İskender kebap is one of the most famous dishes in the north-west of Turkey. It gets its name from its inventor, İskender Efendi, who lived in Bursa in the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 19th century. Iskender kebab is still prepared in the original way by the grandson of the inventor in his restaurant in Bursa.

Iskender kebab with chicken

ingredients - info chicken white onion powder cumin powder pepper and salt paprika olive oil

sjalotjes knoflook passata bulgur Griekse yoghurt komkommer tomaten ijsbergsla

The kebab: skin the chicken. Make a mixture of onion powder, cumin powder, paprika, pepper and salt. Rub the meat with it. You can do this by putting the chicken and the spices together in a plastic bag and kneading it thoroughly. Take the meat out of the bag and make small rolls wrapped in cling film. Put them in the fridge for a few hours to let the dry marinade take effect. Then freeze the rolls long enough for them to be cut easily. Do that with a bread or meat slicer. Take the chicken out of the foil and cut it into as thin slices as possible. Quickly fry the kebabs over a high heat in a pan sprayed with a little olive oil. When the chicken sheets are nice and crispy, put them in a dish and put it in a preheated oven at 85°C until use. The kebab sauce: chop a shallot and a few cloves of garlic. Fry them in a pan with some olive oil. Add the passata and season with cumin powder, pepper and salt. Put the immersion blender in the sauce. Mix with a few tablespoons of Greek yoghurt. Make a yoghurt sauce. Mix a jar of Greek yoghurt with a grated and squeezed cucumber and a teaspoon of garlic powder.

Cook bulgur according to the instructions on the packet. Cut a few tomatoes into rings and put them in a grill pan for a while. Wash and cut iceberg lettuce and cucumber. On the plate: a scoop of kebab topped with a few spoonfuls of sauce. Next to it, a portion of bulgur. Top with iceberg lettuce, the yoghurt sauce, tomato slices and cucumber. Serve with sliced Turkish bread (pide).