Name: Dondurma review by Yehanoha at MEDO Dondurma & Tatlı, Sincan Osb/Sincan/Ankara, Türkiye
Item: Dondurma
Rating: 4.2
Author: Yehanoha

Dondurma is Turkish ice cream, and the word on its own now means the Maraş kind: a dense, elastic, slow-melting ice cream from Kahramanmaraş made from goat's or sheep's milk, sugar, salep and mastic, worked with a long metal paddle until it can be stretched like dough, hung from a hook, and cut with a knife. Salep is the dried, ground tuber of wild orchids from the Taurus mountains, and it is the thickener that gives dondurma its chew and its resistance to melting; mastic, the resin of the Chios mastic tree, adds a faint pine note and more stretch. The stuff is so elastic that the traditional way to eat it is with cutlery rather than a spoon, and the vendors who flip it on a rod and snatch it back from the customer are performing a trick that the texture makes possible. Wild salep is scarce and its export is banned, so most dondurma outside Turkey is made with gums and starches and is a looser, softer thing.

The base is milk, in Maraş from goats grazed in the mountains, boiled with sugar and a small quantity of salep, between one and two percent, whisked in gradually so it does not clump; the mixture thickens to the consistency of a thin pudding and is cooled, sometimes left overnight to mature. Powdered mastic goes in with the sugar or at the end. It is then frozen in a churn, and the step that defines it follows: the half-frozen mass is beaten and pounded in a cold metal drum with a long paddle for twenty minutes or more, which breaks the ice crystals, works the salep into long chains and gives the ice cream its elasticity. Finished dondurma is kept in a cold well, lifted out in a single mass on the paddle and portioned by cutting or stretching. Pistachio, chocolate and fruit versions exist, but plain sade is the reference.

Judge the texture before the taste: a good Maraş dondurma holds its shape on the plate for several minutes, stretches when pulled, resists the spoon, and is smooth and dense rather than icy or airy. The taste is milky, faintly tangy if goat's milk was used, lightly sweet, with a clean resinous edge of mastic and the faintly floral, earthy note of salep, and it should not feel gummy or coat the mouth. Mark down a dondurma that melts at the speed of ordinary ice cream, which means little or no salep, a rubbery or slimy texture from guar or carrageenan standing in for it, a sweetness that drowns the mastic, ice crystals, an artificial fruit flavour, and a cone bought from a street-show vendor that is mostly air and performance. The knife-and-fork service is the sign of the real thing, not an affectation.

Dondurma

Türkiye

MEDO Dondurma & Tatlı

Eryaman fatih tarafında en beğendiğim dondurma, aşırı şekerli değil, tatlar oldukça doğal, külah taze

Dondurma review by Yehanoha at MEDO Dondurma & Tatlı, Sincan Osb/Sincan/Ankara, Türkiye

Dondurma

MEDO Dondurma & Tatlı

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