Tavuk Göğsü

Tavuk göğsü is a Turkish sweet made by simmering milk, sugar, rice flour and other ingredients with finely shredded chicken breast. Its Turkish name literally means “chicken breast.” The meat is not left in large pieces in the smooth white milk pudding but is mixed in as fine fibers. The dish is known for a rich, substantial mouthfeel in which the meat fibers add to the thickness of the milk and rice.

Shredding the meat, rinsing it and mixing it into milk

The breast meat used in tavuk göğsü is first boiled, and the bones and skin are removed; the meat is then pulled apart into fine fibers or pounded. This process does not aim for the aroma of meat that has been seared hard, as in savory meat dishes. Some traditional methods also call for rinsing the meat in cold water and draining it before use.

Rice flour is added to milk and heated to create a smooth, lump-free thickness. After the meat and sugar are added, the mixture is stirred continuously to distribute the fibers evenly. The thickness created by the rice starch and the fibers pulled from the breast meat play different roles. The meat alone does not set the whole mixture like a jelly; instead, the milk, rice and meat are simmered together.

Rose water and cinnamon are used for fragrance. In some versions the pudding is unmolded from a large mold, and in others it is poured into a flat container and cut into pieces. Its nature as a white sweet that contains meat is linked to cooking it until it is thick enough to be removed from its container.

Its form in 19th-century cookbooks

The Ottoman cookbook Melceü’t-Tabbâhîn, compiled by Mehmet Kâmil and published in 1844, includes a method in which chicken that has already been boiled and shredded is added to a rice-and-milk porridge and cooked further. Both the name of this sweet and its method survive together in this mid-19th-century printed work.

The Turkish Cookery Book, compiled by Turabi Efendi and published in London in 1864, also features a cold sweet containing breast meat. Rice flour, milk, sugar and rose water are combined, poured into a mold greased with almond oil and chilled, and the pudding is served sprinkled with cinnamon. Compared with the modern finish of pouring the pudding into a flat container, this clearly shows a presentation based on unmolding.

The method in this cookbook also warns that if the shredded meat is not rinsed in cold water, a meaty smell will remain. This technique did not hide the chicken; it assumed the presence of meat and refined its aroma to turn it into a sweet milk pudding.

Figure: Turabi Efendi (ed.), Turkish cookery book (1864), p. 60, No. 178. The steps for simmering milk and rice flour with rinsed breast meat and rose water and chilling the mixture in a mold can be read. Held by the University of Leeds Library, via Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Catalog record／Rights statement. Obtained at 1600 pixels wide; not cropped.

Similarities to blancmange, and the debate over origins

Tavuk göğsü is not the only dish that combines chicken, milk, rice and sweetness. Medieval European blancmange also included “white dishes” in which breast meat was finely shredded and cooked with milk or almond milk, rice and other ingredients. Despite sharing a name, these dishes differed in composition from today’s white dessert, which is chilled and set without meat.

A theory tracing both dishes in a straight line back to the ancient Roman cookbook Apicius has been repeated for a long time. However, in a 2021 study, the food culture researcher Utku Can Topçu pointed out that no corresponding sweet chicken dish can be found in the surviving text of that work, and that passages from later cookbooks had been mistaken for it.

Topçu examines connections with Arab cuisine and suggests harisa, a dish of meat and grain cooked together, as a possible ancestor. However, the presence of similar ingredients alone does not establish a route of transmission, and there is no consensus on the origin. Today’s sweet, the recipes (ingredient proportions and methods) printed in 19th-century cookbooks and even older similar dishes need to be considered as products of different periods.

Kazandibi, with its caramelized surface

Kazandibi is a sweet whose name means “bottom of the pot.” In one style, the bottom of tavuk göğsü is deliberately scorched to give it a browned surface, adding the aroma of caramelized sugar and milk to the white milk pudding. After it is cut, it is plated so that the browned surface is visible.

Sütiş, a milk-pudding shop in present-day Istanbul, offers kazandibi made with cow’s milk and water buffalo milk, chicken and rice. The style of incorporating breast meat into the white part and combining it with a caramelized layer continues today. A sweet in the style of tavuk göğsü made without chicken is sometimes labeled yalancı (“imitation”). Because the original made with meat and a white milk pudding modeled on it exist side by side, it is clear that this sweet has been passed down through both the breast-meat technique and the milk-pudding tradition.

Kazandibi with chicken, showing the caramelized surface and the interior. Photo: E4024, 2016-05-26, location unknown. Original image／CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version from the hosting source; no additional processing.

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