I live in a place dominated by Turkish culture. Green Lanes in Tottenham is home to some of the best restaurants and cafes, where after having all the koftas, shish, doners and many more you can get some unforgettable baklava with tea. Many cafes sell freshly made gozlemes. I promised one to Helena, but decided to set the bar higher and make them myself.

Mieszkam w miejscu, gdzie dominuje kultura turecka. Green Lanes w Tottenham to lokalizacja kilku z najlepszych restauracji i kawiarni, gdzie po zjedzeniu tych wszystkich koft, shish, donerów i wielu innych, możesz spróbować zniewalająco pysznej baklawy z herbatą. Wiele kawiarni przygotowuje świeże gozlemy. Obiecałem Helence jednego, ale postanowiłem podnieść sobie poprzeczkę i zrobić go samemu.

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What are they precisely? A thin yeast-based dough wrapped around a filling, baked on a steel surface. The restaurants usually have a special cooker in the front window and one or two ladies rolling the dough, wrapping the filling and baking them.

I made mines on a barbecue, using a cast iron baking stone. I put it partially over the charcoal to have a hot and a cold side. This way I can control the baking time by moving them around. You can easily make them on a frying pan as well.

I was surprised to see how quickly they get done.

I found the recipe on Ozlemsturkishtable.com. I made a filling inspired by the one they were suggesting, but we had some other left from making pierogi the other day, so we used it as well. You can put pretty much anything inside. The last one I made was with bacon and halloumi cheese.  The general rule is to get it reasonably flat so that the filling bakes quickly. Just remember that some types of filling take longer to be prepared than others.

Gozleme with ruskie filling

Planning

Get the barbecue hot if you use it, then make the dough, prepare the filling when the dough is proofing, roll the dough and wrap the filling, bake one while preparing another. Getting from nothing to baking took me one hour (including setting up a barbecue).

Make sure the baking surface is hot and the dough is not too sticky. If it is hot, the crust will form and the dough will move around very easily after a couple seconds, but it always sticks at first.

Gozleme with spinach filling

Ingredients

Makes 5-6 flatbreads.

The dough

• 400 g plain wheat flour
• pinch of salt
• 7 g of active dry yeast
• 45 ml olive oil
• 30 ml yogurt. The original recipe mentions fat yogurt. I don’t know how fat is a fat yogurt, so I simply used a Greek style one – it felt it would be the right type
• 260 ml warm water (150 ml to dissolve the yeast and 110 ml to the final dough)

The filling

For the pierogi one visit Dumplings. Pierogi.

For the spinach based one (the preparation involves putting everything in a bowl and kneading with hand until it becomes a sort of a paste):

• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 200 g washed spinach leaves, coarsely chopped
• 200-240 g cheese (first time I used feta cheese, other time I used simple Polish quark; feta gave stronger flavour, but the quark was really good too)
• 2-3 chilli peppers, chopped (to spice things up)
• salt, pepper (to taste)

Preparation

1. Dissolve yeast in 150 ml of warm water, put aside for 5 minutes to get active

2. Mix all the dough ingredients

3. Divide the dough into balls. The autors made 5, I made 6. They put them floured on a worktop and cover with a cloth, I put them into a bowl. They stuck together so I was simply scooping out portions of dough and was very happy with the result

4. Leave for 30 minutes. Prepare the filling now

5. Take a portion of dough and roll it flat. Put the filling on one side and cover with other, then pinch the edges together. I tried a couple techniques: just pressing with fingers pressing with a fork,  using a folded margin. All worked ok. If I trapped air, I pricked it with fork to release it

   

   Filling the gozleme

6. Bake on each side. Flip regularly to warm up the filling without burning the dough. Using the cast iron i put it partially over the fire, having a hot and a warm side. I could juggle the breads to get the perfect effect

   

   Baking the gozleme

7. Eat and enjoy

I wasn’t able to get them as flat and big as the ladies make them. I think it has a lot to do with lack of my rolling skills and not having such a nice thin rolling pin (broom stick thin).

You can eat them hot, you can have them cold the following day. Or heat them up.

Dad, we still need more pictures!

The first time I didn’t have any yogurt available, so I used milk instead. Yogurt works better.

I did the rolling and wrapping in the garden which was very handy, as I could do some mess without a lot of cleaning and could look at the barbecue while rolling the dough. Highly recommended.

Workstation

Helena demanded that I make them every day now. She even stops asking for one in front of a shop when told I would be making them. Guess that’s all the feedback that I need.