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Flavors · Adana
Wide skewer of lamb meat with tail fat, hand-chopped (zırh) with red pepper, grilled over coals and served with lavaş, onion with sumac, grilled tomato and pepper.
Traditional dish from Adana
Also known as: Adana kebap, Adana kebabi
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Adana kebabı — Adana, Turkey
Adana kebabı is the minced-meat kebab of the Çukurova plain in southern Turkey, and perhaps the best-known kebab name in the country. The meat is lamb, with tail fat, hand-chopped with the "zırh", the wide two-handled knife, together with red pepper and salt. The mixture is packed by hand onto wide, flat iron skewers and grilled over charcoal.
What sets Adana apart from other minced-meat kebabs is the pepper: the skewer without pepper is usually called "Urfa kebabı." Meat chopped by knife, not ground by machine, is one of the rules the Adana Chamber of Commerce set when registering the name.
Adana kebabı is served on lavaş, the thin flatbread, with onion seasoned with sumac and parsley, tomato and pepper roasted on the same grill. To drink, the custom is şalgam, the red, sour beverage of fermented purple carrot, which is also registered to Adana.
The chamber of commerce registered Adana kebabı as a geographical indication in 2005 and maintains an academy that trains kebab masters. Establishments that follow the recipe can receive a certificate and a seal from the chamber.
Adana
Kebab of the Çukurova plain, registered by the Adana Chamber of Commerce.
Lamb meat and tail fat, hand-chopped (zırh), red pepper and salt.
On the skewer or already placed on the lavaş, with onion with sumac and parsley, grilled tomato and pepper; eaten with the bread by hand. Şalgam or ayran to drink.
All year round; very popular during Ramadan, at the breaking of the fast.
Your questions
Both are skewers of minced meat, but Adana includes red pepper and Urfa does not. In Adana, the lamb is hand-chopped with tail fat.
It contains red pepper in the meat, but generally the heat is moderate. Those who prefer it without pepper can order Urfa kebabı.
The custom in Adana is şalgam, a red, sour drink made from fermented purple carrot. Ayran is also common.
Flavors of Turkey
Fine bulgur hand-kneaded with dried pepper (isot), pepper and tomato paste, onion, garlic, walnuts, parsley, pomegranate molasses and spices, meatless, served in lettuce leaves: Adıyaman's çiğ köfte.
Flattened beef meatballs, stale bread, garlic and salt, grilled over charcoal and served with roasted pepper and tomato: the Akçaabat köfte, on the shore of the Black Sea, in Trabzon.
