The cold canon
Haydari: yoghurt strained thick with garlic and mint. Patlıcan salatası: aubergine charred over flame, peeled and dressed. Ezme: tomato, pepper and onion chopped fine with pomegranate molasses and chilli. Muhammara: walnut and red pepper, sweet and dense. Dolma: vine leaves rolled around rice, currants and pine nuts. Çoban salatası: the shepherd's salad, which is simply excellent tomato.
The hot plates
Sigara böreği — cigar-shaped pastry rolls filled with white cheese and parsley. Fried halloumi. Grilled sucuk. Mücver, courgette fritters. Hot mezes arrive after the cold ones and mark the halfway point of the evening.
How to build a board
Balance texture and acid. Two yoghurt-based, two vegetable, one nut-based, one hot, plus bread. Four mezes feed two people comfortably before a grill; six turn the meal into the meze dinner itself, which is a legitimate way to eat.
What to drink
Rakı with cold water is the traditional partner and the reason the meze table exists. Ayran works with anything. A dry white or a light red does fine. Çay closes it.
Meze in Ubud
SkaZka Bali on Jl. Raya Sanggingan No.88, Ubud prepares mezes fresh every morning and serves them with stone-oven flatbread — as a starter before the grill, or as the whole evening on the terrace.
Also searched as «турецкие мезе», «türk mezeleri», «meze bali».