Story
Tandır Kebabı is Yozgat's most celebrated meat dish, made from year-old lambs (toklu) raised naturally on the Bozok plateau and cooked using a distinctive traditional method. The tandır oven itself is built by plastering 250-300 kg of salt mixed with fireclay over firebricks. Meat is skewered on an iron rod positioned between two wood fires burning on either side, cooked for about an hour, then turned and cooked for another 25-30 minutes. Before cooking, the meat is trimmed of sinew and excess fat, cut into large pieces, salted, and rested for 24 hours; it is then skewered and roasted in the traditional tandır using oak wood. Once cooked, the meat is sliced thin and served with tomatoes, parsley, peppers, onions, and lavash bread, with the drippings collected beneath the oven used to oil the bread. This cooking technique, native to Yozgat, lets the meat cook in its own juices and smoke, producing a unique flavor and texture that the city's restaurants still prepare using the same traditional method today.