Tutmaç
Small cut noodles cooked with meat or lentils, with garlic yoghurt poured over at the plate rather than stirred into the pot. This is a far older and far simpler answer to the curdling problem than terbiye.
Because the yoghurt never meets heat, no stabiliser is needed. The noodle starch has already thickened the broth.
What it is made of
Yoghurt
pH 4.4 · splits above 85 °C
Dairy: it brings creaminess, protein and calcium.
Temper it with a few spoons of the hot liquid before it goes in; added straight, it splits.
Ga
Garlic
Allicin forms 60 s after cutting
A base: it neutralises acid and shifts colour and lift.
Let it sit for a minute after chopping: that is when allicin forms. Straight into the pan and it never appears.
Fl
Flour
Protein 10–12% · builds gluten
Binds: it builds the structure and holds the water.
Sifting does not remove lumps, it aerates: the same weight takes more space. Weigh it, never scoop it.
Eg
Egg
White 62 °C · yolk 65 °C
Gives body: the bulk of the plate and its starch.
Crack it on a flat surface, not the rim of the bowl: a sharp edge drives shell into the egg.
Ln
Lentil
Protein 25% · breaks down in 20 min
Gives body: the bulk of the plate and its starch.
Red lentils have no skin, need no soaking and collapse in twenty minutes; use green ones if you want them to hold.
Mi
Mint
Menthol is volatile · add off the heat
Spice: it adds aroma and edge.
Fresh mint goes in off the heat; dried mint is bloomed in fat. They are not the same job.
Sa2
Salt
0.8–1.5% of the weight of the food
Seasoning: it sets the perception and balances the salt.
0.8–1.5% of the weight of the food. Coarse and fine salt do not weigh the same by the spoon, so weigh it.
What it tastes like
No axis sits clearly above the average: a balanced dish without a sharp character.
This profile is computed rather than measured: the role-weighted average of its ingredients’ taste vectors, shifted by what the cooking does. The thin line is the database average on that axis.
How it is made
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Roll the dough, cut it into one-centimetre squares and flour them apart.
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Cook the lentils or meat in water, then drop the noodles in and boil them eight to ten minutes.
-
Crush the garlic into the yoghurt and spoon it into the bowls.
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Ladle the soup over the yoghurt in the bowl — the yoghurt never goes into the pan.
Why That is what separates tutmaç from a tempered soup: the yoghurt never meets heat, so it cannot curdle. -
Finish with sizzled butter and chilli flakes.
Where it comes from
The oldest dated item in this cluster. Kaşgarlı Mahmud’s Dîvânu Lugâti’t-Türk, begun in 1072 and finished in 1074, describes it as made with flour, yoghurt and meat and calls it fit nourishment for nomadic life.