Turkish dishes in the UK

Doner kebab is seasoned lamb, beef or chicken stacked on a vertical spit, roasted slowly and shaved into thin strips. In the UK it is sold two ways: the takeaway version in pitta or a wrap after 11pm, and the restaurant version served on rice, bread or with yoghurt and tomato sauce as an iskender. The two have little in common beyond the spit, and knowing which one you want is the whole trick to ordering well.

Shish kebab is cubes of marinated lamb or chicken threaded on a flat metal skewer and grilled over charcoal. It is the original kebab, the one the word was coined for, and on a UK ocakbaşı menu it is the benchmark dish: if the shish is good, the kitchen is good. It is served with rice or bulgur, grilled pepper and tomato, and sumac onions, and it is the order to make when you do not know the restaurant.

Adana kebab is hand-minced lamb mixed with tail fat and red pepper, pressed along a wide flat skewer and grilled over charcoal. It comes from the city of Adana in southern Turkey, where the name is legally protected and the recipe is strict: lamb, fat, pepper, salt, nothing else. The UK version is spicier and more varied than the original, and it is the dish to order when you want heat and smoke rather than a clean cut of meat.

Iskender kebab is shaved doner laid over cubes of pide bread, covered with tomato sauce and browned butter, and served with a spoonful of thick yoghurt. It was invented in Bursa in the 1860s by a man called Iskender, whose descendants still trade under the name, and it is the most indulgent thing on a Turkish menu: rich, hot and heavy. In the UK it is the dish that turns a doner from a takeaway into a sit-down meal.

Ocakbaşı is not a dish but a kind of restaurant: a charcoal grill built into an open counter in the middle of the room, with seats around it so you watch the cook. The word means 'by the hearth'. In the UK the ocakbaşı houses of North London are where Turkish grilled meat is at its best, and the format has spread to most large cities. Knowing what an ocakbaşı is, and how to order in one, is the key to eating well in a Turkish restaurant.

Köfte are Turkish meatballs, but the word covers dozens of regional shapes and seasonings: grilled lamb köfte from the charcoal, the flat spiced patties of Inegöl and Akçaabat, kadınbudu fried in egg, and the vegetarian mercimek köftesi of red lentil and bulgur. In UK restaurants köfte almost always means the grilled kind, served with rice, grilled pepper and onion, and it is the safest order on any ocakbaşı menu.

Çöp şiş is lamb cut into very small pieces, threaded on thin wooden or metal skewers and grilled fast over charcoal. The name means 'rubbish skewer', because it was made from the trimmings left over from cutting bigger kebabs, but it is now a dish in its own right and one of the best things on a Turkish grill: small, crisp-edged, intensely flavoured and eaten in wraps or off the stick.

Tavuk şiş is chicken thigh, cubed, marinated in yoghurt, garlic, paprika and lemon, and grilled on a skewer over charcoal. It is the chicken counterpart to lamb shish and the most ordered dish in most UK Turkish restaurants, because it suits everyone. The difference between a great one and an ordinary one is entirely the cut and the marinade: thigh not breast, and long enough in the yoghurt to go tender.

Lahmacun is a very thin round of dough spread with minced lamb, onion, tomato, pepper and parsley, baked in minutes in a hot oven and eaten rolled up with lemon and fresh herbs. It is often called Turkish pizza in the UK, which undersells it: there is no cheese, the base is closer to a flatbread, and it costs two or three pounds. It is the cheapest good meal in any Turkish restaurant and the one dish that tells you whether the kitchen has a real oven.

Pide is a boat-shaped flatbread with a soft, chewy base, filled with cheese, spiced minced meat, sucuk, spinach or egg and baked in a stone oven. It is often called Turkish pizza in the UK, but it is closer to a filled bread: thicker than lahmacun, longer than a pizza, and eaten sliced into strips with a squeeze of lemon. A pide salonu, a restaurant built around the pide oven, is one of the most reliable places to eat cheaply and well.

Börek is layered filo pastry filled with cheese, spinach, minced meat or potato, baked or fried, and eaten hot at breakfast, as a snack or as a meze. It comes in dozens of shapes: rolled cigars, coiled spirals, flat trays cut into squares, and the pleated water börek that is boiled before baking. In the UK it is sold by the slice from Turkish bakeries and as sigara böreği, the fried cigars, on almost every restaurant menu.

Meze are the small cold and hot dishes that open a Turkish meal: hummus, cacık, haydari, ezme, stuffed vine leaves, aubergine in several forms, fried liver, halloumi and a dozen more. A meze table is meant to be shared slowly with bread and rakı, and in the UK a spread of six or eight is a full meal for two. Meze is also the best way to eat well in a Turkish restaurant on a budget, and the clearest test of a kitchen's care.

Dolma means 'stuffed', and covers any vegetable filled with rice or meat: peppers, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines and onions, as well as vine leaves and cabbage leaves, which are strictly sarma, 'wrapped'. Meat dolma is served hot with yoghurt as a main; olive-oil dolma with rice, currants and pine nuts is served cold as a meze. In the UK you will find both in lokanta restaurants and the cold kind on nearly every meze menu.

