Turkish Bread Recipe For Kebab

Whatever meal you’re having, there’s nothing like fresh, homemade bread to go with it. This recipe for Turkish flatbread, known as pide, is based on long traditions, with a Middle Eastern twist for topping (though you could leave it plain or substitute sesame or nigella seeds, if you like).

To most, bread means the plain white one you can buy from any bakery. A crumbly, crispy crust and an interior so light and fluffy you could be forgiven to think there’s actually nothing there.

This bread is so ubiquitous it has become subject to the country’s health policy. Both the recipe and price is administered by a baker’s association. In recent times, bran has been added to the recipe while the salt content has been reduced to the point of making the bread entirely tasteless.

Turkish Pide Recipe

But today’s post is not about this bread. It’s about one of the best breads the Turks have to offer. The one that is brought out at more important occasions. It’s about pide.

But it’s also the name of a simpler variety, made from the same dough but without any toppings. This is often served alongside meze or other food such as kebabs in restaurants. During ramadan, a more exquisite version is available.

Today is all about the simplest of them all, though on this occasion I’ve subsituted the more traditional sprinkling of sesame seeds or nigella seeds with za’atar, the Middle Eastern herb mix. (Not at all a common topping in Turkey.)

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The recipe is based on an authentic one from Gaziantep, a region in south-eastern Turkey known for its pides (and indeed food in general). The book A Taste of Sun and Fire, a collection of local recipes from five well-known local home cooks, is a wonderful collection of recipes, and among them, of course, is pide.

I’ve made a few small adjustments to the original, but the result is much the same and equally delicious: Airy and soft, yet still slightly chewy. With lots of flavour, without running the risk of overpowering other offerings.

I’ve not stipulated exact times for proofing because the variables are too many. It will be affected by the temperature of the ingredients as well as the room (and place within it) that it’s left to rise. Since this dough contains quite a bit of years, it won’t take long in any case.

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At my place, the temperature is around 24-25 C these days (summer’s still going strong in Istanbul), and for me each of the three main rises take between 30 and 60 minutes.

That makes these pide a 2-3 hour project. If it is a little cooler where you are, it may take slightly longer.

If I have enough time, I tend to put the dough in the fridge for the second rise (that is, after all the flour has been added – see recipe below).

Turkish Flatbread With Za'atar

This doesn’t quite stop the development of the dough but it slows it down considerably, allowing flavours to develop even further. If you do this, it should be ready after 4-6 hours, but you can leave it up to 24 hours.

In fact, don’t worry if you leave it a little too long on this particular rise, because the dough will be knocked back down and have a chance to rise again.

Another way of slowing the process to extract more flavour is to use less yeast, but I don’t recommend that in this recipe – the texture of the bread just won’t be the same. It’ll surely be delicious, but more like a focaccia than a pide in texture.

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The other point I would make is about the baking itself. Pide is typically baked in a stone oven on a high heat.

The aforementioned book even suggests the best results are achieved by just bringing your desired toppings to your local bakery and have them bake it, using their own dough. But, it says “they can be made at home by preheating the oven to the highest temperature”.

I’d argue that the book is a little pessimistic. You can certainly make pide at home which tastes better than what many local bakeries offer.

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Second, place a baking stone in the oven prior to heating it. This provides heat from underneath, helping those nice big air bubbles form and keeping the temperature drop when you open the oven door to put your pide in to a minimum.

I use a custom cut piece of granite, but I’ve heard of people using bricks and other things too. A pizza stone or pizza steel is of course great for this.

And one final note. I use fresh yeast. I find it always yields superior results to dried yeast, but if it’s impractical to get it where you are, use dried. Nigella Lawson says if you use active dry yeast, halve the amount, and if you use instant yeast, use 1/4 of the amount.

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Vidar Bergum is a cookbook author and writer based in Istanbul, Turkey. He has published three books about food and food culture from Turkey and the Middle East and runs a food blog as well as a weekly newsletter on food and culture from Turkey & the Middle East.

Please note new comments are moderated before publishing and may take a few hours or days to show up. Only comments in English are accepted.

I’m Vidar. For the past few years, I’ve been exploring the foods of Turkey, the Middle East and beyond from my house in Balat, Istanbul. Let me show you around!

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