Turkish Food – Loving Süzme Yoghurt

There are different types of natural yoghurt in Turkey – full fat, half fat, 1% fat, kaymaklı (creamy), to name a few – but our favourite has got to be süzme yoghurt.

We’ve already written a post about how, since moving to Turkey, we have grown to love yoghurt – it’s been quite a long journey – and we’ve posted a recipe for the famous Turkish yoghurt dish, cacık; a refreshing mix of natural Turkish yoghurt, cucumber and mint.

‘Süzme’ means ‘strained’ and the result is a thick, creamy, yoghurt that goes great with mücver (courgette fritters), grilled meats, it can be mixed with chillies, garlic, herbs and eaten as a meze.

It’s just gorgeous. And, as you can see, versatile. It’s a very rare occasion that there isn’t some in our fridge.

You may remember that we posted a recipe for fırında mücver, (oven-baked mücver) back in February. Well, the traditional way to make these fantastic courgette fritters is to fry them.

I made them the other day (as you can see in the photo) and we ate them with the süzme yoghurt (we grated a bit of garlic into it).

Just a brilliant late summer lunch. Of course, I took a few photos of the fritter making process so we’ll post about that tomorrow.

If you are in the Fethiye area, homemade süzme yoghurt can be bought from the Fethiye markets. It’s sold on the cheese stalls from huge, plastic tubs (basically, small dustbins) and is sold by weight.

The other place to get your hands on the home made stuff is from the cheese and olive shops surrounding the fish market in the centre of Fethiye.

Of course, you can get the factory produced branded yoghurt from the supermarkets but we prefer the locally produced version?

Turkish Food Abroad

If you aren’t in Turkey, just a question for you: Would you be able to buy a product called ‘Turkish Yoghurt’?

Whichever part of the world you are sitting in, while reading this post, have you ever seen yoghurt / coffee / any other products specifically marked with the label ‘Turkish Yoghurt,’ ‘Turkish coffee,’ ‘Turkish Bulgur’ etc?

We know the main supermarkets in the UK don’t sell any products like this (apart from the horrendous Fry’s Turkish Delight – but let’s not go there). It’s something we’ve thought a bit about recently and, coincidentally, the issue was discussed in an article about simits in the Hürriyet newspaper yesterday.

A Turkish company is going worldwide with its simit production. Great! However, Turkish cuisine is recognised as one of the best cuisines in the world. Why is the whole Turkish brand not exported more?

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