Balıkesir Bandırma Köftesi Ekmek

The Bandırma recipe reported for this köfte starts with about 600 grams of mixed beef and lamb mince and one spoonful of yogurt. A dessertspoon each of red pepper and cumin goes in, then a teaspoon of black pepper, one grated onion, three slices of stale bread with the crust off, and a small pinch of baking soda. Yogurt and soda both loosen the grip of the meat proteins, so the mixture cooks up tender and springy where plain mince turns tight, and the lamb gives the fat a faint sweetness that beef alone lacks. Cumin and red pepper do the loud work on the grill: they toast on the surface of the meat and send up a dry, reddish smoke that carries a block down the street.

Everything is kneaded together and left for at least three hours, long enough for the bread crumb to swell with the onion juice and for the mince to turn tacky enough to shape without cracking. The köfte are rolled to roughly the size of a walnut, which is small enough that the centre cooks through in the time the outside takes to blacken. On the grill they spit and hiss as the yogurt in the meat browns, and they come off with a dark crust that gives way to a damp, finely knit interior. Too much baking soda tastes faintly soapy, a rest that is cut short leaves a crumbly ball that drops through the bars, and a grill that is too cool steams them grey.

The bread is somun, the round, flat, soft-crumbed Turkish loaf, split open and pressed around a row of the hot balls. The first thing to arrive is heat through the paper, then the sharp tang of yogurt behind the cumin, then the fat, which runs orange from the red pepper and stains the inside of the loaf in a few seconds. A loaf with some chew soaks up the juice without falling apart; a loaf gone slack collapses into a warm paste around the meat. Sliced raw onion goes in for bite against the richness, and sellers differ on tomato, green chilli, or a few pickles, so what sits beside the meat varies from counter to counter.

The order at a köfte counter is short: a köfte ekmek, with or without the onion, hot or mild. A cook who keeps the balls small can turn them all at once with a flick of the wrist, so the grill shows a tray of identical dark spheres with fat flaring under them in small yellow bursts. Eaten standing, the sandwich is warm enough to fog a cold morning and greasy enough to need the paper twisted round the base. The cumin lingers on the fingers long after the last bite, and a glass of cold ayran is the usual answer to the red pepper.

Bandırma is a port on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara in Balıkesir Province, with ferry and rail connections that bring a steady flow of passengers through the town, and a sandwich that goes from a grill to a hand in a minute suits a waiting room and a quay. The wider Balıkesir köfte tradition leans on salt and the meat itself, with cumin and red pepper held back; the Bandırma recipe goes the other way and seasons boldly. On a plate the same balls often come with roasted peppers and piyaz, the white-bean salad.

Origin and history

The history of Bandırma köfte is thinly recorded. Sources do not say who first rolled it, which shop made it a local name, or when the yogurt and baking soda entered the mix, and the claim that it is an old family recipe of the town rests on repetition rather than on any dated document.

What does exist is a working recipe with exact quantities: a mixed beef and lamb grind, a spoonful of yogurt, cumin and red pepper, a three-hour rest, walnut-sized balls. Those details are specific enough to tell a cook what to do and distinctive enough to separate this köfte from the plain salt-and-meat style associated with the province at large.

The three-hour rest says the most about how the sandwich is run. The mixture is made ahead, in the morning for the day's grilling, and then portioned by the ball onto the fire as orders arrive, which is why the walnut size matters at the counter: each ball is a single bite of crust and juice, and a row of six fills a split somun without any trimming.