Turkish Pizza Bread (Pide)

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 9
Bake of the Day: Turkish Pizza - Pide
After all the breads and loaves posts, today I have a recipe for a slightly different pizza. It's pizza from Turkey called Pide. It is a soft and chewy bread that is made with yogurt and traditionally shaped with a slight hollow that can accommodate any number of fillings.

Pide is essentially a boat shaped bread that is used as a pizza base and can be filled with grilled veggies, cheese, eggs. Even sweet fillings like fruit and custard can be used as fillings and served as cake.

I saw the recipe for this pizza in 'Veggiestan: A vegetable lover's tour of the Middle East' cookbook by Sally Butcher. Knowing my family's love for pizza, I tried this for them right away. The pizza base was soft and the shape so interesting that it was an instant hit. My husband said this was the best homemade pizza he ever had.

The dough is very easy to work with, even my son wanted to knead it and as you can see another hand is also sneaking up to help him :-)

I kept the fillings simple, just some pizza sauce with spinach, onions, corn and cheese. You can get creative with the fillings and have fun. In any case, this pizza is sure to be a hit every time it's made.
The next 2 pics show how to make the boat shaped pizza. I found it easy to shape after placing the fillings in the middle.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 2cups
Whole wheat flour - 1⅓cups
Instant Yeast - 2¼tsp

Sugar - ½tsp 

Salt - 1tsp
Greek Yogurt - 2tbsp
Olive Oil - 2tbsp
Lukewarm Water - ⅔~1cup
Soy milk - 2tbsp (or use 1 lightly whisked egg)
Seeds of Choice (Mustard, Nigella, Sesame & Caraway) - 1tbsp (optional)

Method:

• Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Start with ⅔cup water and add more water as needed to form a smooth, pliable dough. Knead for 6~7 minutes on a stand mixer or 10~12 minutes by hand.
• Transfer to a lightly greased bowl, cover and set aside for 1½~2 hours or until doubled in volume.
• Gently deflate the dough and then knead it a little more. Divide it into 2 balls and form each one into a pointed oval shape, pinching the edges to form a fat rim -- almost like a boat. Actually any shape can be made, but this torpedo shape is the most traditional. 
• Cover the loaves and set aside for another 20 minutes to rise a little more.
• Preheat the oven to 450°F. Place a pizza stone or couple of greased baking sheets in the oven to heat up. 
• Brush the loaves with the egg wash (or soy milk) and sprinkle with seeds (if using). Fill the inside with the choice of toppings and slide each pizza onto the hot baking sheets and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy hot!! 

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 51.

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