The Turkish Spice Shelf in Pakistan: What to Buy and What to Substitute

The first question Pakistani cooks ask about Turkish recipes is: where do I get this? Pul biber, sumac, bulgur and pomegranate molasses rarely appear in an ordinary kiryana store. The good news is that you need only a handful of new ingredients, most are now sold in larger supermarkets and online, and every one has a workable substitute already sitting in a Pakistani kitchen.

Here’s the Turkish pantry, item by item.

Pastes: salça

Turkish cooking runs on salça, thick pastes made from sun-dried tomatoes (domates salçası) or red peppers (biber salçası). A spoonful fried in butter gives soups, stews and pilav their colour and depth, in place of the long bhunai of ground spices you’d use in a salan.

• Tomato paste: sold in tins and tubes in most Pakistani supermarkets. It’s a direct substitute for domates salçası.
• Red pepper paste: harder to find. Make your own by blending roasted red capsicum with a pinch of chili and salt, then cooking it down in a little oil until thick. Or use extra tomato paste with half a teaspoon of paprika.

Pul biber

Pul biber, Turkish red pepper flakes, is mild, fruity and slightly oily, very different from the hot, dry crushed red chilies (kutti lal mirch) we use. To imitate it, mix 2 parts paprika (or Kashmiri chili powder) with 1 part crushed red chili and a few drops of oil. Store it in a small jar and use it on soups, eggs, kebabs and salads.

Sumac

Sumac is a dark red, sour spice made from dried berries. It’s sprinkled on onions for kebabs and on salads. It’s increasingly sold in bigger supermarkets and by online spice sellers. If you can’t find it, mix a pinch of anardana powder with a little grated lemon zest. Pakistani cooks already use anardana for sourness in chana chaat, so the idea isn’t new.

Bulgur

Bulgur is wheat that has been boiled, dried and cracked. Coarse bulgur is for pilav; fine bulgur is for kısır and some köfte. Look for it in supermarkets that stock Arab or Turkish products. Coarse dalia is the closest local alternative, though it isn’t pre-cooked, so toast it and give it a little longer and a little more water.

Yufka and filo

Yufka is a thin, unleavened dough sheet used for börek and gözleme. Frozen filo pastry, sold in larger supermarkets, works for baklava. For rolls like sigara böreği, Pakistani frozen samosa and spring-roll patti are actually ideal, already cut to size. For gözleme, simply roll your own dough very thin, as you would for a roti.

Kadayıf

Kadayıf is shredded pastry used in künefe. It’s rarely sold in Pakistan, but fine roasted seviyan, the vermicelli we use for sheer khurma, makes a surprisingly good substitute when coated in butter and pressed firmly.

Pomegranate molasses

Nar ekşisi is a thick, sweet-sour syrup of reduced pomegranate juice used in salads and kısır. Bottles are sold in some supermarkets. To make a quick version, simmer 2 tablespoons of anardana powder with half a cup of water and a teaspoon of sugar for 10 minutes, strain, and reduce until syrupy.

Turkish cheese

Turkish white cheese (beyaz peynir) is salty and crumbly, very like feta, which is sold in most large supermarkets. Paneer works in cooked dishes if you add salt, as it’s much milder. For künefe, which needs a stretchy, unsalted melting cheese, use fresh mozzarella with a little paneer.

Olive oil

Turkish cooking uses a lot of olive oil, especially for vegetables and salads. Use extra virgin olive oil for salads and drizzling, and ordinary (lighter) olive oil for cooking. For meat dishes cooked in butter, Pakistani desi ghee or butter works perfectly.

Herbs

Turkish food uses flat-leaf parsley where we’d use coriander, plus fresh and dried mint and sometimes dill. Parsley is sold in bigger vegetable markets and supermarkets; coriander is a perfectly good substitute in every recipe here. Dried mint is in every pansari shop.

A shopping list to start

If you want to stock a Turkish shelf, these five items cover most recipes on this site:

1. Tomato paste
2. Paprika (to make pul biber)
3. Sumac (or anardana)
4. Bulgur (or coarse dalia)
5. Dried mint

Add filo, feta and pomegranate molasses when a recipe calls for them. With these, you can cook mercimek çorbası, lahmacun, kısır and almost everything else in our Turkish collection.