The ocakbaşı experience, minus the plane ticket

Walk past any Turkish grill house and pirzola is what you smell: lamb chops in a garlicky, faintly smoky marinade, cooked hard over coals and served with ezme — the fiery chopped salad that's part salsa, part sauce, and entirely the reason you order more bread. None of it is complicated. The marinade is six things stirred in a bowl; the ezme is a knife, a chopping board and fifteen minutes of patience; the chops want nothing but fierce heat and a proper rest. What comes off your backyard barbecue is startlingly close to the real thing.

55 mins 2 servings Prep 45 minsCook 10 minsMain CourseTurkish

Ingredients

  • 4 Your Farmer grass-fed lamb loin chops
  • 3 tbsp olive oil (for the marinade)
  • 3 cloves garlic, crushed (for the marinade)
  • 2 tsp dried oregano (for the marinade)
  • 2 tsp Aleppo-style pepper flakes (pul biber), plus extra to serve — or 1 tsp regular chilli flakes
  • 1 tsp sweet paprika (for the marinade)
  • Salt to season
  • 3 ripe tomatoes, very finely chopped (for the ezme)
  • 1 small red onion, very finely chopped (for the ezme)
  • 1 long green chilli, deseeded and very finely chopped (for the ezme)
  • 1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped (for the ezme)
  • 1 tbsp pomegranate molasses (for the ezme)
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (for the ezme)
  • Juice of 1/2 lemon (for the ezme)
  • Warm Turkish bread, to serve

Instructions

For the marinade

Mix the olive oil, garlic, oregano, pul biber, paprika and a good pinch of salt. Massage into the chops and leave at room temperature for 30 minutes (or covered overnight in the fridge — optional, and deeper for it).

4 loin chops3 cloves garlic2 tsp pul biber1 tsp sweet paprika

For the ezme

Chop the tomatoes, onion, chilli and parsley as finely as your patience allows — ezme should be nearly a salsa, not a chunky salad. Stir through the pomegranate molasses, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and salt, and let it sit 15 minutes so the juices run.

3 tomatoes1 red onion1 green chilli1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

On the barbecue

Heat the barbecue grill to high, keeping one side cooler for safety.

Grill the chops on their fat edge for 1–2 minutes, then 3–4 minutes per side for medium, sliding them to the cooler side if the marinade flares.

Rest the chops for 5 minutes, loosely covered.

Serve the chops alongside a generous pool of ezme, with warm bread to mop and extra pul biber over everything. Eating with your hands is traditional and encouraged.

warm Turkish bread

Appears in

In every lamb share — Loin Chops (4 pack)

Your Farmer CSA grass-fed lamb share — Pack B selection of pasture-raised lamb cuts, vacuum-sealed, NSW & ACT delivery
CSA Pastured Lamb Share
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What Pirzola Is, and Why Loin Chops Are the Cut

In Turkey, pirzola simply means lamb chops — but say it in an ocakbaşı, the charcoal grill houses where the cook works behind a counter of glowing coals, and it means this: marinated chops grilled fast, served sizzling, eaten off the bone. The loin chop is ideal for the job. It's the lamb's T-bone — loin muscle one side, tenderloin the other — thick enough to stay rosy inside while the marinade chars and crisps outside, with a fat edge that renders over the flame and perfumes everything around it. The heat rule is the same one that governs every tender chop: hard and fast, pulled at medium, rested without exception. Your Farmer® loin chops come four to a pack in every CSA Pastured Lamb Share — and pasture-raised lamb, with its cleaner, sweeter fat, is much closer to what a Turkish grill cook is working with than anything grain-fed.

Swaps and Variations

Pul biber — Aleppo-style pepper — is fruity and gently warm rather than fierce, and it's worth hunting down at a Middle Eastern grocer or a bigger supermarket. Regular chilli flakes work at half quantity; smoked paprika plus a pinch of chilli gets surprisingly close. Cutlets make a daintier pirzola at two minutes a side, and forequarter chops take the same marinade onto a medium grill for longer — a rougher, richer version worth knowing. The ezme scales with your chilli courage: seeds in for heat, an extra tomato to cool it down. If your grill runs on gas, don't apologise — heat and fat matter more than fuel. And once you've got a taste for it, grass-fed lamb delivered to the door keeps the pirzola habit affordable.

Storage and Leftovers

Marinated raw chops keep 2 days in the fridge, so the overnight version costs you nothing but forethought. Ezme is best within a day — the tomatoes keep weeping and the chilli sharpens — though it stretches to 2 days covered in the fridge and makes a superb spoonful over eggs. Cooked chops keep 3 days airtight; sliced cold into warm bread with leftover ezme, they make the kind of lunch you plan the recipe around. Reheat only in a brief, very hot pan — anything gentler steams away the char you worked for.

Frequently asked questions

What is pul biber and where do I find it?

It's a Turkish crushed pepper — mildly hot, fruity, a little oily — sold as pul biber or Aleppo pepper. Middle Eastern grocers always stock it and larger supermarkets increasingly do. Regular chilli flakes at half quantity are a fair substitute.

How spicy is the ezme?

As spicy as you make it. Deseeded, one green chilli gives a gentle hum; leave the seeds in for proper heat, or swap in half a capsicum for a version kids will eat. Taste as you go — tomatoes vary.

Charcoal or gas?

Charcoal gets you closest to the ocakbaşı flavour, but a hot gas grill does the job honestly. What matters is genuine high heat, a rendered fat edge, and pulling the chops while they're still pink.

Can I make the ezme ahead?

Chop everything up to a few hours ahead, but add the salt, lemon and molasses within the hour before serving — salt draws the tomato juices out fast, and ezme is best a little tight rather than watery.

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