So we are super excited!
Something we have been waiting to show you and to try here in Cappadocia.
The Testi kebab, which is the local kebab from this region.
We have come down with Murat who you can see behind us.
Hi everybody!
To his friends restaurant which is called
Keyif Restaurant, which means Enjoy!
And we going to enjoy tonight!
I'm super excited because you know how muchI love food.
We are Marianne and Chris,
in May 2018 we quit our 9-5 jobs,
rented our house to travel full-time.
Due to the pandemic, our attempt to drive around the world has been put on pause.
Finding ourselves in Turkey we are going to show you the best this country has to offer.
We've been told for the last two months that we should be eating testi kebab!
and as soon as we arrived in Cappadocia everyone messaged to ask "where's the testi kebab?"
and " why haven't you eaten the testi kebab?"
I have answered hundreds of messages,
well we've been saving it,
because Murat told us that he has friends
that are known in Cappadocia for making one of the best testi kebabs ..... now i know that's controversial!
but i'm happy to say it and risk it.
I will give you my verdict at the end, how exciting!
so i'm learning about the testI kebab,
now when you think of a kebab here in Turkey
you probably think of the traditional one you get back home like the doner kebab,
but there's a lot of different kebabs in Turkey.
How many? more than 42!
42 different types of kebabs,
and here in Cappadocia the famous one is the testi kebab,
what does testi mean?
Pottery, so testi means pottery, when we were in Avanos they've got the Red river,
there's lots of pottery in this region in Cappadocia.
So we're going to see the testi kebab cooked in the pottery.
When we were at Attila's cave hotel,
we showed you the fire where they would make the breads the flatbreads in the day ,
and what they would do is they would collect the ashes
and then put them in the container next to it,
and then put the pottery in to slow cook food
and this is the origin of the testi kebab.
So testi kebab is a slow cooked in a wood fire
and the flavour comes out
as it cooks for at least three three and a half hours.
We're super excited they're going to lay on a little demonstration to explain to us how it's made
and what goes into this fabulous kebab.
we've come down to Keyif as you know
and the guys just handed me this leaflet which is their brochure,
and I absolutely love it because on the back there is a bucket list!
everybody should have a bucket list,
but cappadocia is so big with so many things to see
that when you come here they will give you a bucket list of things you can tick off!
Chris and I have done quite a lot of it,
When you go to local restaurants they can be all different styles,
modern, old-fashioned, eclectic.
this one's super cool,
each table in this restaurant has its own style,
they've got glass tops and under each one there's coins from different countries,
from where people have visited,
but also there's little messages and I've been reading them,
they've had guests from all over the world
and it's nice to see little messages saying Happy New Year and Happy Christmas,
so people have come here on holiday enjoyed it so much
connected with these guys and even left them a little personal message which is always a good sign of good food!
Right so this is the main ingredient, it's this clay pot - right here,
and that is the method of cooking.
So you've got some beef going in first,
So is this tomato paste? Yes
a little bit of tomato paste,
some whole cloves of garlic,
some red pepper
and then we've got some pointed peppers that's the this one here.
Oh some little onions,
like shallots
some thyme,
a little bit of salt
lovely, black pepper
oh okay black pepper
nice
red pepper it's quite sometimes it can be also some chillies,
Okay so like a a dried red pepper, almost spicy pepper.
butter,
fantastic and some fresh chopped up tomato.
that's lovely, give it a good push in there.
That's lovely,
now it's not all marinated before because as it's a nice slow cook,
as it cooks and all the juices start to come out,
it means that all the flavours are absorbed into all the ingredients and the meat.
So that will have time to stew.
So a little bit of tin foil over the top,
and then a pastry over the top all sealed up.
These are ancient cooking methods and they're still used today,
and it's so lovely to see traditional methods being used,
so thank you Chef!
Thank you so much!
So we've got some yogurt with mint,
some ezme
Esme which is tomato and spices and it's absolutely delicious.
This one is red cabbage,
and we have some little hot chilies
and some bread, and this is always a traditional starter when you're having a kebab dinner.
So traditionally these little nibbles at the beginning in case you're wondering you eat them whilst they're preparing your kebab,
and then they leave them on the table so you can nibble a few of the sauces with your kebab as well if you want to,
so we've also got some aubergine does it have a special name and it's called?
T,hat's what we were growing in the car park.
I'm going to try some it, looks lovely, it smells really comforting!
They put the aubergine on the ashes of the fire.
directly on the ashes ?
and they scrape the inside,
so it's cooked on the ashes and then after they
it's really really smoky!
and it's really comfort food.
Did you smell it? You can smell the fire!
Oh my goodness me!
it's still hot and so that's delicious!
And then on top they've got like the pomegranate sauce,
it's almost like vinegar isn't it?
like a dressing?
They use for the salads here, it's delicious!
We've had a delivery!
and this delivery is our clay pot,
it comes in a lovely stand,
which is cool so you don't burn yourself
but i can smell the meat stew smells,
so the kebab comes out in the dish,
then you tap it with the hammer,
thank you,
on the line, yeah, and i just do that? yes.
Wow
Marianne did hers and it came out good,
Murat did his, he's done it before it came out good
Chris, might need a little bit more work! there he's still got a little bit left,
but that's absolutely amazing and it comes served with some rice,
look how delicious, you can still see it bubbling away there!
So this would have been cooked for a few hours,
I can't wait to taste
it's bubbling hot!
Oh that's beautiful!
oh that is good!
so I am going to have a little taste.
look how rich this sauce looks
let's see how it tastes?
um
it tastes like the richest beef stew,
slow cooked really really full of flavour,
and that comes from the slow cooking,
absolutely delicious!
and also no liquids were added!
yeah - no liquids were added,
so all of the liquids within this pot have come naturally out of all the ingredients that were put in it.
which is why the flavour is just so awesome!
I'm a happy man !
Well after that delicious dinner,
and a lovely slow walk back to the campsite,
I have to say that is possibly the best meal, we have had so far,
so I've got to urge you if you do come to Cappadocia,
make sure you find someone that does that slow cooking to really fully experience the flavours,
because it was out of this world!
i'm just gonna knock up a bit of lunch
okay!
see what we got .....
Oh,
What are you doing in there?
That's it, it is the end of the show!
We hope you've enjoyed this wonderful kebab video.
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