Yogurt-Finished Meat and Chickpea Stew Recipe

Meat and chickpea stew is one of the classic recipes of Turkish cuisine, both nourishing and truly belonging to the category of “mom’s cooking.” In this recipe, I added a traditional touch to this classic and turned it into a yogurt-based version.

In this yogurt-finished meat and chickpea stew, the heartiness of chickpeas, the deep flavor of the meat, and the velvety texture added by the yogurt mixture come together to create a simple yet multi-layered taste. This dish can be enjoyed as an everyday meal, especially in cold weather, or it can become the star of the table when you want to serve your guests a “real homemade meal.” It’s also a rich alternative to the classic meat and chickpea stew.

One of the most important things to pay attention to in this dish is making sure both the meat and the chickpeas are cooked to the perfect tenderness. Lamb can easily be used instead of beef. Lamb gives the dish a more pronounced aroma, but since it’s a bit fattier, it may feel heavy for some people. At the same time, you need to be careful when balancing the consistency of the yogurt mixture. If your meat is very fatty, as I did, it’s best not to add any extra oil, because too much fat can both increase the calorie content and affect the structure of the yogurt mixture.

Tips for Yogurt-Finished Dishes

Just like in many yogurt-finished soup recipes such as yayla soup, let’s not skip listing the key tips for preparing and adding the yogurt mixture. The mixture made with yogurt, egg yolk, flour, and lemon juice is quite delicate; if rushed, it may curdle. For this reason, after preparing the mixture, you should gradually add a few ladles of the hot cooking liquid from the dish while whisking constantly, in order to warm it up. This step helps the mixture adapt to the heat. When the warm mixture is slowly added into the boiling dish and whisked quickly, it blends in smoothly without curdling. If the consistency looks too thick after adding the mixture, you can loosen it with a small amount of hot water.

The stage after adding the mixture is just as important. When you place the pot back on the stove, you should lower the heat; high heat can cause the mixture to curdle. Stirring constantly is again essential to prevent curdling. Adding the salt after removing the pot from the heat also reduces the chance of the yogurt curdling.

If your meat is fatty, you can add the dried mint directly. But if you’re using lean meat, or if you don’t mind the dish being a bit richer, you can bloom the mint in melted butter or olive oil and add it that way.

In short, yogurt-finished meat and chickpea stew is a dish that requires patience and care, but always makes you happy with its result. When the flavor of the meat, the softness of the chickpeas, and the velvety texture of the yogurt mixture come together, you get a dish with few ingredients, yet one that is filling, nourishing, and incredibly delicious.

Enjoy...

Enjoy!