creating
This month, food writer Meliz Berg experiments with sweet and smoky urfa chilli paste
Urfa kıymalı yoğurtlu tantuni
Tantuni is a traditional Turkish street food of finely diced beef or lamb, and salad wrapped in lavash bread. This is a lovely, quick alternative using beef mince. Urfa chilli is used widely in Turkish cuisine. The peppers are sundried to develop a deep mahogany colour, then ground to flakes and sprinkled over anything from salads to kebabs.
35 MINUTES | SERVES 4 |EASY
white onions 2, finely sliced
tomatoes 4, 2 finely sliced, 2 left whole
olive oil 2 tbsp
beef mince (at least 10% fat) 500g
flat-leaf parsley 30g, leaves and stalks finely chopped
greek yogurt 200g
lemon 1, Ω juiced and zested, Ω to serve
garlic 2 cloves, finely grated
urfa chilli paste 1Ω tbsp
runny honey 1 tsp
dried mint Ω tsp lavash or large wraps 4, heated in a frying pan sumac or pul biber a pinch (optional)
1 Mix together half the onions with the sliced tomatoes and set aside. Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat. Fry the mince for 5 minutes, breaking it up as it cooks, until browned all over. Turn down the heat, add the remaining onions and the chopped parsley stalks, and cook for 10-12 minutes.
2 Meanwhile, make the yogurt sauce. Stir the yogurt well, then add the zest and juice of half the lemon, along with half of the garlic, Ω tbsp of urfa chilli paste, the honey, dried mint and a good pinch of salt. Stir everything well, then leave to one side.
3 Add the remaining garlic to the beef, then grate the whole tomatoes straight into the pan, discarding their skins. Stir in the remaining urfa chilli paste, a good pinch of salt and pepper, and 200ml of cold water. Stir well, turn up the heat, and allow the liquid to reduce for 5-6 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in 1 tbsp of chopped parsley.
4 To serve, rest a wrap on top of the mince mixture so that it soaks up some of the juices and flavour, then move it to a plate with the juicy side up. Spread some of the urfa chilli yogurt over the wrap, top with some of the mince, the sliced onion and tomato, the parsley, and a squeeze of lemon. Sprinkle with a little sumac or pul biber, if you like. Repeat with the remaining wraps.
PER SERVING 596 kcals | fat 36G | saturates 14.2G | carbs 32.9G sugars 11.2G | fibre 5G | protein 32.7G | salt 1.2G