BITCHLOVE

The Kitchen

Bar food

Everything here is a real recipe with real temperatures. Nothing needs a restaurant kitchen — a pan, an oven, and something to drink while you wait.

1 showing · 444 plates · 15 drinks

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Istanbul, Turkey — they call it meze

Meyhane, not bar. You sit, a tray of cold meze comes to the table, you point at what you want. Cold plates first — cured fish, beans, yogurt, olive-oil vegetables — then ara sıcak, the hot round, then grilled fish if anyone is still upright. Raki gets its own tall glass with a water glass beside it, and nobody drinks it without food. Bread and white cheese arrive unasked. Four hours, minimum.

everything dips 63 fried 120 loaded 164 skewers 43 sliders 32 wings 14 sweet 8
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Charcoal Chicken Wings

Tavuk Kanat Şiş · Istanbul

Wings marinated in yogurt and pepper paste, charred over coals at an ocakbaşı. Beer food more than raki food, and honest enough not to pretend otherwise.

50 min 4-6 ▲ easy
Make it

You need

  • 1.2 kg / 2.5 lb chicken wings, tips removed, split at the joint
  • 150 g / 2/3 cup full-fat yogurt
  • 2 tbsp biber salçası (Turkish red pepper paste)
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 garlic cloves, grated
  • 1 onion, grated, juice only
  • 1 tbsp pul biber
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper
  • Sumac and sliced red onion, to serve
  • Lavash or pide bread

Method

  1. Whisk yogurt, both pastes, oil, garlic, onion juice, pul biber, cumin, salt and pepper into a thick marinade.
  2. Coat the wings, cover, refrigerate 4 hours minimum, overnight preferred. The yogurt acid does real work on the texture.
  3. Build a charcoal fire and let it burn down to grey-ashed coals — flaming charcoal turns the pepper paste bitter in seconds. Set the grate about 12 cm above the coals.
  4. Wipe the excess marinade off each wing. Thick clumps burn before the meat cooks.
  5. Grill 16-22 minutes total, turning every 4 minutes, moving pieces off direct heat if flare-ups start.
  6. Check the thickest part against the bone: 165F/74C is the safe minimum, but wings eat far better pulled at 175F/80C, once the connective tissue has actually rendered.
  7. Pile onto flatbread, top with sumac onions, rest 3 minutes, serve with lemon.

Where you'd actually eat it: Ocakbaşı grill houses in Beyoğlu, Kadıköy and out toward Aksaray, where the grill sits in the middle of the room. Beer, or raki if the table insists.

From behind the bar: No charcoal: oven at 425F/220C on a rack for 30 minutes, then 3 minutes under a hot broiler. Close enough, but you lose the smoke and you will know it.