Traditional Turkish Cuisine Flavor: Lamb Tandoori

Lamb tandoori is a meat dish that has become famous all over the world for its flavor. The most delicious dishes in traditional Turkish cuisine are those with vegetables for some people and those with meat for others. However, flavors such as kebab and doner are really distinct in traditional Turkish cuisine.

Meat dishes, which are attractive and delicious for tourists visiting Turkey, are prepared with different cooking methods. If you are interested in and want to try dishes such as kebab, doner, lamb tandoori, and meatballs, Turkish cuisine is for you. If you are looking for a great restaurant where you can experience the best of Turkish and Ottoman cuisine, you will find it at Queb Lounge Rooftop Restaurant.

Recommendation for a place to eat lamb tandoori in Sultanahmet >> Queb Rooftop Restaurant

Tandoori Culture in Turkish Cuisine

Lamb is one of the most commonly used types of red meat in Turkish cuisine. Dishes made with red meat and with lamb flavors are very popular. Lamb meat is used in a wide variety of dishes in Turkish cuisine.

Cooking lamb in tandoor makes this meat even more delicious. You can experience lamb tandoori dishes in many restaurants and luxury restaurants in Istanbul. Especially in restaurants in the Sultanahmet area, you can enjoy lamb tandoori dishes to the fullest.

Thanks to the tandoor, all meat softens gradually during cooking. It does not lose any of its healthy nutrients. Once in Turkey, tasting the country’s delicious meats and observing the different cooking methods will be an unforgettable experience for you.

If you don’t know what a tandoor is and are wondering, let’s share some information about it. When wood and fire come together, different cooking techniques emerge. When the embers start to die down slowly, many delicious dishes come out thanks to the embers that emerge. Tandoor is one of the known methods such as barbecue, grill and skewers. It adds a deep flavor to the dishes cooked by heating in the pit. Tandoori bread, which Turkish society has been making for centuries and is very delicious, is also very popular. Although tandoori culture was initially seen as a means of warming up for Turks, it started to serve different purposes over time.

Tandoor as a Cooking Method

Lamb is one of the best ingredients you can cook in tandoori cooking because it is a well-researched and well-known recipe that stands out for its lamb flavor. Nowadays, many homes do not have tandoori cookers, so the meat is cooked in ovens.

In the past, tandoor was used in most houses in Anatolia. Perhaps Anatolian food has reached this level of flavor thanks to the fact that tandoor is always ready. If there is no electric oven in Turkish village houses, tandoor is still used. Many villagers bake their pastries in the tandoor. When experiencing Turkish cuisine, there are many dishes that you should not skip because this cuisine is very wide and delicious. When cooking meat dishes, vegetables are added to them and unforgettable flavors emerge.

Lamb tandoori is cooked in different regions of Turkey and is known as tandoori kebab, especially in Denizli province. The lamb flavor is known all over Turkey. Although tandoori cooking is not available in homes to get this flavor, tandoori dishes are still eaten in some restaurants.

Each region of the country may have a different method of presentation and innovation in lamb tandoori cooking. For example, in Denizli province, lamb tandoori is made in the form of kebab and cooked for long hours on skewers. Then the lamb flavor is brought to your table and you just eat your lamb tandoori with lavash bread without using cutlery. It has become a tradition to bake homemade lavash bread in the tandoor while making lamb tandoori.

A low-fat lamb meat bought from a good butcher is well-oiled and left to dry to cook for hours. While the lamb is cooking, a few cuts are made to allow the heat to penetrate the meat well. Before starting to cook the lamb tandoori, the meat is massaged well with olive oil and various flavors such as laurel to make it even more tender.

The meat, flavored with garlic and various spices, is optionally wrapped in foil and left to cook in the tandoor fire for at least 2 hours. Thus, the lamb meat reaches the flavor it should have.