The Concise Guide to Turkish Meze

Slightly dried hot red peppers and olive oil infused with peppers are distributed over the top of yogurt to create a meze plate that is both simultaneously cool, picante and hot.

Of Lebanese origin, this is one of the best-known middle-eastern meze plates. Its primary ingredients are eggplant, tahini and olive oil, pureed into a delicious creamy concoction.

Girit esmesi (sometimes "girit ezmesi") is a mixture of ground walnuts (or other nuts) and beyaz peymir (Turkish version of feta) and lots of herbs (parsley, mint and/or basil).

Well, here's one you likely are familiar with. hummus, the world's most popular middle-eastern meze plate. Chickpeas (garbanzos) and tahini and olive oil are pureed into a creamy mixture and laced with herbs and olive oil.

Haydari is a strained yogurt meze dish flavored with spices and herbs. Similar to Greek cacik (tzatziki) but thicker, without the cucumber, making it more appropriate to use as a meze eaten with flatbread.

Also of Lebanese origin, Muhammara is a paste mixture of ground walnuts, mild red peppers, spices and herbs, usually containing pomegranate molasses to create a slightly sweet taste.

Yogurtlu Semizotu is a fresh, chunky mixture of yogurt and purslane, lots of garlic that's often garnished with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

In the traditional preparation of this finger food, artichokes are carefully trimmed and the slightly fibrous choke is scooped out. Small centimeter cubes of potato and carrots, tiny pearl onions and peas are delicately steamed, seasoned with olive oil and lemon juice, and spooned onto the hollowed out heart of the artichoke in a small mound, garnished with tiny sprigs of dill.

Cubes of eggplant, zucchini, and sometimes, bell pepper, are sautéed then topped with a chunky cooked tomato sauce. Typically served as a meze plate. Not to be confused with the North African breakfast main course dish, Shakshuka, that is topped with eggs poached in the dish.

Roasted (preferably flame-roasted) eggplant slices or cubes are combined with broken or cubed tomatoes and zucchini, flavored with garlic and spices, then roasted or broiled in an oven at high temperature until all the vegetables. It differs from the şakşuka in that the dish is roasted, not sautéed in a pan.

The main ingredient of the meze plate is sundried tomatoes and it typically includes chopped walnuts. Supporting ingredients might be some combination of eggplant, artichokes or bell peppers.

No meze platter would be complete without a small bowl of both ripe and unripe Turkish olives. Often drizzles with olive oil and lemon juice.

A creamy goat's cheese that is ripened for up to six months in a goat's skin casing. It's the favored cheese in Turkey for a meze platter.

A creamy brined cheese that is dry enough to crumble. This is the Turkish equivalent of Greek feta cheese.

We round out our collection of the Turkish cheese most frequently seen on restaurant menus with Antep Peyniri, a dense white cheese from the city of Gaziantep in the Antolia region of Turkey.

Although, this dish, featuring beets, Beyaz cheese and walnuts, garnished with fresh herbs, is often served as a pre-meal or main-course salad, it can sometime be seen as a meze dish with the ingredient cut into small cubes and served on a meze plate or bowl.

This popular dish originating in Bosnia, combines pickled peppers with cheese in yogurt. The peppers are filled with a mixture of cheese and yogurt, and stuffed into a pickling jar and covered in a brine. A few days later, the active cultures in the yogurt, combined with the culture-conducive brine, mature into a delicious, tart delicacy.

Savory boiled mung beans are combined with pomegranate seeds and juice, then chilled and served as a salad.

Kesir is the Turkish equivalent of the well-known Lebanese mezze dish known as Tabbouleh. It's a slightly chilled mixture of soaked bulgur wheat, parsley, minced onions and tomatoes, and mint, seasoned with olive oil and lemon juice.

Mücver is a Turkish fritter. Grated, drained zucchini is the main ingredient. Supplemented with garlic, herbs, and sometime potato and/or goat cheese. The mixture of ingredients is formed into a pancake and fried or deep fried as a fritter. It's similar to Eastern European latke.

Although you might see this appetizer shown as "dolmas" (the more commonly used word for this dish in the middle-east and Greece) it will more often appear as Yaprak Sarma (translating as "wrapped in leaves"). It's a minced lamb filling, flavored with middle-eastern spices and herbs, wrapped in grape leaves. It can be served chilled or warm, depending on the restaurant.

This is the Turkish term for what you likely know as the Lebanese dish "kibbeh", pounded bulgar wheat is kneaded into minced beef or lamb, seasoned with spices, herbs and sometime supplemented with ground nuts, then deep-fried or baked.

This shows the filling and the bulgar wheat wrapper of the ilçe kofte, a popular appetizer in Istanbul restaurants.