Eurasia Mega Tour 2026 - Türkiye Foodie Post #2

 While we are now deep into our visit to Madrid, Spain, we have one more piece of business to conclude with Alanya/Mahmutlar - A second foodie post. 

 Herbs

In the area of Türkiye we have been visiting, herbs are a prominent part of the cuisine. They are chopped up into the salads which are very lightly dressed otherwise with just a bit of oil, lemon juice, or tomato juice. They give them to you to add to your Lamachun. Cheese and herbs are a common filling in your Gõzleme. We started making our salads just that way when we went to a local market and found bunches of herbs to buy. We're not sure what this is. According to our online search it could be sorrel or arugula. Whatever it was, it was very fragrant and reminded us of the things we'd been eating out.

 

 We did a lot of cooking in because the ingredients were so good - especially the produce.

This is a spicy grilled beef sausage and an eggplant dish I made with tomato, onions, garlic, and herbs

 

 Uygur Turk

The name of a restaurant serving Uygur Central Asian food. Hands down the best place we ate at the whole time in Türkiye. It was interesting. Our waiter both times, a young man from Ukraine, told us they only got Russians, Ukrainians, and foreigners, no locals.

The Uygur territory was historically the link between China and the more Western areas of Central Asia. It is now located in Sinkiang China, and Eastern Kazakhstan. Its food is a cross between the two cultures with Russian influence as well from the centuries of Russian, then Soviet rule. It is the home of hand-pulled wheat noodles that became ubiquitous in China and now are found all over the world

Dishes we ate there

Fried Noodles

 

There were a ton of sweet peppers in it. The flavor was like a cross between Eastern European and Chinese. Very hard to describe. That's a hot chile paste to the right

A Special Chicken Dish

 

 The chicken itself was over cooked. But the sauce was spectacular. I researched it afterward and found it is a renowned Uygur dish and the sauce is noted to be difficult to duplicate. Those black things are wood ear mushrooms. In traditional Chinese cooking, they are added to give a crunchy texture. But here they were long cooked and absorbed all the flavor of the cooking fluid. Again there were tons of different sweet peppers that were delicious

Manti

 

Steamed dumplings. Very different from the Turkish variety which are small with a yogurt sauce over them. These had a prominent ground meat filling. I took the leftovers and fried them the next day which were very nice.

Gõzleme on the path in Sapadere  

 So nice and tranquil on the path. Made to order. There are always little accompaniments like the olives and pickles above with things you get in this area of Türkiye.

Pilav

 

 

Pilav (pronounced Plahf) is found all over the area where the Central Asians expanded, down into India (think Biryani), Persia/Iran, to Russia, etc. 

 

This was called Kazan Kebap and was like a stew rather than the grilled food we associate with kebap in Türkiye

One final Doner Kebap

 

We'd been disappointed with what we'd tried so far. I did a bunch of research and found a highly recommended place. It was not dry like many we've had with veggies and sauce in it which is what we like. And nice Ayran, the tart, salted yogurt drink I've learned to enjoy here.