MainsSnacks & starters Turkish (Black Sea)
Mushroom and cheese pide
Boat-shaped Turkish flatbread made with a simple homemade yeast dough, filled with browned mushrooms and plenty of melting kaşar cheese, and baked at the oven's highest heat.
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 20 min
- Rest
- 1 hr 10 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Medium
Button mushroom
Pide is Turkey's answer to pizza: a boat-shaped flatbread with crisp, golden edges and a molten filling, sold in every pide salonu across the country. This version, mantarlı kaşarlı pide, is filled with mushrooms and kaşar, a mild, stretchy Turkish cheese. The two secrets to getting it right at home are a really hot oven and a dry filling, so we brown the mushrooms well and let them cool before they go on the dough.
The dough is easier than you think: while it rises for an hour, you make the filling. About 50 minutes of hands-on time, plus rising and resting.
Ingredients
Tick them off as you go.
Dough
Filling
To finish
Method
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-
Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add the lukewarm water and olive oil, bring together with a spoon and then your hands, and knead on the worktop for 8–10 minutes until soft, smooth and slightly tacky. Put it in an oiled bowl, cover and leave somewhere warm for about 1 hour, until doubled in size.
~10 min -
While the dough rises, make the filling. Heat the butter and olive oil in a wide frying pan over a high heat and add the mushrooms. Cook for 7–8 minutes until their liquid has evaporated and they start to brown. Add the peppers, salt, chilli flakes and black pepper, cook for 2 minutes more, then leave to cool completely. A wet filling makes soggy pide, so there should be no liquid left in the pan.
~10 min -
Heat the oven to its highest setting, 250 °C (conventional, top and bottom heat), with a baking tray or pizza stone inside. Knock back the risen dough and divide it into 4 equal pieces. Roll each one out on a floured worktop into a long oval about 30 x 12 cm.
~8 min -
Scatter two thirds of the cheese down the middle of each oval, leaving a 2 cm border, top with the mushroom filling and then the rest of the cheese. Fold the long sides inwards and pinch and twist the ends firmly to make the classic boat shape. Brush the dough edges with the egg yolk and leave to rest for 10 minutes.
~6 min -
Slide the pide on baking paper onto the hot tray and bake on a lower-middle shelf for 8–10 minutes, until the crust is deep golden, the cheese is bubbling and spotted brown, and the base sounds hollow when tapped. If they don't all fit, bake them two at a time.
~14 min -
Brush the crusts with melted butter as soon as they come out of the oven, cut into slices and serve hot, ideally with a glass of ayran.
~2 min
Enjoy!
The mushroom in this recipe
Mushroom swaps
- Chestnut mushroom Agaricus bisporusGives a darker, more aromatic filling; cook it the same way.
Oyster mushroom Pleurotus ostreatusTear into thin strips; it releases less water, so it browns faster.
Shiitake Lentinula edodesDiscard the stalks; mixing it half and half with button mushrooms keeps the flavour balanced.
Tips
- Don't put the pide in until the oven and tray are fully hot; that's what gives you a crisp base.
- If the dough keeps springing back as you roll it, let it rest for 5 minutes and try again.
- Putting some cheese under the filling and some on top binds everything together and browns beautifully.
- Crack an egg into the middle for the last 2 minutes to make the classic egg-topped version.
Storage
Pide is best eaten straight from the oven. Wrap any leftovers once cool and keep in the fridge for up to 2 days; reheat in a 200 °C oven for 5–6 minutes to crisp it up again.
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