Kokoretsi (Kokoreç) as a Sandwich

Kokoretsi is a Balkan treat–a drunken street food in places, a special meal for religious holidays in others–consisting of skewered organ meat (lamb, usually), wrapped in caul fat, bound in intestines, and grilled on a rotisserie. In Turkey especially, it is often served from carts, where the meat is cut from the skewer, griddled along with some tomatoes and possibly peppers, chopped, seasoned with salt and oregano (sometimes chili flakes or cumin as well), then scraped into split-open half- or quarter-loaves of somun bread and eaten as a sandwich.

This is the kind of thing that fires up my DIY spirit. Why, all I’ll need to do is find some lamb intestines (OK, I can probably find salted dried ones at a sausage supply place), lamb offal (maybe I could dig through the dumpster at a halal butcher), and then, simplest of all, some lamb caul fat (uh…), then thread them all on my rotisserie (note to self–order rotisserie) (seriously, though, you need one Jim, get it), then make some Turkish bread (totally doable), then just make a damn sandwich. Seriously, what’s so difficult?

OK, so making this myself would prove difficult. Luckily, here in Chicago, there is a restaurant that serves a version of this special meal year-round: Taxim, in Wicker Park. I emailed David Schneider, chef/owner of Taxim, asking if I could come by and see the preparation of the dish, and he was very welcoming. “Probably the best time to do this would be prior to Greek Easter,” he replied. “We have the dish year round, but that is the best time to see it prepped since we will do all aspects of the dish at the same time.”

Greek Easter is coming right up–mid-April, same as Catholic Easter this year, though that’s not always the case–but I needed to put this post together by the end of March. So my lovely wife and I visited Taxim a few weeks early for a lovely dinner at which David was kind enough to stop by and speak with us for a time.

The dishes we tried at Taxim ranged from the very good to the excellent. The house-made pitas were rustic but a perfect platform for the sides and spreads we ordered. The hummus and mussels hit our table shockingly quickly after our order–of course hummus can be made ahead of time without ill effect; the mussels were battered and so very lightly fried, but were light and crisp and needed no further time in the oil. The pitas were all still warm, as if freshly out of the oven. The mussels were Mindy’s favorite, but I think I liked the leek pie best of all, reminiscent of spanakopita, with more pastry to make up for a much more flavorful filling. Duck gyros are one of the more popular dishes at Taxim, and they were interesting, sort of a high-end Greek style chimichanga full of lusciously rich duck meat and served with Taxim’s mint and yogurt sauce, pomegranate syrup, and some nicely seasoned fries.

None of that was what I was there for, though. Bring on the guts.

As David mentioned, Taxim serves Kokoretsi year-round, but usually makes it in much smaller portions, as it’s not highly in demand for the most part. We happened to come by on a day when it had just been prepared–they make it in batches, freeze, and grill to order–and got a very fresh batch. The dish is served with lemon wedges, tzatziki, extra virgin olive oil, and some of Taxim’s house-made pita. I took some of the above and made a rudimentary open-faced sandwich from it.

Our waitress mentioned that they’d had a Turkish group in the previous evening who had eaten their Kokoretsi in much the same way. This is not the way that my research suggests the sandwich is usually eaten in Turkey, though.

Kokoreç

Here’s how they do it in Turkey, or at least one version of it.

I had the Kokoreç from Taxim. I had some tomatoes and spices.

All that remained was the bread. Turkish somun bread is a bit like a batard, as opposed to Bosnian or Serbian somun, which is more like a pita (pide in Turkish). I found this recipe, which seemed to approximate what I saw in the video (with the pleasant addition of sesame seeds, which I liked), so I made something similar (I used a mixture of bread flour and all-purpose instead of 100% all-purpose as the recipe called for).  It turned out fairly well.

I cut off about 1/3 of the still-warm loaf and sliced it open, leaving one side whole to keep the bits from falling out.

I then griddled the leftover kokoretsi and once it was nice and hot, chopped it finely on a cutting board.

Then I added the griddled tomatoes, the salt, chili pepper flakes, and oregano, chopping and mixing the whole together even further.

Finally, I scraped the mixture into the open bread and served it.

This was much better than I could have anticipated. Organ meats have a variety of textures and flavors, from the meaty chewiness of hearts to the soft and rich livers. The tomatoes add some great juiciness and enhance the mouthfeel, and the salt and chili flakes bring the rest of the flavors into focus. Oregano may be the best herb to use with organ meat, warm, a little pungent, assertive but not overpowering. The overall effect is a meaty, juicy mess on a bread that’s sturdy enough to hold it.

I can’t say that I’ll want to come back to Kokoretsi often. Knowing what I know about my health, as an overweight middle-aged man with a rich diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and an enjoyment of drinking, a purine-heavy dish like this seems like stacking the deck too high against myself. I often talk about eating salads for a week after a particularly rich sandwich–in this case, I actually did stick to a mostly-vegetarian diet for several days afterwards. I did very much enjoy having it though, visiting Taxim and meeting David Schneider. They’ll be doing quite a bit of Kokoretsi for Easter soon, so if you’re interested in the dish, that’s the time to check it out.

As for me, if I ever find myself drunk and wandering around Istanbul with some cash in my pocket, I’ll know a good way to soak up some of that booze.