Yaprak sarma are vine leaves rolled tightly around a filling of rice, onion, herbs, currants and pine nuts, cooked in olive oil and lemon and served cold. They are the most recognisable Turkish meze and the most labour-intensive, each roll made by hand no thicker than a finger. In the UK they are on every meze menu and in every Turkish deli; the difference between the hand-rolled and the tinned is obvious in one bite.

Turkish breakfast, kahvaltı, is a spread of small plates rather than one dish: white cheese, olives, tomato, cucumber, honey with clotted cream, jams, eggs cooked with sucuk or as menemen, simit and fresh bread, and endless tea in small glasses. In UK restaurants it is sold per person as a 'serpme' spread and has become a weekend event, especially in North London and Manchester, with queues from ten in the morning.

Menemen is eggs cooked slowly with tomatoes and green peppers in olive oil and butter, served in the pan it was made in with bread for scooping. It is the standard Turkish breakfast dish and the subject of a national argument about whether onion belongs in it. In the UK it has spread beyond Turkish cafés to brunch menus everywhere, and the difference between good menemen and scrambled eggs with tomato is how long the tomato is cooked before the eggs go in.

Mercimek çorbası is red lentil soup, cooked with onion, carrot and a little tomato paste, blended smooth and finished with lemon, dried mint and a spoon of chilli butter. It is the most common soup in Turkey, served at breakfast, lunch and after midnight, and on a UK Turkish menu it is the cheapest thing you can order and often the best. Every Turkish kitchen makes it slightly differently and every Turk has an opinion about it.

İşkembe çorbası is tripe soup: beef stomach simmered for hours, cut fine, thickened with egg and flour, and served with garlic vinegar and pepper flakes stirred in at the table. It is Turkey's famous after-midnight soup, served in dedicated işkembeci restaurants until dawn, and it is not for everyone. In the UK a few Turkish restaurants and lokantas make it, and finding one that does is a sign of a kitchen cooking for its own community.

Karnıyarık is a whole aubergine, fried until soft, split open and filled with spiced minced lamb, tomato and pepper, then baked in a little tomato broth. The name means 'split belly'. It is the classic Turkish home dinner and the dish that lokanta restaurants, the canteen-style places with the food in trays behind glass, are judged by. In the UK it is a lunchtime staple in Turkish home-cooking restaurants and rarely on an ocakbaşı menu.

Imam bayıldı is aubergine stuffed with onion, tomato and garlic, cooked slowly in a great deal of olive oil and served cold. The name means 'the imam fainted', and the dish is the best known of the zeytinyağlılar, the Turkish olive-oil vegetable dishes served at room temperature as starters. It is vegan by tradition rather than by design, and in the UK it is on most Turkish menus as a cold meze or a starter.

Mantı are tiny Turkish dumplings filled with spiced minced lamb or beef, boiled and served under garlic yoghurt with melted butter, red pepper and dried mint. The Kayseri version is the reference: dumplings so small that forty are said to fit on a spoon. Making them is a family afternoon's work, which is why in the UK they are usually found in home-cooking restaurants, at Turkish delis frozen by the kilo, and on a few restaurant menus as a speciality.

Kuru fasulye is white beans stewed slowly with onion, tomato paste and often a little lamb or pastırma, served with rice pilav and pickles. It is Turkey's most loved everyday dish, the national comfort food, and lokanta restaurants in Istanbul are famous for nothing else. In the UK it appears at lunch in Turkish home-cooking restaurants and is one of the cheapest and most filling plates you can find.

Hünkar beğendi is slow-cooked lamb stew served on a purée of smoked aubergine, cheese and béchamel. The name means 'the sultan liked it', and it is the best-known dish of Ottoman palace cooking. It is rich, smoky and elegant, and it appears in the UK on the menus of the more ambitious Turkish restaurants rather than at grill houses. If you see it, it is usually the best thing on the menu.

Pilav is Turkish rice: long-grain rice rinsed, fried briefly in butter with a handful of orzo or vermicelli, then cooked in stock, covered, and rested until every grain is separate. It is served beside almost every stew and grill, and by itself with chickpeas as street food. A Turkish kitchen is judged by its pilav more than a foreign diner would guess, and in the UK it is the side dish that separates a good Turkish restaurant from an ordinary one.

Bulgur pilavı is cracked wheat cooked with onion, tomato and pepper paste in butter and stock until fluffy and slightly nutty. It is the everyday grain of south-eastern Turkey and the healthier, more flavourful alternative to rice on a Turkish plate. In the UK ocakbaşı restaurants, it is usually the better choice under a grilled kebab, because it takes the meat juices without going soggy.

