Today I give you one of the most comforting Turkish recipes of all time; kızartma! Picture a fry-up with layers of fried zucchinis, eggplants, potatoes, peppers, and tasty Turkish meatballs. These tender fried vegetables and meatballs are covered with a finger-licking garlicky yogurt sauce and tomato sauce.
Kızartma doesn’t look very fancy but you’ll be thinking about how delicious it was for days! It’s so juicy and flavorful, you will only regret not having made more!
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👵 Family recipe
Kızartma is not a meal you will find in restaurants, it’s mostly made at home. Kızartmak means frying in Turkish which is why I translated this recipe as a fry-up. To make kızartma you’ll fry the ingredients one by one, first some zucchini slices, then the cubed eggplants etc. until you’re left with golden brown deliciously tender vegetables and a beautiful pile of meatballs. Once you’re done frying, you pile everything into a serving dish and pour the sauces over the top. It’s not the healthiest of recipes but it sure is comforting! Listen, there’s nothing wrong with an occasional fry-up. You can treat yourself from time to time!
This recipe comes to me from my husband’s grandmother, whose kızartma skills are renowned in the family. He tells me I do her justice every time I make her kızartma, so you can trust her recipe! My mother-in-law taught me how to make this recipe in the middle of an afternoon in July. It was 40°C (104°F) and we had to bring two fans into the cramped kitchen to try to cool down because we were so hot. Frying food for an hour is not the most appealing prospect but this fry-up is worth it!
🛒 Substitution
Not everyone has a Turkish store nearby, but that shouldn’t stop you from making this fry-up! Here are substitutes for Turkish ingredients.
- Turkish yogurt (yoğurt): Use plain full-fat Greek yogurt instead. Greek yogurt is more widely available and you should find some wherever you usually shop. Greek yogurt is creamier and less tangy than Turkish yogurt but works great as a substitute.
- Turkish mild red pepper paste (tatlı biber salçası): Use regular tomato paste instead. Tomato paste (domates salçası) and red pepper paste (biber salçası) are quite interchangeable in Turkish cooking. Each family has its preferences! Don’t use harissa or gochujang as a substitute, they would be too spicy and have the wrong flavor profile.
📋 Step by step
This is an overview with step-by-step photos. The ingredient list and full instructions are in the recipe card below.
Step 1: Make the Turkish meatballs
Grate an onion and add the pulp to a mixing bowl. Add the rest of the meatball ingredients and mix with your hand for 4 min. Shape the meatballs and chill until needed.
Step 2: Chop the vegetables and fry everything
Peel and slice the vegetables. Heat the oil in two deep and large frying pans over medium-high heat. Fry the vegetables and meatballs in batches. Drain them on plates lined with paper towels. Make the yogurt sauce and the tomato sauce. Layer the fried vegetables and meatballs in a large serving dish. Spread the yogurt sauce over them. Pour the tomato sauce on top and cover the dish. Refrigerate for 2h.
💭 Tips for frying
Making kızartma is not difficult but it is time-consuming as you need to fry everything in batches. It can also be intimidating if you are not used to deep-frying things. So here are my top tips:
- Always check that the oil is at the right temperature using a kitchen thermometer before frying a new batch of vegetables or meatballs. If the oil is too hot, the vegetables/meatballs will burn. If the oil is too cold they will soak up too much oil and become greasy.
- Be careful when lowering things into the hot oil or while flipping them. The oil will splatter (especially while cooking the green peppers) for a few seconds but will settle down. If it doesn’t, turn off the heat and check the temperature with a digital thermometer.
- If you have two deep and large frying pans available you can cook more things concurrently and the process will be faster.
- Frying the different batches of vegetables and meatballs one by one will get repetitive but don’t overcrowd the pans or the oil temperature will drop too much and the vegetables and meatballs won’t cook properly. Turn them from time to time with a slotted spoon to better gauge their color and help them cook evenly.
- Use the cooking times written on the recipe card only as an indication. The vegetables are ready once they turn golden brown and tender. So remove them from the pans when cooked, even if it’s written to cook them longer. You can pierce them with a pointy knife or a toothpick to be sure they are soft.
