Turkish Chicken Breast Pudding Recipe: Easy & Homemade

Tavuk gogsu is a Turkish milk pudding made with shredded chicken breast, and the meat is the point: poached, soaked, and rubbed into fine fibers so it disappears into a smooth, slightly chewy pudding. You thicken it with cornstarch, scent it with rose or orange blossom water, then brown the bottom on the stovetop and chill it until it sets.

It belongs to the same family of milk-based sweets as Turkish rice pudding, and it sits in the wider world of Turkish desserts. If you want more recipes to cook at home, the Turkish recipes hub collects them in one place.

Turkish Chicken Breast Pudding Recipe

Serves 12

Ingredients

• 280 gr freshly cut, skinless, boneless chicken breasts
• ¾ cup cornstarch
• 8 ¾ cups whole milk, divided
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup sugar, plus some for sprinkling on the baking pan
• 2 tablespoons orange blossom or rose water Pinch of salt
• 3-4 tablespoons confectioners sugar

Method

1. Grease a I0 x 15 x 2-inch baking pan with a little butter, sprinkle sugar over the bottom of the pan, and refrigerate it for later use.
2. Cut the chicken lengthwise into thin strips (about ¼ inch wide). In the medium-size saucepan, boil 2 cups water. Add the chicken strips, lower the heat to medium, and cook for about 3 minutes. Strain the chicken strips, place them in a bowl, and cover them with cold water. Leave the chicken in the water for about 4 hours, changing the cold water frequently. This process removes the chicken smell from the meat.
3. Cut the chicken into 1-inch lengths, then cut them in half crosswise. Rub the pieces between your fingertips to break the chicken into fine fibers. Place them in a bowl and cover them with cold water.
4. Dissolve the cornstarch in ¾ cup of the milk and set it aside.
5. In a large saucepan, bring 8 cups of the milk, the heavy cream, sugar, and chicken fibers to a boil. Add the orange blossom or rose water and the dissolved cornstarch mixture to the boiling liquid, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.
6. Add a pinch of salt and cook for 2 minutes.
7. Pour this mixture into the prepared baking pan and set it on the stovetop over a high flame. To cook the mixture and brown the pudding that is in contact with the bottom of the pan, take a wide spatula and stir the pudding by pushing the surface liquid back and forth without scraping the bottom. As you do so, the pudding firms up and browns. Rotate the baking pan a few times so that the bottom of the pudding browns evenly. This process should take about 15 minutes.
8. Set the pudding aside and let it cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for several hours for the pudding to set. To serve, cut the pudding into 12 pieces with a sharp knife, lift out each piece with a spatula, and invert it onto a plate so that the browned bottom shows. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.

Want to taste it where it is made?

You do not have to cook it to try it. On our Taste of Two Continents tour we cross from the Spice Market breakfast by ferry to Kadıköy, eating our way across both sides of the city. We have run Istanbul food tours since 2013 for more than 50,000 guests, who have left us a 4.95 out of 5 rating across 7,800 plus reviews. Groups stay small, capped at 10 people.