İskender kebab

Ingredients

• Lamb — thinly sliced700 g
• Pide flatbread400 g
• Tomato passata400 ml
• Butter120 g
• Thick yoghurt300 ml
• Onion1
• Garlic3 clove
• Red pepper paste1 tbsp
• Oregano1 tsp
• Green peppers — to serve2
• Vegetable oil40 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Slice the lamb very thin, season it and leave it twenty minutes.

   22 min

2. 2

   Fry the onion and garlic in oil, add the pepper paste and warm it a minute.

   7 min

3. 3

   Add the passata and oregano and cook the sauce fifteen minutes to thicken it.

   17 min

4. 4

   Cut the pide into cubes and dry them in the oven at 180 °C for eight minutes.

   12 min

5. 5

   Sear the lamb slices over a very high flame in batches, a minute and a half each.

   10 min

6. 6

   Spread the bread on the plates, spoon over some of the sauce, then the meat and the rest of the sauce.

   6 min

7. 7

   Melt the butter until it sizzles and pour it over the meat. Put the yoghurt at the side and serve with fried peppers.

   6 min

About the dish

The bread is cut into cubes and dried out. It has to soak up the sauce without collapsing — fresh soft pide turns to mush within a minute.

The melted butter is poured over the meat at the last moment, still sizzling. That is not for show: hot butter opens up the smell of the meat and binds the sauce to the bread.

The yoghurt goes at the side rather than on top. It should stay cold and not mix with the sauce until the fork reaches it.

Worth knowing

• — Sear the meat in batches. All at once drops the pan's temperature and the lamb stews in its own juices instead of taking a crust.
• — The butter has to sizzle as it goes on. Warm butter gives none of the effect it is poured for.
• — The dish is named after İskender Efendi of Bursa, who first set the spit upright in the late nineteenth century. It is his invention rather than an old tradition.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

820 kcal

Protein

46 g

Fat

48 g

Carbs

52 g

More from Turkey

• Menemen — Eggs cooked into tomatoes and green pepper. They are never beaten and rarely stirred, or you end up with ordinary scrambled eggs.
• Mercimek çorbası — A red lentil soup blended smooth and finished with lemon and paprika butter.
• Lahmacun — A paper-thin flatbread with lamb and pepper paste, baked three minutes in a screaming oven.