MAIN INGREDIENTS
Manti are traditional Turkish dumplings filled with spiced ground meat and onions. The dumplings are most commonly topped with a sauce consisting of yogurt and garlic. The name of the dish is derived from mantu, meaning dumplings, and they were originally brought over from Central Asia to Türkiye by nomadic Turkish tribes in the 13th century.
Today, manti dumplings are popular throughout Turkey, as well as in numerous other cuisines such as Armenian, Afghan, and Central Asian.
VARIATIONS OF Manti
MOST ICONIC Manti
View moreFatteh is a Levantine specialty made by combining pieces of fresh, toasted, or stale flatbread with numerous other ingredients. The name of the dish means to tear into small pieces, referring to the process of tearing the flatbread. Fatteh is usually consumed for breakfast or in the evening as the main dish.
There are two main varieties of fatteh - Levantine and Egyptian. The Levantine version is traditionally topped with yogurt, chickpeas, olive oil, and cumin. After the main toppings, Levantine fatteh can additionally be topped with chicken, lamb, or pine nuts.
VARIATIONS OF Fatteh
Çökertme kebabı is a traditional kebab variety originating from the Bodrum area. The dish consists of marinated strips of veal that are served with tiny fried potatoes, tomato sauce, and yogurt. The marinade is usually made with milk, olive oil, cumin, salt, and paprika, while the yogurt sauce that's served with the dish is enriched with garlic and salt.
The meat is fried, then placed over the fried potatoes and the yogurt sauce. The tomato sauce is placed on the meat, and some people might garnish the dish with thyme sprigs or a few sautéed peppers and tomatoes.
This combination of meat-stuffed dumplings and yogurt is common in Levantine cuisine. The dish consists of tiny dumplings—believed to have originated in Iran under the name joshpara—that are filled with a combination of meat and onions.
The dumplings are cooked in yogurt that is seasoned with mint, garlic, or other spices, and the dish is then typically served warm. Because of its international status, there are many varieties of the dish that may employ labneh-based sauces, different types of meat, nuts, and various spices.
The most popular Indian dishes are those cooked over a blazing fire in the so-called tandoor, a cylindrical open-top clay oven fueled by wood or charcoal. The tandoori technique evolved from an old Middle Eastern method of baking bread, which spread to other parts of the continent, including northwestern India, where people began experimenting with cooking meats and other foods in tandoors, adding special marinades and spice rubs, both of which are now integral parts of Indian-style tandoori cooking.
The marinade used in most tandoori dishes starts with yogurt; it holds well to the meat, lends a note of mild acidity, and keeps the herbs and spices in place. Even though the clay ovens themselves impart a special flavor to the food, most of it comes from the traditional combination of spices.
VARIATIONS OF Tandoori
MOST ICONIC Tandoori
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Tzatziki is a Greek concoction made from yogurt, cucumbers, garlic, and numerous herbs and spices such as dill, mint, or parsley. It is usually served as a sauce accompanying many meat dishes, as a simple dip, or an appetizer. Its name is derived from the Turkish word cacik, denoting a very similar dip, although some suspect that tzatziki was derived from the Indian raita dip.
Tzatziki is always served cold, and it is especially popular to serve it with dishes such as gyros and souvlaki. Often, it is served with pita bread as part of the first course of a big meal. With its huge popularity, and the fact that it is one of the best summer dips, it is not strange that there are many regional variations of tzatziki, in countries such as Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Serbia.
MOST ICONIC Tzatziki
View moreKorma is a creamy meat stew (although it could also be made in a vegetarian version) with a mild flavor, made with saffron, yogurt, and various spices such as coriander, ginger, cumin seeds, chiles, and turmeric. It is believed that it originated in the royal kitchen of Akbar during the mid-1500s as a fusion of Persian and Indian cuisine.
The dish got its name after one of the tribes of the Rajputs, a warrior clan of western India. It is recommended to serve kormas with flatbreads such as chapati, paratha, or naan. There are three main bases of korma: North Indian korma with almonds, cashews and yogurt (there are two subgroups of this korma: Mughalai (with reduced milk) and Shahi (with cream)), korma Kashmir with almonds, cashews, yogurt, milk, and dried fruits, and South Indian korma with coconut, coconut milk, almonds, cayenne peppers, and fennel seeds.
MOST ICONIC Korma
View moreOther than serving styles and accompanying ingredients, there really isn't much difference between this Turkish classic and Arab shawarma, or Greek gyros, as all three preparations include barbecued meat, spit-roasted over coals. However, making şiş tavuk includes marinating chicken for at least several hours in a mixture of olive oil, lemon, and garlic before roasting.
The delicious Turkish chicken kebab is typically accompanied by various sauces and fresh vegetables, along with pita bread and a side of either rice or couscous.
Chicken tikka masala is a British dish influeneced by Indian cuisine, consisting of marinated, tandoor-cooked chicken pieces that are served in a spiced tomato-cream sauce. The origins are still debated – some claim that it was invented in Glasgow in the 1970s by a Pakistani chef Ali Ahmed Aslam who added his tomato-cream soup into chicken tikka in order to please a customer, and others claim that the dish is simply a variation on Indian butter chicken or chicken tikka that's adapted to suit the British tastes.
Nowadays, chicken tikka masala is even considered the country's national dish, and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook proclaimed chicken tikka masala a symbol of modern multicultural Britain in 2001.
MOST ICONIC Chicken Tikka Masala
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Burek sa sirom is a phyllo pastry that is round or coil-shaped and filled with a mixture of cheese and eggs. The dough is made with flour, salt, and water (and perhaps a bit of oil) and stretched into translucent sheets. The sheets of phyllo dough are stacked in a large tray, and each sheet is sprinkled with oil or oil and mineral water and spread with the cheese and egg filling.
Still, you might have heard that burek can only be called burek if it's filled with meat. That is, if you live in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but not everyone does, nor is burek really Bosnian – in fact, it has Turkish origins. In Bosnia, burek (with meat) and other types of similar pies such as sirnica (cheese) and krumpiruša (potatoes) are usually rolled into a coil, while Croatians and Serbs have a more relaxed approach – burek can be round and cut into quarters, or rolled into a coil – both shapes are good, and both can be called burek sa sirom (when filled with cheese, of course).
MOST ICONIC Burek sa sirom
View moreTasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable. For the “100 Best Rated Dishes With Yogurt” list until February 16, 2025, 789,953 ratings were recorded, of which 515,851 were recognized by the system as legitimate. TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods, instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.