It’s Friday again so it’s time for another Turkish food photo.
Actually, we’ve decided to change the name of this weekly series to Turkish Food Focus because our first two posts in this section, the Izmir gevrek vs. simit mystery and nohutlu pilav, contained more than one photo.
Future posts are likely to be the same, so ‘focus’ seems more apt than ‘photo’ for the title. Let’s roll with that for a while and see what happens.
Tepsi Kebab (Tray Kebab)
And, having said all that, guess what, today’s post is just one photo.
A scan through our food photo archives revealed that we’re yet to add this photo of meaty goodness to the Turkish food section of the blog so we want to put that right today.
Tepsi kebab is traditional to the Hatay area of Turkey but not many restaurants around Turkey serve it because it’s time consuming to prepare.
Tepsi kebab is a dish eaten at home and mere mortals who don’t get the opportunity to share a meal with a family from this area are left to scrabble around for a specialist kebab restaurant that is willing to prepare it.
Well lucky us, living in Fethiye. As with many of our kebab photos, this photo is from a favourite restaurant of ours, Mozaik Bahçe.
This place specialises in Hatay cuisine and so serves individual portions of tepsi kebab.
Traditionally, the minced meat is kneaded with finely chopped onions and spices and then moulded into a large circular baking tray (tepsi means tray) topped in a tomato sauce and cooked in a stone oven (many Turkish families take their dishes to their local bakery to be baked).
If you find yourself in Fethiye in the summer season, we can recommend the tepsi kebab from Mozaik Bahçe. The meat is succulent, juicy, lightly spiced and topped with barbecued onion, pepper and tomato.
Tepsi kebab is on our list of Turkish recipes to try out at home – right after we’ve bought ourselves a circular tray.
In the meantime, we continue to dream of a trip to the Hatay region of Turkey so we can eat our way through the whole area…
Turkey's For Life
Sunday 20th of January 2013
@ Anonymous: Thanks a lot for your comment. Don't think we've ever met anyone who hasn't enjoyed the food at Mozaik Bahçe. Great to have a place that's got a little niche in Fethiye. :)
Anonymous
Sunday 20th of January 2013
Great restaurant you must go there if you can lovely staff too especially nichola and dohan food is fab too :))
Turkey's For Life
Sunday 20th of January 2013
@ Pete: Funny you should ask that because Moziak Bahçe have just updated their Facebook page and said it's exactly 10 weeks until they reopen for the summer season. By our reckoning, that means they'll be open. :) Hope you like it.
Pete
Sunday 20th of January 2013
Will Mozaik be open first week of April, I'd like to try the Tepsi Kebab
Turkey's For Life
Sunday 20th of January 2013
@ Rambling Tart: Yes the communal cooking is a great idea isn't it. I guess it was more common in the past but nice to know the practice still happens in Turkey.