[Um....so it's been a while since my last post - there have been various things which have kept me from blogging, including the absence of the Photographer at the time when the food is being made (apologies for the delay). This time I tried to take matters into my (slightly less than capable) hands so there are slightly less photos than usual.]
For a long time, I have been reminiscing about Turkish Gözleme - an Australian market staple. Pretty much a filled fried bread, but light and amazing. Alone early on a Friday evening, I was hoping to find a good recipe for this which would disguise the spinach enough for the Photographer to eat.
Looking for the recipe, I stumbled upon the blog Almost Bourdain. Fascinated by our shared experiences of Sydney - she too has a story about Petersham Chicken and even has a recipe for it which I am dying to try - I read many blog posts in a row. Then I recreated her Gözleme, albeit with the more traditional filling of spinach and feta (and adding sausage to some to try and get the Photographer to eat them).
Turns out I didn't even need to add the sausage....
Gözleme
(adapted from Almost Bourdain)
Dough
3 cups plain flour
2 tsp salt
7 g sachet dried yeast
1 tsp castor sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water
Filling
2 bunches swiss chard, english spinach or baby spinach
2 cloves garlic
150g feta, crumbled
2-3 spicy sausages, e.g. mettenden or chorizo (optional)
Salt and pepper
Olive oil for frying
Lemon wedges to serve
In the bowl of your mixer place your flour, salt, yeast sugar and cup of the water. Begin to mix with the dough hook and add the last 1/4 cup of water gradually until the dough begins to form. You have added too much when the dough looks wet and starts to stick to the sides again (check out these pics for more info on kneading yeast dough).
Once the dough is smooth and not sticky (after about 5 min with the dough hook), oil a baking sheet. Divide the dough into 8 pieces and cover loosely and place in a warm place (often an oven, preheated to the lowest setting before and then switched off works well)
Leave to rise until doubled in size.
While the dough is rising, rinse your spinach.
Chop it finely.
Heat your frying pan over medium heat. Add olive oil and garlic.
Add the spinach.
Fry until cooked (or just wilted for the less tenacious varieties)
When the spinach is done, remove to a bowl and thinly slice and fry your sausages.
Once the dough is doubled in size, take one portion and roll it out thinly on a floured board.
Add the spinach.
Feta.
Sausages (if you are trying to trick a carnivore into eating vegetables) and salt and pepper to taste.
Fold the dough over and fold the edges over to seal like so:
Heat your frying pan to medium-hot. Add a little olive oil and the Gözleme.
Once you see the "brown eyes"which apparently give Gözleme their name, flip it over.
Once the second side it cooked, remove from the pan and serve hot with lemon wedges
If you have any left over dough, put in in the fridge and use the next morning for Breakfast Pizza :). [Note: The pizza tastes great and bubbles beautifully but using plain flour means that you don't get the same crispy base. Still tastes great!]
