Turkish Pide With Beef

Pide, also known as boat shaped Turkish pizza, is a wonderful fast food that nobody can refuse. It is a type of flatbread with crispy edges stuffed with various fillings. Our favorite filling is with beef, onions and peppers. Sometimes we top it with cheese or break an egg in the middle of it to take our joy to the next level.

Pide is a stuffed bread like Turkish gozleme. It makes a wonderful lunch or dinner when paired with a glass of cold ayran, a drink made with yogurt, salt and water. If you are looking for the bread version to pair with your dips or soups, go check out our homemade pide bread recipe.

What Is Pide?

Don’t you know what pide is? Sorry but you are missing a lot! It is one of the best Turkish fast foods. It is like a boat shaped, folded version of pizza. Although lahmacun is considered as a Turkish style pizza by many non-Turkish people, pide matches the concept of pizza better because the dough for pizza and pide is the same. Plus lahmacun is way thinner than pizza and we top it with some salad, squeeze lemon, roll it up and then eat. 

While lahmacun is made only with ground meat topping, pide filling is customizable.  Chopped beef (mini pieces), ground lamb or beef, spinach, cheese, egg, sujuk and pastirma/pastrami. The most popular two types of pide are Beef Pide(Kusbasili Pide) and pide with ground beef (Kıymalı Pide). No matter what the stuffing is, it is always an irresistible food for everyone! 

It is not very common to make it at home in Turkey as there is always a pideci (bakery making pide) near you. But we have been making it at home since we moved to the UK. And you know what? This homemade pide is so good! Our son says it is as good as the ones he used to eat at the local restaurants in Turkey.

By the way, there is a special bread in Turkish cuisine called Ramazan pidesi. So please don’t confuse it with this recipe. It is very much like pita bread, has a round or oval shape, topped with nigella seeds and is made during Ramadan.

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How To Make Pide Recipe

The greatest thing about this recipe is that it’s so easy and anyone can make it. You will definitely get better at shaping it with some experience. 

• First, make the dough. Mix flour, yeast, salt, sugar, olive oil and water until well combined and you end up with a soft and smooth dough. Don’t overplay with the dough. Cover it and let it rise for an hour.
• Next, prepare the filling mixture while waiting for the dough to rise. Put chopped beef into a pan, pour ¼ cup water over it and cook over medium low heat, about 40 minutes. Let it release its water and absorb it back. When the water is almost gone, add olive oil and stir. Cover and cook it for 5 minutes. Then add in onions and peppers, stir and cover. Cook until they get tender, but not mushy. About 10-15 minutes. Add spices as the final step. Let it cool completely.
• Now it is time to shape the dough and stuff it. Dust the counter with little flour and transfer the dough on it. Knead it for 4-5 minutes. Make a log from it and cut it into 5 equal pieces if you want large pides or 10 pieces if you want them smaller. Roll them into balls and cover with a clean kitchen towel so that they don’t dry. Grab one of the balls  and roll it out giving an oval shape and carefully transfer it on the baking sheet. Put a few tablespoons of the filling on it, leaving the edges empty. Fold two sides towards the center and combine and seal the ends to give it a boat shape. Brush all the edges with olive oil. Bake it for 10-12 minutes until golden.

Toppings:

If you want an egg topping, remove it after 10 minutes, break an egg in the middle and then bake for another 5 minutes. We don’t use all the egg white, just a little with the yolk. But it’s up to you. Just be careful so that the egg white won’t overflow.

If you want cheese topping, remove it from the oven after 12 minutes and bake for another 2 minutes or until the cheese melts.

Can I Make Pide Vegetarian?

Yes. you can. The most common vegetarian fillings are:

• Spinach and egg filling: To prepare the spinach filling, cook chopped spinach in a pan with olive oil and onions. Season with salt and black pepper and let it cool completely. Shape the dough, fill it with spinach, break an egg in the middle (or whisk the egg beforehand) and bake until the edges golden.
• Cheese filling: This is for Cheese Borek lovers because the filling is almost the same. Combine feta with chopped parsley and an egg very well. Fill the shaped dough with this filling. If you want, you can break an egg on it and bake.

How Do You Eat Authentic Turkish Pide?

Traditionally this boat shaped Turkish pizza is sliced and then served. But the slices mostly stay in their places. I guess this is to show the size of the boat. And no fork is needed. Just dig in!

It is mostly paired with Shepherd Salad during summer time and green salad in winter. As for the drink, ayran is the best to serve with pides.

As always: If you make this recipe–or any recipes on Give Recipe–let us know what you think by leaving a comment below. And post a pic on Instagram too—tag @give_recipe so we can see!

Other Turkish Recipes

• Baklava With Walnuts and Pistachio
• Pogaca With Cheese Filling
• Homemade Turkish Dumplings
• Simit Bread Recipe
• Turkish Lahmacun Recipe
• Homemade Bursa Iskender Kebab

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