Kırşehir Ahi helvası
Honey and walnut flour halva
Flour roasted in butter until brown, sweetened with honey dissolved in milk, mixed with walnuts and served warm.
Central Anatolia
Kırşehir
Kırşehir’s sweets come from the meeting of flour and butter. In Ahi helvası, flour roasted in butter until brown comes together with honey dissolved in milk and walnuts, and it is served warm. In höşmerim tatlısı, a dough of flour, milk and eggs breaks into fine crumbs in butter and is dusted with powdered sugar. The savory side relies on simple ingredients too. Çullama brings small pieces of chicken or meat together with flour whisked into broth and butter. For tandırda çömlek paça, lamb or sheep head and trotters cook with garlic in a sealed clay pot in the tandır. Çirleme pairs meat with raisins and grape molasses and is served hot. The local products belong to the same table. After the walnuts in Ahi helvası, you can get to know Kaman walnuts, with their light brown shells and light yellow kernels. Çayağzı village, once called Cemele, is home to the thin-skinned, mildly hot Cemele pepper. And anyone following the molasses in çirleme will find Kırşehir pekmezi, boiled down from fresh grapes with no added sugar.
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Walnuts, molasses and the Ahi table
The steppe around Kırşehir, walnut groves in Kaman and a tray of halva.
Signature dishes
Explore chicken and broth, hand-shaped bulgur mixtures and grape-based sweets.
Kırşehir höşmerim tatlısı
Crumbly milk and flour sweet
A dough of flour, milk and eggs cooked in butter until it breaks into fine crumbs, then sweetened and dusted with powdered sugar.
Kırşehir çullaması
Chicken in a flour and broth sauce
Small pieces of boiled chicken or meat cooked in a sauce of flour whisked into the broth, with butter.
Tandırda çömlek paça
Head and trotters in a clay pot
Cleaned lamb or sheep head and trotters cooked with garlic and water in a sealed clay pot in the tandır.
Çirleme
Meat with raisins and molasses
Boiled meat cooked with raisins, water and grape molasses and served hot.
Besmeç
Beef and bulgur köfte
Köfte of ground beef and bulgur, popular in the Kaman district.
Locally cooked
Recipes from this city are coming soon.
Local ingredients
Kaman cevizi
An oval or round walnut with a light brown shell and a light yellow kernel, harvested from mid-September and dried out of direct sun.
Guide not written yetCemele biberi
A thin-skinned, mildly hot, dark green stuffing pepper grown in Çayağzı village, formerly called Cemele.
Guide not written yetKırşehir pekmezi
Grape molasses boiled down from fresh grapes without added sugar.
Guide not written yetFood culture
UNESCO identifies Kırşehir as a Creative City of Music, a network member since 2019. Its account gives particular importance to Abdal musicians and to the transmission of performance through social and cultural life. Music and Ahi craft traditions provide two complementary ways into the city. Network membership recognises a cultural field; it does not certify dishes or turn every local story into documented history.
Honey and walnuts
Ahi helvası is sweetened with honey dissolved in milk and finished with chopped walnuts.
Clay and tandır
Lamb head and trotters cook slowly in sealed clay pots set in the tandır.
What to bring home
- Kaman walnuts
- Kırşehir grape molasses
- Pestil and köftür
- Tarhana
- Onyx stone ornaments
History & landscape
To understand Kırşehir’s past, begin with Ahilik. Emerging in thirteenth-century Anatolia, this system of craft, trade, solidarity and mutual assistance rested on principles that preserved business ethics and protected the efforts of workers. Because Kırşehir was the center of the organisation, tradesmen practising their crafts across Seljuk and Ottoman lands received their licence, the icazetname, from here. The Ahi Evran Social Complex, home to the tomb of Ahi Evran-ı Veli, stands in the Ahi Evran quarter of the provincial center and is believed to have been established as a simple zawiyah.
The city’s ties to learning are equally striking. The Cacabey Madrasa, built by Nureddin Jibril bin Cacabey, Governor of Kırşehir, offered studies in mathematics, astronomy and science. Across the province, many identified and registered mounds point to a long settlement history. In the Kaman district, excavations at Kalehöyük have shed light on Kırşehir’s earliest settlement history, reaching back to the Early Bronze Age.
