Cheese Sausage and Olive Pide Pies

My eight year old son Joey made Dukkah from his cook book tonight. We had it with some Turkish bread dipped in good olive oil. Then I made some Pide's for dinner along with a Turkish Spoon Salad.

It rained overnight. Everyone left the house this morning to go to volleyball training. It was quiet when they left. I ate my breakfast and then wondered around the garden in my gumboots and nightie taking photos of tiny spiders in their lacy webs and architectural passion fruit flowers.


Cheese, Sausage and Olive Pide Pies
from Greg Malouf's Turquoise: A Chef's Travels in Turkey
Makes 6

For the Dough:
1 tablespoon of dried yeast
A pinch of caster sugar
375ml warm water
480 g strong bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
60 ml extra-virgin olive oil

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in 125 ml of the warm water and set aside in a warm place for about 10 minutes until frothy. Use your fingers to work 90 g of the flour into the yeast to make a sloppy paste. Sprinkle lightly with a little flour, then cover with a tea towel and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes to form a 'sponge'.

Put the remaining flour and the salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the sponge, oil and remaining water. Use your fingers to work it to a soft, sloppy dough. Don't panic: it is meant to be very sticky!

Transfer to an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook and knead on a low speed for 10-15 minutes until very smooth and springy. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, then cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rest at room temperature for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

For the Topping:
250g haloumi, washed and finely sliced
150g mozzaerella, finely sliced
18 kalamata olives, pitted and cut in half
1 green capsicum, seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
120g sausage (the original recipe called for sucuk, but I used chorizo)
1 egg yolk
50 ml milk

Cut the dough into 6 even portions and leave, covered, to rest for 30 minutes.

When ready to bake the pide, preheat the oven to its highest setting with two pizza stones or oiled baking sheets in it.

To make the topping, mix the cheeses, olives, green capsicum and oil in a large bowl.
Roll each portion of dough on a lightly floured work surface to form a long rectangle, around 35x10cm. Scatter a sixth of the topping down the pide, leaving a 2cm border around the edge. Lie some sausage down the centre. Quickly fold up the two long sides of the dough, bringing them up and over the topping, but without meeting in the middle. Squeeze the sides together at each end, twisting slightly, so that the pide looks like a long canoe. Mix the egg yolk and milk to make an egg wash, then brush the dough with a little of this. Carefully transfer two pides to the hot stones or trays and bake for 7 minutes.

Eat hot from the oven sprinkled with a little sea salt.