Simit is a ring of bread dipped in grape molasses and coated in sesame seeds, baked until crisp outside and chewy inside. It is the street bread of Istanbul, sold from carts and eaten with cheese and tea, and it is thinner, crisper and less doughy than a bagel, which it is often compared to. In the UK, Turkish bakeries bake it fresh every morning and it appears on every breakfast spread.

Gözleme is a thin hand-rolled flatbread folded around a filling of cheese, spinach, potato or minced meat and cooked on a domed griddle called a sac until it is blistered and golden. It is village food, made by women rolling dough at a low table in front of you, and in the UK it is sold at Turkish cafés, markets and festivals. It is one of the cheapest and most satisfying things to eat, and it is at its best straight off the griddle.

Tantuni is finely chopped beef or lamb stir-fried on a large flat griddle with a little oil and water, seasoned with pepper and wrapped in a thin lavash bread with tomato, onion, parsley and sumac. It comes from Mersin on the Mediterranean coast, where it is street food eaten standing up, and it has arrived in the UK in the last decade through a handful of specialist tantuni shops in North London and Manchester.

Kokoreç is lamb intestines wrapped tightly around seasoned sweetbreads and offal, roasted on a horizontal spit over charcoal, then chopped with tomato, pepper and oregano on a griddle and served in bread. It is Turkey's most divisive street food and, to those who love it, the best thing sold after midnight. It is rare in the UK because of the offal, but a few North London grill houses and street stalls make it, and it has a devoted following.

Kumpir is a very large baked potato, its flesh mashed inside the skin with butter and cheese, then loaded with a choice of toppings: olives, sweetcorn, pickles, Russian salad, sausage, couscous, ketchup and mayonnaise. It is the street food of Ortaköy on the Bosphorus, where a row of stalls compete on toppings, and it has become popular in the UK through Turkish cafés and food markets.

Baklava is layered filo pastry filled with ground pistachio or walnut, baked until crisp and soaked in a light syrup. Turkish baklava is drier and more layered than the Greek and Levantine versions, with syrup rather than honey and pistachios from Gaziantep as the benchmark. In the UK it is sold by the piece or by weight from Turkish bakeries and patisseries, and the difference between a good box and a bad one is mostly butter and freshness.

Künefe is a dessert of shredded pastry layered with unsalted cheese, baked in a shallow tray until crisp, soaked in syrup and served hot with pistachio and often a spoon of kaymak. It comes from Hatay in southern Turkey, and it must be eaten straight from the oven while the cheese still pulls in strings. In the UK it has become the signature dessert of Turkish restaurants and dedicated künefe shops have opened in London and Manchester.

Sütlaç is Turkish rice pudding: short-grain rice cooked slowly in milk with sugar until thick and creamy, poured into bowls, and in the oven-baked version, fırın sütlaç, grilled until the top blisters brown. It is served cold with cinnamon or ground hazelnut, and it is the most common dessert in a Turkish home and a lokanta. In the UK it is on most Turkish menus and in every Turkish patisserie, and the baked version is worth seeking out.

Kazandibi is a milk pudding cooked until thick, then deliberately caramelised on the base of the pan until it forms a dark, chewy, burnt-sugar skin, and served upside down so the burnt side is on top. The name means 'bottom of the pot'. It is the signature of Istanbul's pudding shops and a dessert that surprises people who expect Turkish sweets to be all syrup and nuts. In the UK it is sold in Turkish patisseries and a few restaurants.

Lokum, Turkish delight, is a soft, chewy confection of sugar and starch, flavoured with rosewater, lemon, mastic or pomegranate, often filled with pistachio, hazelnut or walnut, and dusted with icing sugar or desiccated coconut. The Istanbul confectioner Hacı Bekir has made it since 1777. It is the sweet served with Turkish coffee, the gift brought back from Turkey, and in the UK it is sold in every Turkish patisserie and grocer, where the fresh kind bears little resemblance to the boxed export version.

Turkish tea, çay, is black tea brewed strong in a double teapot and served in small tulip-shaped glasses, diluted to taste and drunk all day. Turkish coffee is finely ground coffee simmered with water and sugar in a small pot, served unfiltered with the grounds settling in the cup. Both are rituals rather than drinks, and every Turkish restaurant and café in the UK serves them; how they do it tells you a lot about the place.

Ayran is yoghurt whisked with cold water and a pinch of salt until frothy, and it is the drink that goes with kebab, pide, lahmacun and almost everything else on a Turkish table. It is savoury, cold and slightly sour, and it cuts through fat and spice better than anything. In the UK it is sold in every Turkish restaurant, in cartons and bottles from Turkish grocers, and increasingly in mainstream supermarkets.

Şalgam is a fermented drink of purple carrot, turnip and bulgur, deep red, sour, salty and sharp, from Adana and Mersin in the south of Turkey. It is drunk with kebab and tantuni, in the spicy 'acılı' version especially, and it is one of the most surprising things to order in a Turkish restaurant. In the UK it is sold bottled in Turkish grocers and in the restaurants run by families from the south, where it belongs on the table with Adana kebab.