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Recipe
6 min read
Sourdough Türkish Pide with Spiced Lamb, Roasted Peppers & Sumac Yoghurt
A sourdough Turkish pide recipe with spiced lamb, roasted peppers and sumac yoghurt. Crisp base, fluffy edges, proper spring baking project.
Photo by Abhishek K. Singh on UnsplashThe smell of cumin and lamb hitting a hot oven is one of those things that makes the whole flat feel alive. This is sourdough pide, the boat-shaped Turkish flatbread that sits somewhere between a pizza and a stuffed flatbread, and it is genuinely one of the most satisfying things you can make on a spring weekend when you have a few hours and a ripe starter ready to go.
Pide gets overlooked in the sourdough world, which is a shame because the dough is a dream to work with. It is soft, slightly enriched, and the long edges you fold up to cradle the filling mean you get this brilliant contrast of crisp base, pillowy border, and a juicy, spiced centre. The sourdough version adds a gentle tang that plays really well against the richness of the lamb and the brightness of sumac. It is the kind of bake that impresses people without requiring you to stress about it, which is exactly the right energy for April.
Dough
- 400g strong white bread flour
- 100g plain flour
- 100g active sourdough starter (100% hydration)
- 280g warm water
- 20g olive oil
- 8g (1½ tsp) fine sea salt
- 5g (1 tsp) honey
Spiced Lamb Filling
- 400g lamb mince
- 1 small white onion, finely grated
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 roasted red pepper (jarred is fine), finely chopped
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp chilli flakes
- Small bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- Salt and black pepper to taste
To Finish
- 200g full-fat Greek yoghurt
- 1 tsp sumac
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- Extra sumac, fresh parsley and lemon wedges to serve
- Olive oil for brushing
Baker's Tips
- The filling needs to go on raw. Do not pre-cook the lamb. It cooks through in the oven and releases just enough fat to keep the base from drying out. Pre-cooking it will make it dry and grainy by the time it comes out.
- Pide bakes fast and hot. You want your oven at its maximum, ideally 260–280°C with a baking stone or heavy steel preheated for at least 45 minutes. Anything less and the base will be pale and a bit sad.
- If you are scaling up to bake pide for a bigger group or tracking costs across multiple bakes, the DoughRise Bakery plan is worth a look. It handles commercial batch scaling, bakery cost reporting, and team accounts up to five people, so if you are running a small operation or supper club this stuff, the numbers are actually useful.
METHOD
- Mix the dough. In a large bowl, combine the warm water, active starter, honey and olive oil. Stir briefly to combine, then add both flours and the salt. Mix until no dry flour remains. The dough will feel fairly soft but not sticky. Cover and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
- Stretch and fold. Over the next 2 hours, perform 4 sets of stretch and folds, spaced about 30 minutes apart. For each set, grab one side of the dough, stretch it upward, and fold it over the centre. Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat four times. By the end, the dough should feel noticeably stronger and smoother. Cover and leave to bulk ferment at room temperature (ideally around 24°C) for a further 3–5 hours, until it has grown by roughly 50–70% and feels airy when you gently press it. Spring kitchens in London can vary wildly , a warm afternoon speeds this up considerably, so keep an eye on it rather than just watching the clock. You can also use the bulk fermentation calculator to dial in timing for your kitchen temperature.
- Make the filling. While the dough ferments, combine the lamb mince, grated onion, garlic, roasted pepper, spices, parsley, salt and pepper in a bowl. Mix well with your hands until evenly combined. Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to assemble. Keep it cold right up until it goes on the dough.
- Divide and pre-shape. Once the bulk ferment is done, turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into four equal pieces (roughly 225g each). Shape each piece into a loose ball, cover with a damp cloth, and rest for 20 minutes. This relaxes the gluten and makes shaping much easier.
Why this works
Resting the dough balls after dividing gives the gluten a chance to relax after the tension of shaping. When gluten is tight, the dough springs back as you try to stretch it, fighting you the whole way. A 20-minute bench rest lets the network loosen just enough to roll and stretch without tearing. It is the same reason pasta dough rests before rolling. Skipping it is one of the most common reasons pide and flatbread shapes end up wonky.
INTO THE OVEN
- Shape the pide. On a lightly floured surface, take one dough ball and stretch or roll it into an oval roughly 30cm long and 15cm wide. It should be about 3–4mm thick in the centre. Transfer to a piece of baking parchment. Spread a quarter of the lamb filling across the centre, leaving a 2–3cm border around the edge. Fold the long edges up over the filling, pinching the ends firmly to form the boat shape. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.
- Bake. Preheat your oven to its maximum temperature (260–280°C / Gas Mark 10 if your oven goes that high) with a baking stone or heavy baking sheet inside. Slide two pide at a time onto the hot surface using the baking parchment as a sling. Bake for 10–12 minutes until the edges are deep golden and the lamb is cooked through with a few slightly caramelised spots. Brush the edges with olive oil as soon as they come out of the oven.
- Make the sumac yoghurt. Stir the sumac and lemon juice through the Greek yoghurt with a pinch of salt. Taste and adjust. It should be tangy and bright.
- Serve immediately. These are best eaten hot, straight from the oven, with a generous spoonful of sumac yoghurt alongside, a few extra parsley leaves scattered over, and lemon wedges for squeezing. A cold beer does not hurt either.
Want to dial in this recipe for different batch sizes or flour blends? Use the free DoughRise Baker's Percentage Calculator to calculate exactly the right ratios for your flour and batch size.
Happy baking! Find everything you need at doughrise.store
Photo by Abhishek K. Singh on Unsplash