Türkiye’s takeaway breakfasts: Pastries for on the go

Turkish cuisine has a wide variety of pastries that are popular as a lighter and on-the-go breakfast option. Most any visitor to Türkiye will have seen them at the various bakeries, patisseries and pastry shops that line most every street in the country. Well, if you have ever wondered what these golden-baked pastries actually contain and the different nuances between the varieties, the following is a guide to Türkiye’s other breakfast offerings.

It starts with simit…

One of the most beloved Turkish breakfast items is simit. A round, sesame-laden chewy bagel-like bread, simit can be found nearly everywhere from corner shops to stands and well everywhere in between. And rightly so, because they are delicious plain or topped with cheese and dips.

The most prominent way a simit is consumed, however, is with spreadable cheese, such as the kind sold in circular containers containing individually wrapped triangle-shaped slices of soft creamy cheese. In Türkiye, this cheese is referred to as “Karper,” which like Ketchup, has now become synonymous with the most familiar brand that produces it here in Türkiye. But, what may not be evident to most is that nearly any vendor selling simit will also offer an individually wrapped slice of soft cheese to go with it, should you ask.

Açma is the other plain bread-like pastry that is round with a hole in the middle. While an açma actually looks even more like a bagel than a simit, they are softer and have a buttery flavor to them as well as more surface area to cover with cheeses and other breakfast toppings. Occasionally, these pastries are baked with a sprinkling of nigella seeds over the top.

Poğaça is a word given to a wide variety of bulbous stuffed and baked savory pastries that can be found filled with ingredients such as feta cheese, kasseri cheese, potato and my personal favorite, which is a variation that has dill in the dough and is then stuffed with feta or the cottage cheese-like lor peyniri.

The latter version comes in a smaller size and is crumblier than the other single-ingredient stuffed varieties. A word of warning, however, as while these pastries are indeed stuffed with an ingredient, you may have a hard time actually seeing the stuffing because the dough to stuffing ratio for some can seem unbalanced. In other words, these pastries can admittedly be quite dense and dough-heavy.

Boyoz is another plain but flaky pastry that resembles a dense croissant in consistency but is shaped as a bun and is particular to the Izmir region, but now also available most everywhere.

Kol böreği, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. This oblong-spiral phyllo-dough börek is stuffed to the brim with either cheese, potato or a mixture of sauteed minced meat and onions. Unlike the pastries mentioned prior, this flaky and oily pastry is oozing in stuffing and served chopped up into bite-sized pieces.

Su böreği is one of the most beloved breakfast items and comfort foods there is in Türkiye and it almost resembles a white lasagna. Layered with sheets of a wet, soft and buttery dough, su böreği, which translates as “water pastry,” is generally stuffed with mild feta cheese, but there are also variations with the minced meat and onion combo. It is sold in palm-sized squares that some vendors will then slice into bite-sized pieces for easier consumption.

Kır pidesi is a personal favorite and a marvel in its production as it is a long oblong flatbread-like pastry that is stuffed with either cheese, potatoes or minced meat, however in this case the stuffing is placed in half a dozen thin lengthwise strips, which makes every bite contain a pop of stuffing, a crispy crust and a soft pillowy bread consistency in between. While the Kır Pidesi will be displayed in its long flatbread shape, it is also sliced into single-serving portions of the amount of your choosing and can easily be eaten with one hand as it doesn’t have the crumbling factor of other Turkish pastries.

And now for the sweet stuff…

Ay çöreği is a pastry that actually resembles a croissant, but the dough is like a thin casing for a thick chocolate-cake-like filling that is made from a mixture of cocoa, walnuts, raisins and cinnamon.

Tahinli çörek is perhaps one of the most divine pastries there ever was as it is also prepared with a thin flaky dough that is shaped into a spiral of fine layers filled with tahini and covered with grape molasses and simit.

What some might not know is that tahini, which is a sesame paste, is usually considered to be a savory ingredient and is incorporated into meze-like dishes, however when baked on its own, tahini turns into almost a caramel-like stuffing that is not overbearingly sweet.

This particular pastry most resembles a cinnamon bun yet comes in a much larger variation, which in this case is not sliced up into single-serving portions. When it comes to the tahinli çörek, one needs to purchase the entire spiral, which means it can be more costly, but can serve as a sweet treat to have throughout the day and is especially presentable at a breakfast table or can be a good option to purchase as a gift if you are going to someone’s home for tea or coffee, morning, noon or night.

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