Karnıyarık in the UK: what it is, how to order it, where to find it
Quick answer
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.
Calories and nutrition
- Calories
- 620
- Protein
- 24 g
- Carbs
- 50 g
- Fat
- 36 g
- Salt
- 1.9 g
500–760 kcal
Portion: One stuffed aubergine, about 300 g, with a serving of pilav.
The fried aubergine absorbs oil; a baked version saves about 120 kcal.
Estimates for a typical portion, based on standard UK and USDA food composition data. Actual values depend on the recipe and the restaurant.
What karnıyarık is
Medium aubergines are peeled in stripes, fried in oil until soft and golden, then slit lengthways and opened like a boat. The filling is minced lamb cooked with onion, garlic, chopped tomato and green pepper, parsley and a little tomato paste. The stuffed aubergines are laid in a tray, each topped with a slice of tomato and a green pepper, a little tomato broth is poured around, and they bake until everything has softened together. It is served warm rather than hot, with rice pilav and yoghurt. It is one of the yemek dishes, the home-cooking repertoire, as opposed to grilled kebab, and it belongs to lunch.
Karnıyarık versus imam bayıldı
The two look identical and are constantly confused. Karnıyarık has meat in the filling and is served warm as a main. Imam bayıldı has no meat, only onion, tomato, garlic and a great deal of olive oil, and is served cold or at room temperature as a starter or a meze. The joke about the imam who fainted is variously told as being about the taste or about the cost of the olive oil. If you see both on a menu, order karnıyarık for lunch and imam bayıldı as a cold starter at dinner.
How to judge it
The aubergine should be soft all the way through and not bitter or oily; it should have been fried properly and then drained. The filling should be juicy and taste of lamb, tomato and pepper. The whole thing should hold its shape on the plate. Karnıyarık from a lokanta tray is sitting in its broth and is best in the first hour or two after cooking; ask what was made that morning. It should come with pilav; if it comes with chips, somewhere has gone wrong.
Where in the UK it is done well
The lokanta-style restaurants of North London, where you choose from trays at the counter, make karnıyarık daily; several are on Green Lanes and in Dalston and Enfield. Outside London it is rarer, appearing on the specials board of restaurants run by Anatolian families. The ranking below counts restaurants in our directory whose name signals a lokanta or home cooking.
How to order it
Look for it at lunchtime in a lokanta, where it will be in a tray with the broth. Ask for it with pilav and a spoon of yoghurt. It is a main, not a meze; do not confuse it with the cold imam bayıldı. If a restaurant makes it to order at dinner, it will take twenty-five minutes.
Where it's done well
UK councils with the most karnıyarık specialists, by restaurant name, in our directory.
Restaurants near you
Search by postcode or use your location to find restaurants likely to serve karnıyarık near you.
Make it at home
Serves 4 · 75 min
Ingredients
- 4 medium aubergines
- sunflower oil for frying
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 300 g minced lamb
- 2 tomatoes, chopped, plus 4 slices
- 1 green pepper, chopped, plus 4 small green peppers
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- a handful of parsley, chopped
- salt, pepper, half a tsp pepper flakes
- 200 ml hot water
Method
- Peel the aubergines in stripes lengthways, leaving the stalks on. Fry in 2 cm of oil over medium heat, turning, until soft and golden all over, about ten minutes. Drain on paper.
- Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until soft, add the lamb and brown it, then add the chopped tomato, chopped pepper, tomato paste, parsley and seasoning and cook for ten minutes until thick.
- Slit each aubergine lengthways without cutting through, open it and fill with the meat.
- Lay them in a baking dish, top each with a tomato slice and a small pepper, mix the hot water with a little tomato paste and pour around them.
- Bake at 190°C for 30 minutes. Serve warm with rice and yoghurt.
Frying the aubergines properly is the whole dish; do not try to bake them from raw. Salt them first for 20 minutes if they are large and seedy.
Related dishes
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.
PidePide 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.