Turkish Bread (Pide)

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One of the foods I miss most from Australia is Turkish bread or pide. In Australia it's common to have as a sandwich bread or for dips, in Berlin it holds the amazing doner kebabs. In the US, or at least in the Bay Area it's completely unknown and sadly unavailable. When I visited Australia for a few days for work recently I didn't have time to visit any family but the first meal I had was a sandwich on Turkish bread.

This weekend I've been trying to cook Turkish bread. A minor mix-up with units ruined my first attempt, on Saturday. I tried fixing it by adding the right amount of flour and ended up with a bread, but it wasn't what I was after. Today I got it right.

I'm pretty much using the recipe from SBS, but here's more precisely what I did.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon (2 x 7 g sachets) dried yeast
• 1 pinch caster / extra fine / bakers sugar
• 375ml warm water
• 480g strong bread flour
• 1tsp salt
• 60ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 free-range eggs
• 50 ml milk
• nigella and / or sesame seeds

Steps

1. Dissolve the sugar and yeast in 125ml of the warm water in a medium bowl. Set it aside until it froths, about 10 minutes.
2. Mix in 90g of the flour, using fingers if you have to. It will be a quite liquid almost batter-like consistency. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes as it forms a sponge. It will at least double in size so make sure that your bowl has room.
3. Put the remaining flour (390g) and the salt in the bowl for an electric mixer. Make a well in the center and add the rest of the warm water (250ml), the sponge and the olive oil. Mix it with your fingers - it will be pretty wet and sloppy.
4. Use the mixer's dough hook to kneed the sloppy dough for 10 to 15 minutes, until it's smooth and springy.
5. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and leave it covered with a tea towel until it has doubled in size, about an hour.
6. Preheat the oven as hot as it will go with a large pizza stone - big enough to hold two pide.
7. Divide the dough into two and form rounds on a lightly floured surface. Dust them with flour (to prevent sticking) and cover them with a tea towel for about half an hour.
8. Make an egg wash by mixing the eggs and milk.
9. Place a piece of parchment paper on a pizza peel, then flatten the dough rounds into 20cm long ovals onto the peel.
10. Brush the dough ovals with egg wash. Dip your fingertips into the wash and drag them lengthwise down the dough to form the grooves.
11. Sprinkle with nigella and / or sesame seeds
12. Slip the dough ovals on the parchment paper onto the pizza stone and bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes.