ENTRAILS

 

Sakatat (entrails) dishes have great importance in Turkish cuisine. Entrails are cheaper and more nutritious than other kinds of meat. Almost all Çarşıs have one entrails seller to every three butchers; moreover some butchers also sell entrails.

 

Most entrail dishes are grilled and flavored by thyme. The list of well-known Turkish dishes that made with entrails include the following: Fried brain, brain salad (a kind of meze), grilled hearth, liver, fried liver called Arnavut ciğeri (again a favorite meze), liver stew with thyme, işkembe çorbası (tripe soup) with garlic (the perpetual remedy drunkards), tribe with chickpea, tripe au gratin, grilled spleen (especially useful as a treatment for anemia), grilled kidneys, grilled ram testicles, grilled kokoreç (sheep intestines), trotters soup and famous Beykoz trotters.

 

Tripe restaurants, the last stop of drunks, are open 24 hours a day. Here the tripe soup is eaten with plenty of garlic and vinegar. Trotters and kelle are also served. Kelle is the head of the sheep cooked in a special way. Although in most restaurants it is served in pieces on top of pilav sometimes they serve it as it is.