation
- 60 min
- Cooking
- 45 min
- Resting
- 1110 min
- Total
- 1215 min
- Difficulty
- Advanced
Cuisine / tradition: Turkish cuisine of Bursa (TR) — declared by the author
- Main dish
- Celebration
Ingredients
For 4 servings
- 600 g boneless lamb leg or beef sirloin, sliced thinly
- 1 piece onion, grated
- 100 ml milk
- 4 clove garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp ground red pepper
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp salt, for the meat, added just before slicing
- 500 g plain flour, for the pide
- 7 g dried yeast, for the pide
- 250 ml lukewarm water, for the pide
- 1 tsp salt, for the pide
- 60 g butter, for the sauce
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp red pepper paste
- 250 ml hot water, for the sauce
- 1 tsp salt, for the sauce
- 300 g thick plain yogurt
- 2 clove garlic cloves, for the yogurt
- 60 g butter, melted and sizzling, to finish
- 4 piece tomatoes and 4 long green peppers, grilled, to garnish
Method
- Step 1. The day before: mix the grated onion, milk, garlic, olive oil, thyme, ground red pepper and black pepper in a bowl. Add the sliced meat and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, ideally overnight.⏱ 720 min
- Step 2. Lift the meat from the marinade and pat dry. Stack the slices on a sheet of cling film, roll it up tightly into a log and freeze it for at least 6 hours, or overnight.⏱ 360 min
- Step 3. Pide: mix the flour, the yeast, the salt and the lukewarm water and knead for about 10 minutes into a smooth, firm dough that is not sticky. Cover and leave to rise for about 1 hour, until doubled.⏱ 60 min
- Step 4. Heat the oven to 200 °C. Divide the dough into 3 or 4 pieces, flatten each by hand to about 1 cm thick and press your fingertips into the surface to dimple it. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until golden. (You may use 3 or 4 ready-made pide breads.)⏱ 12 min
- Step 5. Sauce: melt the 60 g of butter in a pan, add the tomato paste and the pepper paste and fry for 2 minutes over low heat, stirring, until the raw smell has gone. Pour in the hot water, add the salt and simmer for 5 minutes. Mix the yogurt with the crushed garlic and a pinch of salt. Grill the tomatoes and green peppers until charred.⏱ 5 min
- Step 6. About 30 minutes before cooking, take the meat from the freezer. Sprinkle it with the salt and slice it as thinly as possible across the log with a sharp knife, holding it with a cloth.
- Step 7. Heat a large non-stick pan over high heat with a little butter. Cook the meat slices in 3 batches for about 2 minutes each, until browned with crisp edges, without crowding the pan. The 2 minutes are only a guide: the slices are thin, but cut one open to check that no pink remains, and give any batch that is not cooked through another minute.⏱ 2 min
- Step 8. Warm the plates. Cut the pide into cubes and spread them on the plates. Spoon some of the hot sauce over the bread, cover with the meat, add the garlic yogurt on the side, and a little more sauce over the meat. Finish with the sizzling melted butter poured on top, and serve with the grilled tomato and pepper.
Story and cultural note
İskender kebap is named after İskender Efendi of Bursa, whose family brand, Kebapçı İskender, dates its beginnings to 1867. His innovation was to cook the boned meat on a vertical spit over charcoal and slice it thinly: first called a spinning kebab, it later became döner. The dish is thin slices of döner meat on pieces of pide, with hot tomato sauce, yogurt and melted sheep's milk butter poured over at the table. It is also known as Bursa kebab. The sources do not agree on the date of the invention. This recipe is a home version without a vertical spit, with the meat marinated, rolled, frozen and sliced thinly.
Tips for success
Freeze the rolled meat until firm so that you can slice it paper-thin, and slice it while it is still half frozen. Sear the slices in a very hot pan, in small batches, so that they brown rather than stew. Warm the plates, soak the pide with sauce, and pour the sizzling butter at the very last moment. Use real butter: its quality is the sauce's flavour. The cooking time of the slices is a guide, not a guarantee: the meat must be cooked through, with no pink left.
Serving and presentation
Serve immediately on warm plates: pide cubes, hot tomato sauce, meat, garlic yogurt on the side and melted butter poured at the table, with a grilled tomato and green pepper.
Diet and allergens
Information declared by the author. CookHuddle does not verify or certify it. If you have an allergy, check the ingredients yourself.
DietEgg-freeNut-free
ContainsGluten (cereals)Milk
