Sourdough Surprises Gozleme

I love when I get to learn about new dishes and this month Sourdough Surprises is serving up something wholly new but somewhat familiar. Gozleme is a Turkish pastry that consists of a thin dough filled with meat, vegetables and/or eggs. The name refers to the little eyes ("goz") /brown circles  that form on the dough when it's cooked. I read somewhere that there were sweet fillings available too but I could not find any specific flavours. I love that almost every country/region has some form of filling wrapped dough. I guess in Jamaica we would have beef/chicken patties (flaky pastry filled with ground meat). Hello, instant craving. Let me get back to gozleme

I loved the gozleme but the dough just did not love me. I expected trouble. I have gotten a lot better at rolling out dough but it's still not perfect.I would never be like those ladies in the videos I watched of gozleme-making. I did have a dough recipe that has never given me trouble and thought it would be perfect for this. I added some yogurt because one vendor said that it stopped the gozleme from becoming brittle. But my dough was just too soft. And even with a cold bulk ferment, rolling it was a nightmare. I didn't understand. I weighed everything. Why was my "perfect" dough suddenly sticky and tearing each time I tried to roll it? Maybe it was because I was rushing to get them ready for lunch with a friend, I thought. I ate the batch myself and decided that I would try again when I was not in a hurry.

I ditched the yogurt for the next round.  But my nice firm dough still became way too soft dough when I was ready to roll it out. As I swore at my suddenly non-existent dough making skills, I peered outside at the heavy downpour. And then it hit me.

The weather.

The weather was messing with my dough. It has been humid and very wet for over a month. This meant that every dough that I made would get just a little bit wetter after sitting out for a while. On to round three - with a lot less water this time. I think that I had to almost cut the water in half for the last two loaves of bread that I made. This weather is no joke.

Round three worked out fine but I think by then I was becoming a little frustrated with gozleme. For the first batch, I had made a lovely ground turkey and vegetable filling. For the second, I used potatoes and made caramelized onions for the first time. One even used a leftover spicy cranberry sauce with the potatoes. For round three? Just potatoes. I had lost faith. Still delicious though. I  should note that the previous batches tasted great too. It's just that since I had a hard time rolling and folding because it was sticky,I didn't like how they looked.

 As I type this, I am even contemplating making some for breakfast or lunch in the morning. But you know, perhaps I will wait to see what delicious fillings everyone else came up with for this month. I need some inspiration. And of course, you do want to make gozleme so scroll down for some inspiration from those other bloggers too.

Gozleme

Filling

1/2 tablespoon oil
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 large potato, mashed
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion and garlic in the oil until softened. Add the curry powder, stir for a minute then add the potato. Season with salt and pepper. If it seems a bit dry, add a little water. Allow to cool.

Dough 

3 oz 166% Sourdough Starter
3.5 oz water
9 oz flour
1 teaspoon salt

Combine all the ingredients and knead well until it forms a homogeneous dough. Cover and let rest overnight.

Heat a large non-stick skillet on medium heat. Divide the dough into 4 ballss and cover with a damp cloth.  Take each ball and roll out to a 5 inch circle then return to each circle and roll out to larger 9-10 inch circle. Make sure that the circle is not larger than your skillet. (Oh yes, that happened to me.)

Fill half of each circle with the potato filling and fold over and seal. Place in heated pan and cook on each side until you see brown circles - about 3 minutes per side.

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