Name: Han Çorba Batıkent
Address: Kardelen, 2074. Sk. No: 6/B, Yenimahalle, Ankara, 06370, TR
Telephone: 0544 328 30 01
Rating: 3.8

Türkiye

Turkey

Ankara

Yenimahalle

Han Çorba Batıkent

Beef tripe boiled for hours until tender, cut into strips and served in its own milky broth, thickened with a roux and an egg-and-lemon liaison, and finished at the table with garlic vinegar and butter red with pepper: işkembe çorbası is the soup Türkiye drinks at three in the morning, and the işkembeci that serves it is a fixture of every town. It is a cousin of the Balkan škembe čorba, the Greek patsás and the Romanian ciorbă de burtă, all descended from the Ottoman kitchen, and in Istanbul it has been the standard cure for a night of rakı for as long as anyone has written about it. The tripe is the rumen, the first stomach, honeycombed and white once cleaned; the soup has the reputation of a dish for the brave, but a good bowl is mild, rich and clean, and the condiments do the work of waking you up.

The tripe is scalded, scraped and washed repeatedly, then boiled in a large pot of water with an onion and a little salt for three to four hours, skimmed, until it can be cut with a spoon; a pressure cooker shortens this and most shops use one. It is cooled, cut into thin strips or small squares, and returned to the strained broth. The thickening is a light roux of butter and flour whisked into the broth, which turns it white and gives it body, and in the terbiyeli version a mixture of egg yolk and lemon juice tempered with hot broth is whisked in off the boil so it does not curdle. Some kitchens add milk. The soup simmers a few minutes more and is seasoned with salt; everything else, crushed garlic in vinegar, melted butter with pul biber or paprika, dried mint and extra lemon, sits on the table for each diner to add. Bread is the only side.

Judge the tripe first: it should be soft, slightly gelatinous and clean-smelling, in pieces big enough to notice, with no rubbery chew and no trace of the farmyard, which means it was washed and cooked properly. The broth should be white or pale yellow, smooth and glossy, with body from the roux but not pasty, and it should taste of beef and gentle sourness before the vinegar goes in. Mark down a thin, watery broth, a soup that tastes mainly of flour, tripe cut so small it vanishes, an ammoniac or barnyard smell, a terbiye that has curdled into threads, and a bowl served lukewarm. The condiments should be fresh: garlic crushed that day, butter poured hot. A proper işkembeci serves it in a deep bowl and refills the bread without being asked.

Tripe Soup

Tuzlama is a specific type of tripe soup in Turkish cuisine, distinguished by the cut of the tripe used. Unlike standard İşkembe Çorbası, Tuzlama is made with the thickest, most substantial parts of the tripe, cut into large, chunky pieces. This gives the soup a heartier texture and a more robust mouthfeel. It is cooked slowly with garlic and served with a vinegar-garlic sauce (sirke-sarımsak) to cut through the richness. Often enjoyed as a late-night meal after a night out or as a restorative breakfast, Tuzlama is a beloved staple in specialized tripe soup restaurants (işkembeci). Its creamy, rich broth and tender meat make it a comfort food par excellence.

Tuzlama

Lahmacun takes two or three minutes in a very hot oven: a round of dough rolled thinner than a cracker, a little wider than a dinner plate, spread with a paste of minced lamb or beef, onion, tomato, red pepper and parsley. The name comes from the Arabic lahm bi ajin, meat with dough, which is a fair description of the whole dish. It is eaten across south-eastern Türkiye, Syria and Lebanon, and Armenians make a close relative they call lahmajo. In Türkiye the home ground is Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa and Adana, where it is a lunchtime order rather than a snack, and a single person will put away two or three. Calling it Turkish pizza misleads on the main point: there is no cheese, the topping is scraped on thinly rather than piled, and the base is closer to a cracker than a bread.

The dough is a plain flour, water, salt and a little yeast mixture, rested, then rolled or stretched to about two millimetres so it bakes through before the meat dries out. The topping is where the work is. Fatty meat is chopped fine with onion, tomato, biber salçası (red pepper paste), parsley and, depending on the town, garlic or pul biber; in Antep many ustas insist on a zırh, the curved knife, rather than a mincer, because grinding squeezes out the juice that should stay in the meat. The paste goes on with the back of a spoon or the fingertips until the dough shows through in places. The oven is the deciding factor: a stone-floored taş fırın running well above 400°C blisters the edge and sets the meat in the time it takes to slide the next one in. In a domestic oven the base steams and the meat cooks grey.

Judge a lahmacun on its base first. It should be crisp enough at the rim to snap and pliable enough in the middle to roll around a handful of parsley, sliced onion with sumac and a squeeze of lemon, which is how it is eaten: rolled, not cut. Look for charred freckles underneath and a topping that has caramelised at the edges but is still moist in the centre. A thick, bready base, a topping layered like a meat pie, or a sauce-like red paste that tastes mostly of tomato are all signs of a kitchen imitating pizza. Cold lahmacun reheated on a flat grill is acceptable in a kebapçı at four in the afternoon; one that has gone leathery is not. The acılı (spicy) version from Şanlıurfa carries real heat, so check which you ordered before marking it down.

Lahmacun

Şırdan

İçi normal derecede pişmiş. Dışı yumuşak dağılmıyor pişme seviyesi güzel baharatı az yanında baharatlı bir sos da gelmiş ilk defa gördüm. Vurucu bir tat yok ancak pişmesi güzel.

Ortalama bir lahmacun, tekrar gidip yeme ihtiyacı duymuyorsunuz. Ancak çorba sonrası doymak için tercih edilebilir. Hamuru kalın değil, içi güzel yayılmış. Boş değil.

İşkembe çorbası

Terbiyesiz işkembe çorbası, çoğu mekanda bulunmuyor. İşkembe taneleri güzel pişmiş. Çorbanın suyu güzel geçmiş ve işkembelerle tamamlanmış. 

Buradaki sakatat çorbalarında terbiyeli ya da kendi suyuna gibi bir seçenek var bu durum çoğu çorbacıda yok. Benim içtiğim kendi suyunaydı. Yapışkan kolajenli yapı mevcut. Tuzlamalar güzel pişmiş. Çorba içmeye gelinir.

Han Çorba Batıkent

Ate here? Rate a dish from Han Çorba Batıkent

Most loved here

Tripe Soup

Tuzlama

Lahmacun

Şırdan

Top gourmets here

Yehanoha

Recent reviews

What to eat around here

Discover new culinary experiences

Global Feed

Find Foodies

Foods Near Me

Become a Partner