Batman şam böreği
Meat-filled griddle pastry
Hand-stretched dough filled with minced meat and cooked in a pan or on an iron griddle.
Southeastern Anatolia
Batman
It does not take long at a Batman table to notice how many plates are finished with yogurt and sizzling butter. You meet that pairing at its simplest in piçik yemeği, a meatless dish of small bulgur balls brought together with yogurt and butter sizzled with garlic and chilli flakes. Fine bulgur turns up again in yoğurtlu leben, this time as tiny dumplings in a soup made with yogurt, garlic and oil. Şam böreği, with its hand-stretched dough and minced-meat filling, comes from either a pan or an iron griddle. Among the meat dishes, kaburga dolması brings lamb ribs stuffed with spiced rice pilaf, while in summer and autumn lamb meets fresh vegetables such as eggplant and tomato in tırşık, which is once again eaten with yogurt. The sweeter side of this kitchen takes you out to the districts. The mezrune grapes of Gercüş become molasses, pestil and walnut sucuk, and honey is produced in and around Sason. Let a curiosity that begins with piçik carry you on to the grapes of Gercüş and the honey of Sason.
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Bulgur and yogurt by the Tigris
The Tigris valley and a table of bulgur, yogurt and şam böreği.
Signature dishes
Begin with a thin filled griddle pastry, then explore bulgur, yogurt and the bread-making traditions of the wider province.
Batman piçik yemeği
Bulgur dumplings with yogurt
Small balls of coarse and fine bulgur kneaded with water, boiled and topped with yogurt and butter sizzled with garlic and chilli flakes, without meat.
Yoğurtlu leben
Yogurt soup with bulgur dumplings
A soup of yogurt, garlic and oil with tiny boiled dumplings of fine bulgur.
Ayran çorbası
Yogurt soup with pulses
A yogurt soup with pulses, served hot or cold.
Kaburga dolması
Stuffed lamb ribs
Lamb ribs stuffed with spiced rice pilaf.
Mumbar dolması
Stuffed intestines
Lamb, beef or goat intestines stuffed with minced meat, potato, onion and basil and cooked in a pot.
Tırşık
Lamb and vegetable stew
Lamb cooked with fresh summer and autumn vegetables such as eggplant and tomato, eaten with yogurt.
Havdel
Flour and molasses sweet
Flour toasted in butter and loosened with grape molasses.
Locally cooked
Recipes from this city are coming soon.
Local ingredients
Hasankeyf mehina sarımsağı
Garlic grown around Hasankeyf.
Guide not written yetKozluk domatesi
Tomatoes grown in Kozluk from seed saved from the previous harvest.
Guide not written yetGercüş mezrune üzümü
A grape grown around Gercüş, also made into molasses, pestil and walnut sucuk.
Guide not written yetSason balı
Honey produced in and around Sason.
Guide not written yetSason çileği
Strawberries grown around Sason.
Guide not written yetFood culture
Migration into the developing city brought people and practices together, according to the provincial historical account. This helps explain why Batman’s table should be approached through regional exchange rather than a claim that every dish originated within the modern city. The provincial food directorate also records tandır bread and filled pastries among its culinary practices. These point towards the skills of shaping dough, managing heat and preparing food to share.
Bulgur at the center
Fine and coarse bulgur become piçik, the dumplings in leben and stuffed köfte.
Yogurt and butter
Many dishes are finished with yogurt and butter sizzled with garlic and chilli.
What to bring home
- Gercüş grape molasses (dims)
- Grape pestil (bastiq)
- Walnut sucuk (benni)
- Sason honey
- Telkari silverwork
- Hand-woven kilims
History & landscape
To understand Batman’s past, look to Hasankeyf, a district of the province on the banks of the Tigris. Excavations at Hasankeyf Mound have revealed traces of settlement reaching back to the 10th millennium BCE. After the Artuqids took the town, it served as their capital for a long time, and rule later passed to the Ayyubids, the Aq Qoyunlu and the Ottomans. The castle, set on a monolithic rock mass at the edge of the Tigris, was used as a military base by the Roman Empire and remained a lived-in settlement until the 1970s.
The calcareous ground wrapping around Hasankeyf to the south and southeast forms a striking landscape of deep canyons with cave houses carved into them. The area was flooded for the Ilısu Dam. Structures including the Er-Rızk Mosque, the Artuqid Bath and the Zeynel Bey Tomb were divided into blocks and moved to the Archaeopark established near the Hasankeyf Museum.
