Turquia

Nevşehir

Kuzu kapama is a Turkish spring lamb braise in which the meat is cooked under a lid of lettuce and spring onions until the greens have collapsed into the sauce and the lamb falls from the bone. The name means covered lamb, and the covering is the point: whole leaves of romaine or cos lettuce, bunches of spring onion and sometimes chard are laid over the meat so that it steams in their juice rather than in added stock. It is a dish of April and May, when the lamb is young and the first lettuce is in the market, and it belongs to home kitchens and to the esnaf lokantası tradesmen's restaurants of Istanbul and the Aegean rather than to kebab houses. It is eaten with rice pilav or bread and nothing else, and a cook who makes it well is judged on how little else is in the pot.

The cut is shoulder, shank or neck on the bone, cut into large pieces and browned in butter or olive oil with a chopped onion at the bottom of a heavy pot; some cooks add a spoon of tomato paste or a few cubed potatoes, and most leave them out. Salt, black pepper, a little dill or parsley and sometimes a squeeze of lemon go in, then the greens: the lettuce leaves and whole spring onions are piled over the meat to fill the pot, a cup of hot water is poured down the side, and the lid goes on tightly. The pot cooks on the lowest heat or in a slow oven for ninety minutes to two hours, never stirred, until the lettuce has given up its water and turned soft and dark, the onions are translucent and the lamb comes away at a touch. The liquid at the end should be a shallow, greenish, buttery broth rather than a thick sauce.

Judge the lamb first: it should be fully tender, moist and still tasting of lamb, with the fat rendered into the broth and not sitting in lumps. The greens should be soft and sweet, clearly lettuce and onion, with the slight bitterness of the cos cooked into something mild; the broth should be light, green-tinged, seasoned, and worth the bread. Mark down meat that is dry or stringy, which means too much heat or too little time, greens that are still crunchy or that have been added at the end as a garnish, a dish swimming in tomato so that it tastes like any other Turkish stew, a watery broth from too much added liquid, and a version made with mutton or with lamb cut small and boneless, which has no connective tissue to give the broth body. The lemon is for the table, not the pot.

Kuzu kapama

Türkiye

Museum Hotel

Kuzu kafes, et oldukça yumusak ve kolay tüketilebilirdi. Altında bulunan sosu her defasında etinizle birlikte yemenizi tavsiye ederim. Porsiyon olarak fine dining için normal ancak yanında eşlikçiler söylemezseniz aç kalabilirsiniz. Kapadokyada pahalı bir yerde oturayım valesinden garsonuna hizmette sorun yaşamamak istiyorsanız tavsiye ederim. 

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Kuzu kapama

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