Sulu kavurma: Turkish beef recipe

How about this: fresh bread that you dip piece by piece into aromatic meat juice and tender beef that melts in your mouth? Served with a little salad and maybe some yogurt... we certainly wouldn't say no!

Kavurma is one of the better-known Turkish beef dishes and usually describes small pieces of meat that have been stir-fried or boiled until soft. Kavurmali pilav, for example, is Turkish rice with meat, or the kavurma is stuffed into sandwiches. Other kavurma dishes include sac kavurma or coban kavurma (shepherd-style meat stew). 

Kavurma always goes down well with everyone and is practically THE dish for eidul aha. Kavurma from the slaughtered kurban (sacrificial animal) is eaten for days and even preserved in fat. Today, however, we have dared to try a different kavurma recipe; a kavurma deluxe, so to speak.

Sulu kavurma means nothing other than "kavurma with water". You can compare it to sulu köfte (köfte with water). This means that the kavurma meat - you can find out what it is below - is cooked until soft and served in its own juice. And it's really something!

With our sulu kavurma recipe, you can once again taste the incredibly delicious simplicity of Turkish cuisine. You don't need a lot of frills or spices and you probably already have everything you need at home. The result is a meat juice where you can no longer be sure whether the buttersoft meat or the juice is the highlight. Speaking of butter - it's the secret ingredient.

In Turkey, butter is traditionally used a lot. Baklava only tastes good with real butter (bakeries specifically state that butter and not margarine was used), fresh bread from the tandir is nothing without butter and mercimek soup (lentil soup) or yoghurt soup are also nothing without the spiced butter. Or what would Turkish rice be without butter?

We don't want to imagine it. 

In this Sulu Kavurma recipe, it is also the butter that provides the creamy and aromatic juice. We guarantee that you will want to and will soak up the last half drop with bread.

Which meat is suitable for kavurma?

Dry kavurma or kavurma that won't soften are well-known problems in Turkish cuisine. Among other things, the right meat is important here. Generally, both lamb and beef are used for kavurma. We have used beef for this sulu kavurma, for example.

However, it is not specified which cut should be used. For kavurma, you simply buy "kuşbaşi" (English: "bird's heads"), i.e. pre-cut pieces of meat like goulash meat. This means that the meat for the kavurma can vary greatly. Sometimes our kavurma is soft in no time at all and sometimes it can take ages. So it always depends on what you get.

In theory, however, you can use any piece of lamb or beef for our Sulu kavurma recipe.

How to soften the sulu kavurma

To be honest, apart from good meat, there is only one real secret to buttery soft kavurma: the pressure cooker. Under no circumstances should any Turkish household (or any household that cooks a lot of Turkish food) be without one.

In Turkish cuisine, the pressure cooker is the standard utensil for all kinds of stews, such as nohut yemegi (chickpea stew) or kuru fasulye (bean stew).. We have also used a pressure cooker for our Sulu Kavurma recipe. BUT: If you don't have one to hand, you can of course also cook our recipe in a normal pan. Depending on the meat, this may of course take longer. 

These side dishes go well with sulu kavurma

Sulu kavurma is an easy and simple Turkish beef recipe that is also suitable for work days. A little fresh bread is all you need. For example, we baked ciabatta and served this with it. We also served cacik, i.e. tzatziki, and salad. A little high-quality and aromatic Pul Biber* can also be sprinkled over the meat. This provides even more flavor and a little spiciness. Afiyet olsun!

Sulu Kavurma recipe: tender Turkish beef in broth