Pide (pronounced ‘Pee-day’) is a Turkish, bread-based snack often sold at bus and railway stations in Turkey. Reminiscent of a stuffed naan in some ways but visually very different, these stuffed breads are perfect for filling the hunger gap when journeying. With salad, they make a wonderful lunch on a hot day.

The dough used to make them is basically a bread dough but the added yoghurt helps keep the dough light, soft and easier to roll out than actual bread dough.

Low cost and simple to make, pide are traditionally left open at the top to allow steam to escape during the baking process.

Having experimented with pide and pide dough quite a lot over the years — since I first discovered them in Turkey — I have found that the dough is also perfect for making what the Italians call calzone. The calzone, quite literally, is a pie with pizza topping inside, a kind of folded over and closed pizza.

I haven’t come across sweet versions of pide in Turkey, although they may exist, but personal experiments with this have been well worth the effort and highly recommended.

With a dizzying array of shapes, sizes, topping and textures, Turkish pide is the country’s answer to pizza – ideal for meals at home and tiffins

Meat Pide

Ingredients
For the dough

1 teaspoon dried yeast 1 teaspoon sugar 200 ml warm water 500g plain white flour 1 teaspoon salt 125g plain yoghurt 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 egg, beaten, to use as glaze

For the filling

500g minced beef, lamb or chicken 1 medium onion, finely sliced 1 teaspoon crushed garlic 1 teaspoon crushed ginger 1 teaspoon whole cumin 1 teaspoon turmeric powder 1 teaspoon coriander powder 1 tsp ground red chilli or more if liked 250g chopped tomatoes Salt to taste A little oil for frying Grated cheese optional

Method
The dough

Pour warm water into a small bowl, add yeast and sugar and stir lightly. Leave to stand in a warm place for 5-10 minutes or until the yeast froths up.

Sift flour into a large mixing bowl. Add salt, yoghurt, oil and the yeast mixture. Mix until a soft, but not sticky, dough is formed. Add a little warm water, if the mixture is too dry, or a little flour if it is too wet. Turn out on to a floured board/surface and knead well for about 10 minutes. Return the dough to the mixing bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and let stand in a warm place for about one hour, until the dough rises and doubles in size.

When the dough has risen, divide it into 8 equal pieces. Knead each piece thoroughly, on a floured surface. Roll out in a circle shape, about 6 inches across and an eighth of an inch thick.

Place 2 tablespoons of the filling in the centre of each circle, spreading it out but leaving an inch of a margin around the sides. Top the filling with some grated cheese if you like.

Lightly brush the margins with some of the egg glaze and then carefully fold up each side of the dough, pulling it over the filling yet leaving the centre part of the filling exposed. It’s a bit like making an envelope from scratch, and this envelope holds the filling firmly in place.

Lightly glaze the surface of the dough with the beaten egg prior to baking.

The filling

Lightly fry the sliced onion, ginger, garlic and spices in a deep frying pan until the onions are transparent. Add the minced meat, chopped tomatoes and salt to taste. Continue cooking, on a medium heat, stirring often to completely break up the meat, until the meat is cooked and the mixture is moist but fairly dry. This should take about 15- 20 minutes.

Bake the finished pastries/pide in a medium oven until golden brown. This will take 15-20 minutes. Serve with fries, a salad or simply enjoy them as a snack, as they do in Turkey.

Alternative fillings

Meat-stuffed pastries/pide are delicious, especially those with added cheese, but those filled with fried onions, a beaten egg and grated cheese are mouthwatering too.

This kind of pastry/pide is really a light bread and can also be stuffed with leftover curried vegetables, a potato-mince curry, or whatever else you may have lying around waiting to be used up. Versatile as they are, they can also be filled with jam or fruit and served with ice cream for a sweet, yet very different treat.

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 16th, 2022