Kayseri Cure · Spiced Air-Dried Beef
Pastırma
🥩
Photo coming soon
Pastırma is a direct ancestor of pastrami — Ottoman and Balkan Jewish migrants carried the curing method to New York, where it evolved into the deli meat most people know today.
Beef is salted, pressed under weights to remove moisture, then coated in a thick paste of fenugreek, garlic, and hot paprika called çemen before air-drying for weeks. Kayseri's butchers slice it paper-thin to fold into eggs, sandwiches, or simple bread rolls sold at market stalls.
Why it's made this way: Kayseri's cold, dry Central Anatolian climate made it ideal for air-curing meat long before refrigeration, and the city has been synonymous with pastırma production for centuries.
More from Turkey
Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below.
Photo credits.