Today’s Turkish dish is a great way to transform leftover cooked chicken and day-old bread into an incredibly moreish meze. It’s easy, too, because it essentially involves just shredding chicken leg or breast meat (or pick a whole roast carcass) and mixing it with stale bread soaked in chicken stock or milk, crushed walnuts, garlic and spicy paprika. Serve at room temperature, or chill and dress later. It will keep in the fridge for up to five days from when the chicken was cooked and is delicious cold, spread on toast or as part of a larger meze with flatbread, muhammara, hummus and grilled vegetables. Some versions of this recipe suggest blending everything in a food processor, but to my mind that gives it too paste-like a texture; you’ll get a much better texture and flavour if you shred the chicken by hand and crush the walnuts in a mortar, before adding the other ingredients and kneading it all together by hand.
