GOZLEME (FLATBREAD WITH FILLING)

Gozleme is a traditional Turkish specialty, I first tried it in Turkey. If you go to Skopje Old bazaar or visit Macedonian cities like Tetovo or Gostivar, you can find gozleme in local bakeries where owners are Turks. Before I tried it, I mixed the name with our gomleze, then I saw that it is a food completely different from gomleze. Gozleme is a kind of closed thin pie with filling. My favorite is with minced meat or spinach and feta cheese. 
This was my first attempt to make it at home after eating it for the last time two years ago in Turkey, and it was really delicious and well made, or as the Turks would say - taman :)


Ingredients:
  • 1 cup hot water
  • 1 sachet dry yeast
  • half a teaspoon of sugar
  • 3 tablespoons oil
  • half a teaspoon of salt
  • flour about 400 g (14 oz)
Filling (optional):
  • a mixture of spinach, feta cheese, cheese and a little onion
Preparation:
  1. First put the yeast in warm water with a little sugar and wait for it to start to foam.
  2. Then add the flour gradually as needed, add salt and oil and knead soft dough. Leave the dough to stand for 1 hour on a warm place.
  3. Then divide dough into 8 parts and transform each part into a ball.
  4. Stretch each ball into a thin rectangular/oval crust with a rolling pin, place the spinach filling on one side of the crust and overlapped with the other end of the crust.

  5. Put thus prepared gozleme on an oiled pan to bake on the hot plate at medium heat for a few minutes on one side, then before flipping over, coat gozleme with oil from the top and turn to bake on the other side.
  6. Arrange ready gozleme one on another for several minutes, then cut on half and consume while warm.