Tavuk göğsü

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Tavuk göğsü (Turkish: tavuk göğsü, [taˈvuk ɟøːˈsu], "chicken breast") is a Turkish dessert pudding made with chicken and milk. It became one of the most famous delicacies served to the sultans in the Ottoman Topkapı Palace. It is today considered a 'signature' dish of Turkey.

In the traditional version white chicken breast meat, preferably freshly slaughtered capon,[Note 1] is softened by boiling and separated the meat fibers into very fine threads or rillettes. Modern recipes often pound the meat into a fine powder instead. The meat is mixed with milk, sugar, cracked rice and/or other thickeners, and often some sort flavoring such as cinnamon. The result is a thick pudding often shaped for presentation.

The dish is more or less identical to the medieval "white dish", blanc manger that was common in the upper-class cuisine of Europe. This was the ancestor of the modern blancmange, though the modern dish is quite different. Some have suggested that blanc manger and tavuk göğsü are, in fact, variants of the same dish.[1][2]

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See also

Notes

  1. ^ The flavour of meat becomes stronger with keeping due to enzymatic and bacterial changes. This is considered undesirable in a dessert.

References

  1. ^ Coe (1994), pg. 231; "Before his arrival in Mexico City he was entertained with ... some manjar blanco [blanc manger] ... a dish served in Turkey today as a dessert and called tavuk gögsü."
  2. ^ Humes (2009); "In the fourteenth century, Western Europe couldn't get enough of tavuk göğsü. Known in England as blanc-manger, or 'white dish', the pallid chicken pudding appears in English, Italian, and German cookbooks of the period."

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