Food & culture · 3 min read ·
Turkish and Pakistani Food: Distant Cousins at the Same Table
Why Turkish food feels so familiar to Pakistanis: shared roots, shared words like pilav, köfte and şerbet, and the real differences in spice, fat and technique, dish by dish.
Order a meal in Istanbul and a Pakistani visitor will recognise half the menu before reading the descriptions. Pilav, köfte, kebap, helva, şerbet: the words sound like home. Then the food arrives, and it’s familiar and different at the same time. The pilav is buttery and plain, the köfte are flat and lightly spiced, the yogurt comes with almost everything, and there’s olive oil where you’d expect ghee.
Those similarities and differences have a history, and understanding them makes Turkish food much easier to cook in a Pakistani kitchen.
Shared roots
The cuisines of Turkey and Pakistan both grew up under strong Persian and Central Asian influence. Turkic peoples moved west from Central Asia into Anatolia, bringing dumplings, yogurt and grilled meat. In South Asia, the Delhi Sultanate and then the Mughals, whose own roots were Central Asian and whose court culture was Persian, shaped the food of the region. Both kitchens absorbed Persian ideas about rice, sweets, sherbets and slow-cooked meat.
You can still hear it in the vocabulary:
| Turkish | Urdu | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Pilav | Pulao | Rice cooked in stock or butter |
| Köfte | Kofta | Minced meat balls or patties |
| Kebap | Kabab | Grilled or roasted meat |
| Helva | Halwa | A dense sweet |
| Şerbet | Sharbat | A sweet chilled drink |
| Yoğurt | (Dahi) | The word yogurt itself is Turkish |
| Kaymak | Malai / balai | Thick clotted cream |
Where they part ways
Spice. This is the biggest difference. Pakistani cooking builds flavour from layers of ground spices: chili, turmeric, coriander, garam masala. Turkish cooking uses far fewer. A köfte might have cumin, black pepper and ; a soup might have only mint and butter. The depth comes from somewhere else: tomato and red pepper paste (), good meat, and charring.
Fat. Ghee and mustard oil dominate in Pakistan. Turkey uses butter for meat dishes and pilav, and olive oil for vegetables, salads and the whole family of dishes eaten at room temperature.
Yogurt. Both cuisines love it, but Turkey uses it more as a sauce: over mantı, under çılbır eggs, beside kebabs, and whisked into ayran with every meal.
The finishing touch. Pakistani cooks finish daal with a of cumin and garlic in hot oil. Turkish cooks finish soups and dumplings with butter sizzled with red pepper, poured over at the end. The idea is identical; only the ingredients change.
Vegetables and herbs. Turkish meals almost always include fresh salad and plenty of parsley, mint and dill. Pakistani tables have kachumber and chutneys, but cooked vegetables in masala are more common than raw ones.
Dish by dish
The easiest way to see the relationship is to put dishes side by side:
- Mercimek çorbası and masoor daal use the same red lentils. The Turkish soup is blended smooth with carrot and potato and finished with butter and lemon.
- Şehriyeli pilav and yakhni pulao are both rice cooked by absorption, but Turkish pilav is a plain buttery side, not a spiced main.
- İzgara köfte and seekh kebab are both grilled mince; köfte are milder and flatter.
- Sütlaç and kheer are both rice pudding; sütlaç is browned on top and served cold with cinnamon instead of cardamom.
- Vişne şerbeti and imli aloo bukhara sharbat are both sweet-sour fruit sherbets.
- Baklava and gulab jamun are both soaked in syrup, though one is crisp pastry and the other a fried milk dumpling.
Why Pakistanis are cooking Turkish food now
Turkish food has become hugely popular in Pakistan in recent years, helped by Turkish dramas on television, Turkish restaurants opening in the big cities, and more Pakistanis travelling to Turkey. The good news for home cooks is that almost everything can be made with ingredients from a Pakistani kitchen, using a few simple substitutes. Our guide to the Turkish spice shelf in Pakistan lists them all.
Where to start
If you want to taste the family resemblance for yourself, start with three dishes: a pot of mercimek çorbası, a tray of köfte with buttery pilav and a çoban salatası, and a pitcher of ayran. You’ll recognise every flavour, and still feel you’ve travelled.
