Cuisine & Specialities of Konya for Gourmets

Aryan the favourite Turkish drink!

Konya is the place for meat lovers or lamb lovers to be precise! Every meal you eat here revolves around meat and more meat and tasty pide-like bread. I think such a heavy meal pairs well with the cold weather that we experienced in Konya.

Yogurt is intrinsic to every meal in Konya with little 'kalonji' sprinkled over it & Aryan is the favourite Turkish drink ! I haven't been able to taste it yet ‘cause of my bad throat but am loving the yogurt soup & lentil soup that I'm getting to sample instead.

Etliekmek - This is a local and larger variation of the traditional Turkish lahmacun. Flat bread is baked with ground meat, tomatoes, peppers and onion.

Fırın Kebab - (lamb cooked in oven for eight hours sans any sauces or spices) My daughter has fallen in love with these melt-in-your-mouth chunks of lamb served with soft pide bread.

Tirit - This rich dish is described as Konya's special bread with bouillon, yogurt, onion, butter and sumac. It's traditionally served at weddings and as per my son, was very delicious!
Then there's an array of salads mainly comprising of cucumbers, tomatoes and lots of coriander.

As we all know, national dish of Turkey is Kebab. The word kebab is actually from Arabic and originally meant fried meat, not grilled meat. Only in the Turkish period, did kebab gain its current meaning. Turkish tradition has it that medieval Turkic soldiers used their swords to grill meat over open-field fires invented the dish.

One of the most famous kebab dishes is undoubtedly döner. But the kebabs come in many forms, of which my family tasted quite a few . Unfortunately I don't have pics of all of them to share!