The giant delight cooked for 9 hours in the wood fire: Beypazarı Casserole

With the arrival of Eid al-Adha, Beypazarı Casserole, which takes a prominent place on tables, attracts those who want to taste it even in normal times to Beypazarı. After Eid al-Adha, meat dishes started to fill the tables frequently. Compared to many dishes in Turkey’s rich meat dish geography, Beypazarı Casserole, which is preferred over many other meat dishes, is both compared by gourmets and attracts visitors from all over Turkey to Beypazarı. Beypazarı Casserole, which arrives at the tables after a quite laborious process, is cooked in a wood oven for 9 hours with carefully selected ingredients. After the cooked ingredients are requested by customers, rice is added and Beypazarı Casserole, cooked for another 45 minutes, is ready to be eaten. Chef Nesrin Sarpça, explaining the making and fine points of the casserole dish, said, ‘Its history is very old. It is a product of ours without an oven and wood fire. It must have butter, rice, meat, beef. They used to make it from rib meat, lamb meat, but now we continue with beef. We have pepper, tomato, salt, and black pepper, that’s all. We come early in the morning and first light the oven. Then after preparing our ingredients, it must cook for 9 hours in the wood fire. There are usually 10-15 of them. It releases the taste of the meat into its juice. Then we need to add the rice. We add the rice, and it must be cooked with rice for 45 minutes. Then we serve it ready.’ Mentioning that there is quite a lot of interest in the casserole, chef Nesrin said, ‘We have more customers from Ankara, Istanbul, and outside than our local customers. They come just for the casserole. Our casserole must always be ready. That’s why we make 10-15 casseroles every day. Its taste is irresistible.’ A customer who came from Ankara to eat Beypazarı Casserole said, ‘When chatting with friends, they said they went to Beypazarı to eat casserole. They praised it a lot, so I was curious. I came from Ankara and ate it. It’s very good, very delicious. I recommend everyone to taste it.’