🌡️ Chilling
Theoretically, you could eat your fry-up warm, as soon as it’s layered in the dish. However, the taste really improves after resting and chilling in the fridge for a couple of hours. The fried vegetables and meatballs soak up the delicious juices. The flavors soften and become more rounded. So I highly recommend keeping the kızartma in the fridge for as long as possible.
I know that after cooking for a couple of hours, the last thing anyone wants is to wait even longer before eating. My technique is to steal a couple of meatballs and some fries. I have earned them and no one will notice anyway. With my craving satisfied, it’s easier to wait! If you have leftovers you’ll have the time of your life because kızartma tastes even better the day after.
Turkish fry-up (meatballs and vegetables kızartma)
- Prep Time: 2 hours 20 minutes
- chilling: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 5 hours 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Main course
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Turkish
Description
This Turkish fry-up might look unassuming but it is extremely flavorful and comforting. Sliced vegetables and tender meatballs are deep-fried and then covered with garlicky yogurt and a delicious tomato sauce. This is home cooking at its best!
Ingredients
For the meatballs:
- 1 onion
- 500g ground beef, not lean (1 lb)
- 1 egg
- 60g dry plain breadcrumbs (½ cup)
- 1 tsp ground cumin, heaped
- 1 ½ tsp fine sea salt
- ½ tsp black pepper, freshly ground
For the kızartma:
- 3 eggplants
- 2 tbsp fine sea salt, divided
- 5 potatoes
- 3 zucchinis
- 4 small bullhorn green peppers
- 1 liter frying oil (5 cups), I usually use peanut oil
For the sauces:
- 5 tomatoes
- 1 tbsp Turkish red pepper paste (tatlı* biber salçası), or use tomato paste
- 2 tsp fine sea salt, divided
- 4 garlic cloves
- 700g Turkish yogurt (3 cups), or use plain full-fat Greek yogurt
Instructions
First, prepare the Turkish meatballs:
- Make the köfte mixture. Peel the onion, slice it in halves and rub the cut sides of the onion halves against the largest holes of a box/cheese grater. Discard most of the onion juice and keep the pulp. Finely chop the onion if you don’t have a box grater. Add it to a mixing bowl and add the rest of the ingredients for the meatballs. Mix well and knead the mixture for 4 min. If you press a bit of mixture in your hands, it should hold its shape. If not, it might be too moist and you should add more breadcrumbs.
- Shape the meatballs. Lightly oil a plate. With slightly wet hands, take a small handful of the meat mixture (about the size of a big walnut). Pat it into a flat elongated meatball, about 1 cm thick (½ inch) and put it on the plate. Repeat until you run out of meat. You should have around 20 meatballs. Cover the meatballs with foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.
Fry everything in stages:
- Prepare the vegetables. Trim the stems off the eggplants and peel them. Cut them into 3 cm (1 in) cubes. Place the cubes into a large colander and sprinkle 1 tbsp of fine sea salt over them. Mix with your hands and set the eggplants aside for now. The salt will draw out the bitter juice from the eggplants and will soften them. Peel the potatoes and cut them into long thin strips. Place them into a mixing bowl and cover them with cold water. Stir in 1 tbsp of fine sea salt and let the strips soak while you get on with the rest. This helps to remove excess starch and to prevent the fries from sticking together when frying. Trim the stems off the zucchinis and peel them. Slice them into 1 cm (½ inch) coins.
- Fry the zucchinis. Line 2 large trays or several plates with double layers of paper towels. Cover the surfaces of 2 large frying pans with 4 cm (1 ½ in) of oil and place over high heat. When the oil reaches 160°C (320°F), or until it’s hot enough to brown a cube of bread in 1 min, split the zucchini coins evenly between the 2 pans. Reduce the heat to medium-high and fry the zucchini coins until golden brown on both sides (around 10 min), turning them occasionally using a slotted spoon. Once cooked use the slotted spoon to drain the the zucchini coins and put them on the paper-lined tray or plate. Cover them with more paper towels to absorb the excess oil. It’s fine if the zucchini coins aren’t crispy, they should be soft for this recipe.
