Sliced döner over bread under tomato sauce and browned butter with yogurt

Beginner

İskender Kebap (Döner over Bread with Tomato & Butter)

Name: İskender Kebap (Döner over Bread with Tomato & Butter)
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 600 g Boneless lamb leg or beef sirloin, sliced very thin; 3 tbsp Plain yogurt (for the marinade); 2 tbsp Olive oil; 1 tsp Salt; 300 g Pide or other flatbread, torn into bite-size pieces; 250 ml Sieved tomatoes (passata); 60 g Butter; 1 tsp Turkish red pepper flakes (pul biber); 300 g Thick strained yogurt, to serve

Thin slices of grilled lamb laid over torn flatbread, doused in warm tomato sauce and sizzling browned butter, with a cool spoonful of yogurt on the side — Bursa's most famous plate.

Source

Recipe by Refika Birgül · 👨‍🍳 Chef · Istanbul-based Turkish cook and food writer, host of the YouTube channel Refika's Kitchen

Names of cooks and creators appear as source credit only. More Recipes Please is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by them.

Refika Birgül · Refika's Kitchen (YouTube) — The source cited here is Refika Birgül's own İskender video on her YouTube channel Refika's Kitchen — a real, public recipe confirmed live through YouTube's oEmbed (author Refika's Kitchen). İskender is a Bursa dish of döner over bread with tomato and browned butter; the home method, quantities and step wording in this entry are written for this book.

Cook: Refika Birgül

Watch it being made · 3 videos

Refika Birgül pattyplates The Golden Balance

⏱ 45 min🍽 4 servings🔥 620 kcal🇹🇷 Turkey🌶️

Halal

Steps

Toss the sliced meat with the yogurt, olive oil and salt and leave it for 20 minutes. The yogurt tenderises it and helps it brown.
Warm the sieved tomatoes in a small pan with a pinch of salt until thick and glossy, then keep it warm.
Sear the meat in batches in a very hot dry pan, one thin layer at a time, until the edges crisp. Crowding the pan steams it grey instead — give it room.
💡 Do not add oil to the searing pan — the marinade carries enough, and a dry hot surface is what browns the meat.
Scatter the torn bread over warm plates. Pile the seared meat on top, then spoon the warm tomato sauce over everything.
Melt the butter until it foams and turns golden-brown, stir in the pepper flakes, and pour it hot over each plate so it sizzles. Serve at once with the cold yogurt alongside.

💡 Tips

Everything must be hot and fast at the end — bread, meat, sauce and butter meeting on the plate at once. It is an assembly dish, not a slow-cooked one.
The yogurt is meant to be plain and cold against the hot butter — do not salt or flavour it.