We call these ‘Turkish Pizza’ in our house, but the lovely Turkish family take-away who makes the real Pides that we adore would probably never serve us again if they new we were calling this concoction ‘Turkish’ anything! But I can’t think of a better name, and regardless of what we call it, it is an easy delicious alternative to the cheesey pizza we all know and love.
This ‘Turkish Pizza’ used the same pizza dough that I use for our regular pizzas, pizza rolls and pizza pockets. It’s quick and easy to make up a batch of pizza dough in the bread machine, or even by hand, and it freezes well too. The amount of dough in the recipe is enough to make up three big Turkish Pizzas and you can fill them with anything you like, anything that goes well with the delicious cumin, garlic and paprika spices.
| Not Really Turkish Spiced Meat Pizza |
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Dough
- 250ml of warm water
- 2 teaspoons of yeast
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 3 tables spoons of olive oil
- 500grams of flour (bread flour works best, or add bread improver)
- a pinch of salt.
- a little olive oil
- 400gms minced beef or lamb
- 1 red onion finely diced
- 1 clove of garlic finely diced
- 1 zucchini finely diced or grated
- a handful of spinach or silverbeet/chard shredded
- 1 teaspoon (or more) of cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon of paprkia – sweet or hot
- a little water if needed.
Spiced Meat Filling
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For the Dough:
- Add the yeast and sugar to the warm water and set it aside for a few minutes until it bubbles.
- Combine the flour and salt in the bread machine bowl (or a mixing bowl if you are mixing and kneading by hand).
- Add the olive oil to the yeast mixture and mix gently then pour into the flour.
- Set your bread machine to dough and let it mix everything together add a little more water if needed during mixing, then let it knead and rise your dough.
- If mixing by hand, mix well, adding more water if needed, then knead on a floured surface for five minutes, pop into a greased bowl, cover with glad wrap and leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours or until doubled in size.
- Pop a little olive oil in a hot pan and cook the onion and garlic until soft. Add the minced meat and cook well, breaking up all the lumps as you go. Add the zucchini, spinach, cumin and paprika (we always add loads of cumin!) and cook over a moderate heat until the zucchini is soft. Add a little water to the mix as you cook it if needed, you don’t want it to dry out.
- Pre-heat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius (about 420 F).
- Grease three large oven trays, or line with baking paper.
- Once dough has risen, pop in on a floured surface and knead lightly to knock all the air out of it.
- Divide it into three equal portions and roll each out thinly, into a roughly oval shape
- Pop the rolled out dough onto the trays, spread the filling in the centre of each oval them wrap it up like a present. Fold the ends in first, then the sides.
- Bake in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown on top.
- Serve with a huge tomato, basil and cucumber salad with balsamic dressing and loads of yoghurt, garlic and mint dip.
For the Filling:
Putting it Together:
[img src=”https://picklebums.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/turkish-pizza-in-recipe.jpg” alt=”turkish pizza” title=”Not at All Authentic Turkish Spiced Meat Pizza” width=”400″ height=”604″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-11981″ /]
We love the simple spiced mince beef in this ‘pizza’ but we also enjoy a great vegetarian version with spinach, zucchini and some diced tomatoes which would be vegan friendly too. You can add feta or similar cheese if you wish but these are delicious without cheese, served with a big cucumber and tomato salad and loads of yoghurt and mint dip!
And now I have a hankering to eat the real deal and go to a Turkish restaurant!
Do you love Turkish food?
What’s your favourite Turkish or Middle Eastern meal?
Those do look good. I think I’ll have to try one next weekend when I can’t face making soup again!
I have never made anything turkish before…but that looks SO yummy!!! im not the best cook but think i shall give it a go!