Iskender Kebap

Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world in the 4th century BC and despite the brevity of his empire, he left such a deep mark that even today, unwittingly, he is honored throughout the Orient from Greece to Afghanistan. 

Iskender is the form that Alexander's name has taken in the Middle East. Some cities that he himself founded retain his name in the form of Iskenderun (Turkey) and Al-Iskandariya (Egypt). Several tribes in Afghanistan and Pakistan claim to be descendants of the Macedonian general and even his name has passed into some recipes like the one at hand.

However, it should be noted that the name Iskender actually corresponds to the Turkishization of "Alexander" but the recipe was not made in honor of the conqueror, but more prosaically corresponds to the person who popularized it in Bursa at the end of the 19th century. In fact the name Iskender Kebap is registered by the descendants of the "inventor".

This recipe is really strong because butter is used in abundance. In fact, in many Turkish restaurants specializing in Iskender Kebap, the diner is served a kind of jar with butter so that they can add it if they consider that the dish does not have enough.

INGREDIENTS (4 people) :

• Pita bread (about 1 pita bread per person)
• Kebap beef (600 grams / 1.3 lbs, cut in the traditional kebap way)*
• Tomato sauce (2 cups, 400 ml)
• Unsalted butter (100 grams / 3.5 oz)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt
• Ground black pepper
• "Greek" type yogurt (400 grams / 14 oz)

* if you can't get kebab meat, use beef carpaccio meat. If it is not possible either, you freeze a piece of beef a little (not completely) and cut it into thin slices.

On a plate, pour a little melted butter and yogurt. Next, place the pita bread on top, cut into 1 cm (less than half a inch) side pieces.

We cut the beef very thin, as if we were going to make a carpaccio, and fry it in olive oil suitably seasoned. If we cannot cut it so finely, we can buy beef already prepared to make carpaccio. Melt more butter and baste the pita bread until soaked. Now we will cover with very hot tomato sauce and on top of it the veal meat that we have fried. On one side of the plate we will have a good dose of Greek yogurt.

It is eaten with a knife and fork, cutting the bread and taking a piece of meat, tomato sauce and pinching the yogurt on the fly in the same bite.

If someone wants to try making the dish without butter and using olive oil, they can do so, but the taste is radically different and that, for someone who has tried it, is not easy to assimilate, even though it is not a very healthy recipe.

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