Cağ Kebabı and Kadayıf Dolması: Erzurum's Culinary Signatures

The Horizontal Skewer: What Sets Cağ Kebabı Apart

In Oltu, a district of Erzurum in Turkey's northeast, kebab meat turns on a horizontal skewer rather than the vertical rig used for döner. The skewer sits 10 to 15 centimeters above glowing wood embers, so the meat cooks from below rather than from the side.

The lamb is trimmed of sinew, favoring the shoulder and leg, then rubbed with salt, black pepper and onion juice. Marinated meat can rest for up to a day before it is packed tightly onto the skewer and roasted horizontally over the fire.

Portions are shaved off with a döner knife and given a final char on a small grill before serving with lavash or tandır bread, onion, tomato, green pepper and strained yogurt.

A Registered Name from Oltu

Cağ kebabı carries strong local associations with celebrations, weddings and hospitality toward visitors in the Oltu area. The Oltu Chamber of Commerce and Industry formalized that connection, registering "Oltu Cağ Kebabı" as a Turkish geographical indication in 2010.

The registration ties the dish to Oltu district specifically, not Erzurum province as a whole — a distinction worth noting for anyone tracing the kebab's official boundaries.

Kadayıf Dolması: A Fried, Syrup-Soaked Roll

Erzurum's signature sweet starts with tel kadayıf, the shredded pastry familiar from künefe, but treats it differently. Walnuts are wrapped inside strands of kadayıf, the rolls are dipped in egg, then deep-fried until golden rather than baked.

Fried rolls go straight into warm syrup and are often finished with a spoonful of fresh kaymak (clotted cream). Unlike künefe, which layers kadayıf with cheese and bakes it, kadayıf dolması is stuffed and fried — a different technique built from the same base pastry.

The Erzurum Chamber of Commerce registered "Erzurum Kadayıf Dolması" as a geographical indication in 2012.

Altitude and a Long Winter

Erzurum's city center sits 1,853 meters above sea level, high enough to give it a harsh continental climate: January's average low runs around -14.3°C, and most of the region's 406 millimeters of annual precipitation falls as snow.

Long-lasting snow cover pushed local cooking toward protein, legumes, grains and dried produce that could carry a household through winter. Kavurma — meat slow-cooked and preserved in its own fat — belongs to the same logic, though the craft of Anatolian dried and cured meats is its own subject.

Cheese from the High Pastures: Civil and Göğermiş

Cattle grazing on Erzurum's high mountain pastures produce milk for a distinctive stretched-curd cheese. Skimmed raw milk is left to sour slightly, then the curd is pulled into strands to make civil peyniri — salty, faintly sour, easily pulled apart by hand. It was registered as a geographical indication in 2009.

Some civil peyniri is crumbled, packed into containers with the whey drained off, and left to mold naturally, producing göğermiş peyniri — registered separately in 2012 as Erzurum Küflü Civil Peyniri. The blue-green mold is managed in controlled production settings; replicating it by letting cheese mold spontaneously at home carries real food-safety risk and isn't something to attempt from a recipe.

Su Böreği and Tandır Bread

Erzurum's pastry tradition shows up in su böreği, a savory pie built from twelve layers of boiled yufka filled with civil peyniri and parsley, cooked on a stovetop rather than in an oven for about 25 minutes. It was registered as a geographical indication in 2020.

Bread here relies on the tandır: thin dough is pressed against the clay oven's inner wall and bakes within minutes, leavened with a piece of the previous day's dough. Its long, thin shape helps it stay fresh longer than other regional breads.

A Table Built for Winter

Slow-roasted kebab, fried and syrup-soaked pastry, cheese aged for weeks under mold: Erzurum's kitchen consistently rewards what lasts over what's fast. A long, snow-bound winter shaped a table meant to be kept, not just cooked.