Keskin tava
Lamb and vegetable tray bake
Lamb chops laid over chopped tomatoes, peppers and garlic, dotted with butter and baked in a wood-fired oven.
Central Anatolia
Kırıkkale
In Kırıkkale, lamb goes into the oven in two different districts, in two different tava dishes. In Keskin tava, the chops sit on chopped tomatoes, peppers and garlic, topped with butter and baked in a wood-fired oven. In Sulakyurt tava, the lamb is baked slowly with local ingredients. Karaahmetli tokmak köfte arrives with a different sound altogether. Chicken, beef suet, bulgur, onion and dried mint are pounded with wooden mallets into flat patties, then cooked over charcoal or fried. Besmeç, made from meat and bulgur, can come to the table as a main course or as a side. On the sweet side there is Sulakyurt ballısı, thin layers of yufka with walnuts and butter, sweetened with honey instead of sugar. The pantry is lined with products named for their places. In Kılıçlar village in Yahşihan, a flattened, mildly pungent onion is grown from local seed and harvested in August. Delice grapes are boiled down into molasses without preservatives. And the Sulakyurt melon, which can stay fresh into winter, makes a fine last stop on a route drawn between Keskin and Sulakyurt.
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Lamb trays by the Kızılırmak
The Kızılırmak valley, vineyards and a tray of Keskin tava.
Signature dishes
Begin with Keskin’s oven tray, then explore the grain-based side of the regional table.
Karaahmetli tokmak köfte
Mallet-pounded köfte
Chicken meat, beef suet, bulgur, onion and dried mint pounded with wooden mallets, shaped into flat patties and grilled over charcoal or fried.
Sulakyurt tava
Oven-baked lamb
Lamb baked slowly in the oven with local ingredients, a dish of the Sulakyurt district.
Besmeç
Meat and bulgur köfte
A köfte-style dish of meat and bulgur, served as a main course or on the side.
Sulakyurt ballısı
Honey, walnut and yufka sweet
Thin layers of yufka with walnuts and butter, sweetened with honey instead of sugar.
Locally cooked
Recipes from this city are coming soon.
Local ingredients
Kılıçlar soğanı
A flattened, mildly pungent dry onion grown from a local village seed stock in Kılıçlar, Yahşihan, and harvested in August.
Guide not written yetSulakyurt kavunu
A melon grown in the Sulakyurt district that keeps fresh into the winter.
Guide not written yetDelice üzüm pekmezi
Grape molasses boiled down from Delice grapes without preservatives.
Guide not written yetDelice tuzu
Salt crystallized from natural spring water in the Delice district.
Guide not written yetKaraahmetli patlıcan turşusu
Aubergine pickle from Karaahmetli in Bahşılı, made by natural fermentation.
Guide not written yetKadife balığı
A river fish of the Kızılırmak, known locally as yeşil sazan.
Guide not written yetFood culture
Keskin’s Taş Mektep is associated with the Hacı Taşan Art Center, giving music a place alongside architecture in the district’s cultural story. The bedesten’s wooden details and historic houses offer another route into local making and exchange. Hasandede and Koçubaba are religious-memory sites with their own traditions. Where a monument’s founding date is uncertain, this guide does not turn architectural estimates or devotional accounts into precise historical facts.
Lamb in the tray
Keskin tava and Sulakyurt tava both bake lamb in the oven, the first over tomatoes, peppers and garlic.
Delice vineyards
Grapes from Delice are boiled down into molasses and şıra, and the district’s spring water gives salt.
What to bring home
- Delice grape molasses
- Delice spring salt
- Keskin vinegar
- Gavurga (roasted wheat)
History & landscape
One good way into the history of Kırıkkale province is to look at how people have crossed the Kızılırmak. Çeşnigir Bridge, built over the river, carries typical features of Seljuk architecture and is believed to date to the 13th century. When the Ottoman Sultan Yavuz Selim decided to set out on campaign, the bridge lay on the army’s route, and the architect Sinan completely renovated and strengthened it. In Yahşihan district, an iron bridge connecting the two banks of the river was built under Abdulhamid II and was used during the War of Independence to carry ammunition to Ankara.
Beyond these river crossings, the province’s settlement history reaches much further back. At the Büklükale Archaeological Site, cultural layers run from the Early Bronze Age to the Ottoman period, and excavations have uncovered architectural remains from the Imperial Hittite Period. In Keskin district, the bedesten on Cumhuriyet Square is made up of single-storey attached shops built at the end of the 19th century. Each shop has a triangular pediment decorated with wooden ornaments, and the row reflects the commercial life of that era.
