A mangal (pronounced Mahn-Gahl) is a simple portable grill used by peoples across Eurasia. Social gatherings around the mangal are ubiquitous in Turkey. You see people everywhere– in yards and parks and woodlands– lounging on cushions with the mangal coals quietly smoking and strong black tea brewing on the wood fired samovar. It brings these picnickers endless pleasure to corral unsuspecting passersby and fill them with juicy kebabs, spiced chicken, and dripping-fat köfte patties. The mangal became a staple of our time in Turkey. We gathered countless times with people across the country, watching and learning as they stoked and tended the mangal.
Our first mangal meal was prepared by Kerim, a family man from Gaziantep who had relocated to the coastal town of Urla. We met Kerim while searching for a place to camp on a small, hilly isthmus along the Karaburun Peninsula. Rather than camp on the isthmus he invited us to stay with him and his family. We hesitated to accept…. He’d just driven Jesse down a sheer cliff face in his quad as a kind of introduction… and we wondered about this wild-man and what kind of experience might be in store. But traveling is about saying yes to new experiences, so we took the leap.
We spent some incredible days with Kerim and his gracious wife Büşra, sharing many meals together, roughhousing with their kids, and dancing to Müslüm Gürses in their living room long into the night. It was Kerim who introduced us to the magic of the mangal with his Eggplant Kebab.
After leaving the family, we moved further South along the coast, eventually to a sheltered cove near Antalya. While splashing around in the crystal waters, surrounded by Turkish families and Ukranian hikers, we were invited by a fisherman to join him on his boat. We made plans to mangal together that night– we would bring the salad and the coals, he would bring the fish and the vodka. Ramazan taught us how to strip the skin of an eel for grilling, as well as how to prepare this delicious marinade for cooking whole sardines.
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The mangal meal is generally served with a variety of small meze dishes, salads, and loaves of bread.
Serving the eggplant kebab as a wrap is an exacting but worthwhile process. To do this you must also grill whole tomatoes and peppers too–we were taught to blacken them directly on the coals. The process: Lay a wrap on your plate. Peel the charred skin from the eggplant and grilled tomato. Spread both onto the wrap. Then break up and spread the kofte onto the eggplant and tomato. Lay strips of grilled pepper over everything. Roll it up like a burrito and enjoy.
The sardines can be eaten whole, or you can pull the head and spine from the flesh.
Afiyet Olsun!
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A note on the illustration: This painting was inspired by the beauty of the Ihlara Valley– the hand-carved cliff homes, vibrant wildflowers, and ancient majesty of the place. Although the recipes were collected along the coast of Turkey, I chose Ihlara for the setting as it was one of our favorite places to mangal, and the site of many mangals past, present and future.