Name: Mudurnu Döner & Turan Usta Köfte
Address: Yeşilova, Şht. Ferhat Koç Cd. C Blok 3-18, Etimesgut, Ankara, 06790, TR
Telephone: 0501 186 31 31
Rating: 4

Türkiye

Turkey

Ankara

Etimesgut

Mudurnu Döner & Turan Usta Köfte

Minced lamb or beef kneaded with onion, salt and a little bread or bulgur, shaped by hand and grilled, fried or simmered in sauce: köfte is the Turkish branch of a family that stretches from the Balkan ćevapi to the Persian kufteh, all descended from the Arabic kufta, meaning pounded meat. In Türkiye the word covers dozens of regional dishes rather than one recipe. Izgara köfte, the grilled oval patty, is the national default; İnegöl köfte from near Bursa uses only beef and lamb breast with onion juice and no bread; Akçaabat köfte on the Black Sea leans on garlic; Tekirdağ köfte is long, thin and cumin-heavy; çiğ köfte from Şanlıurfa is a raw, hand-worked bulgur paste that today is mostly meatless; içli köfte is a bulgur shell around a spiced filling, fried. A BiteCritic review should say which one is on the plate.

The common grilled version depends on handling. Medium-fat mince, ideally hand-chopped or coarsely ground twice, is worked with grated onion squeezed of its juice, salt, black pepper and, depending on the region, cumin, pul biber and a little stale bread soaked and wrung out or fine bulgur. The kneading goes on far longer than for a burger, ten minutes or more, until the mixture is tacky and holds together, then it rests cold for several hours so the salt can bind the proteins. Portions are shaped into flattened ovals or fingers, and grilled over charcoal on a wire rack or on a flat iron plate for a few minutes a side until browned and just cooked through; a brush of melted fat keeps the surface from drying. The standard plate is köfte with piyaz, the white bean salad, grilled green peppers, tomato and rice or bread.

A good köfte is springy rather than crumbly, juicy when cut, seasoned so the meat still leads, and browned with grill marks rather than steamed grey. Mark down patties that break apart, which means too little kneading or too much bread; a dense rubbery bounce, which means too much; dryness from lean meat or a long hold in a warming tray; and a flavour of raw onion or dominant cumin. Frozen factory köfte are uniform, small and taste of breadcrumb. In a bread, ekmek arası köfte, the meat should still be the main event. Judge the regional styles against their own rules: an İnegöl köfte with cumin or a mild Akçaabat köfte has missed its own point.

Köfte

Meat stacked on a vertical spit, roasted in front of a grill as it turns and shaved off in thin slices as the outer layer browns: that is döner kebab, and the word döner means turning. The upright spit is generally credited to Bursa in the 1860s or 1870s, and the Turkish original is made from whole slices of lamb or beef layered with tail fat, not from mince. From there the dish split into families: the Bursa plate with butter and tomato sauce known as İskender, the Istanbul ekmek arası döner in half a loaf with onion and tomato, the Greek gyros with pork and tzatziki, the Levantine shawarma with its garlic toum, and the German döner built in Berlin in the 1970s, a flatbread pocket stuffed with salad and sauces that has since become the most eaten version in Europe. On BiteCritic you rate the one in front of you, so it helps to know which family it belongs to.

A proper spit starts the day before. Slices of leg and shoulder are beaten thin, marinated in onion juice, yoghurt or milk, salt and black pepper, then threaded onto the skewer in alternating layers of lean and fat and pressed into a tapered cylinder. In front of the heat, the surface should brown within the first centimetre while the core stays underdone, and the usta cuts only what has coloured, in long ribbons that fall onto a tray. The spit is turned away from the heat between cuts so the next layer does not scorch. Beef, chicken and mixed spits follow the same logic; the difference is in the marinade and the fat. Industrial döner is minced meat, breadcrumbs and binders pressed into a frozen cone, and it slices as crumbly, uniform brown shreds rather than ribbons.

Judge the meat before the bread or the sauce. Ribbons with a crisp browned edge and a soft, juicy inside score highly; grey strips held warm in a tray since noon do not. The fat should be present enough to carry flavour and not so present that the bread turns translucent. In a sandwich, the bread matters second: pide or half a loaf should be lightly toasted on the grill and able to hold the filling without tearing. Salad belongs in moderation and sauces should not be the loudest thing on the plate; in Türkiye garlic yoghurt sauces are a German import. Mark down pressed-cone meat, meat cut thick and chewy, soggy bread, and lettuce-heavy wraps where the kebab is a garnish. A spit that has been fully carved and restarted midday is a sign of a busy shop, and a good one.

Döner kebab

Yandaki puanı yüksek restoranda ramazandan dolayı tüm masalar doluydu orda yiyemedim. İki dükkan yandaki hatay dükkanı gel kardesim ben karnını doyururum der gibiydi içeri girdim.

Sosu bol, antakya döneri gibi içine yabancı malzeme (salata vs) koyulmamış. İyiydi ama tuzu azdı. Ben bu kadar soslu döner sevmiyorum ama rahatsız etmedi iyiydi. Dürümün %80’ini yiyince ben bunu neden yiyorum hissi oluşmadı. 1.5 kişilik yedim ve gayet doyurucuydu

Mekandaki turan köfteyi daha lezzetli buldum.

Ekmek güzel kızarmıştı. Acısı güzeldi, çok yakmıyor. Köftesi hataydan gelen turan usta gibi tarçın içeriyor belki tadını beğenmeyen olabilir. İlk lokmada sos çok yoğun geliyor. Ben beğenerek yiyorum. Kokoreçten falan daha güzel bir yiyecek. Halısahadan sonra agalarla gittik onlar da baya beğendi

Hataydaki orijinal turan köftenin aynısını etimesguta açmışlar. Çalışanlar hataylı. Bilen bilir turan köftede yoğun bir tarçın tadı vardır. Bu köftede de vardı. Domates sosunu özlemişiz. İyi bi alternatif. Kokoreç yerine bundan yerim daha iyi

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