This dish of hot curd cheese and green peppers is a speciality of Edirne, the principal city of Thrace (the European part of Turkey). Sunflowers are cultivated extensively in this region, so the oil is widely used in the local cooking. Çökelek is a kind of curd cheese made by adding salt to yoghurt and boiling it. The action of the salt and the heat breaks down the milk proteins to produce curds – çökelek.