- Fry the potatoes. Drain the potato strips and pat them dry thoroughly with paper towels or a tea towel. If they are wet when placed into the oil, they will spatter dangerously. Make sure the oil temperature is at the right temperature, 160°C (320°F). If it’s too high then turn off the heat for a while or if it’s too low increase the heat. Then, split the fries evenly between the 2 pans. Fry over medium-high heat, turning the fries from time to time with a slotted spoon, until golden brown on all sides (around 15 min). Place the fries on the paper-lined tray and cover with more paper towels to absorb the excess oil. Again, no worries, if they become soft since they will get soggy anyway after resting covered with the sauces for hours.
- Fry the eggplants. Rinse the eggplant cubes over under cold running water and pat them dry. Check the oil temperature again and then split the cubes evenly between the 2 pans. Fry over medium-high heat, turning them from time to time with a slotted spoon, until golden brown on all sides (around 10 min). Pierce one cube to make sure the inside is soft and cooked. Place the eggplant cubes on a paper-lined tray or plate and cover with more paper towels.
- Fry the meatballs. Remove the meatballs from the fridge and check the oil temperature. Split the meatballs between the 2 pans. Cook the meatballs over medium-high for 2 to 3 min. Flip them and cook them for 2 min on the other side. Put the meatballs on a paper-lined tray or plate and cover with more paper towels. Turn off the heat under one of the pans.
- Fry the green peppers. Pierce the peppers all over with a sharp knife (half a dozen cuts should do). Check the oil temperature in the pan that has not been removed from the heat. Fry the green peppers in that pan for 4 min, turning them halfway. Be careful, the oil will spatter more while frying the green peppers than the rest. Turn off the heat and remove the green peppers to a paper-lined tray or plate. Well done, you’re finally done frying!
Then, make the sauces and assemble:
- Make the tomato sauce. Slice the tomatoes in half and rub the cut sides against the largest holes of a box/cheese grater. I usually place the box grater on a plate with ridges so that I can collect all the grated tomatoes without any risk of overflowing. If you don’t have a grater, peel the tomatoes and puree them using a blender or finely chop them. Pour out most of the oil from one of the pans into the other one until there is just enough oil left to coat the base of the pan. Place the pan with the smallest amount of oil over medium heat. Stir in the Turkish red pepper paste (or tomato paste) and cook while mixing the paste into the oil with a wooden spoon for 2 min. Add the grated tomatoes and 1 tsp of fine sea salt and mix until combined. Let the sauce simmer for 12 min. It should be reduced a bit. Transfer the sauce to a heatproof bowl and let it cool down for 20 min.
- Make the garlic yogurt sauce. Peel the garlic cloves and roughly chop them. Place the chopped garlic into a mortar and stir in 1 tsp of fine sea salt. Crush into a paste using the pestle. Add the yogurt to a bowl and stir in the salty garlic paste. Mix until properly combined. If you don’t have a mortal and pestle, finely chop the garlic cloves and stir them into the yogurt along with the salt.
- Assemble the kızartma. Layer the fried vegetables and meatballs into a large dish that is at least 8 cm (3 inches) high. I use my lasagna pan. Spread the yogurt sauce all over the fry-up. Pour the tomato sauce over the top and stir just a little to help distribute the sauces. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 2 hours at least before serving. You can leave it overnight, as the flavors will meld and develop but I can never wait this long before digging in! Or you could skip the chilling process and eat your kızartma warm. It won’t be as good as if it had time to rest but you do you.
Notes
You can keep the fry-up for up to 3 days in the fridge. Cover the pan with plastic wrap before storing.
*If you buy Turkish red pepper paste, check the label thoroughly to make sure you are buying tatlı biber salçası and not acı biber salçası. Tatlı means sweet whereas acı means hot (spicy). I find it easier to use the mild red pepper paste (tatlı biber salçası) because it’s easy to add spices to make it hot, but if the spicy paste is too hot for you, it will be hard to tone down the heat.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1
- Calories: 891
Keywords: turkish main dishes, summer vegetables recipe, frying recipes
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