My Gozleme with spinach and cheddar 🌿🧀

Hello All, I hope you all had a good Christmas 🎄 break or at least, as good as it can be given the circumstances! Leftovers are almost all gone (apart of the cheese!) from my fridge so I have been cooking with cupboard and frozen items today (limiting my outings). One of the recipe on my list to test out was something called “Gozleme” that I had for the first time when I went to Antalya, Turkey on holidays (Ha, holidays, distant memories!) and that was absolutely delicious!

Gozleme is a kind of savory flatbread/pancake that can be stuffed with a variety of fillings like minced meat or veggies (spinach, onions, courgette etc), cheese and/or herbs. It is great as a snack for picnic as it is portable and can be eaten cold but I do love them warm from the pan dipped in a yogurt sauce (I know, not specially traditional but it still works great!).

The ones I tried so far were not specially IBS friendly as it contained onion/garlic most of the time which is unfortunately one of my trigger food!🚫🧅🧄😫 That is why I decided to try my own fillings by making them from scratch and still enjoy them.

I’m fine with gluten in reasonable quantity but I know there are some recipes out there made with gluten free flour if you are intolerant to it or if you are still in your low FODMAP elimination phase diet!

But if you are like me, then read on for this store cupboard/freezer recipe 😊:

My Gozleme with spinach and cheddar 🌿🧀

Servings: 4

Time required: 50 minutes

Equipment required: rolling pin

Ingredients

180 g of white flour
90 mL of lukewarm water
pinch of salt
1.5 tbsp of olive oil

For the filling:

8 pallets of frozen spinach
120 g of mature cheddar cheese
Black pepper

Serving suggestions:

Fat free Greek yogurt with chives
Lemon wedges

Instructions

Mix the flour, water, salt and olive oil in a bowl until it forms roughly a ball then transfer it to a clean surface to knead the dough for 5 minutes or until the dough springs back to the touch
Leave the dough to rest under a wet cloth whilst you get on with the filling
Pour some boiling water onto the spinach in a bowl to defrost them then squeeze out all the water and reserve them for the filling stage
Split the dough into 4 equal balls then using a rolling pin, flatten each portion as much as you can (try to reach no more that 1 mm thickness) adding flour to avoid the dough sticking to the work surface
Add a layer of spinach, some black pepper and 30 g of grated cheese in a rectangular shape in the middle of the flattened dough (see pictures below) then fold the edges to form the rectangle around the filling
Using your floured rolling pin, roll over the rectangle a few times to flatten it out again without breaking the dough
Spray some oil in a a frying pan at medium-high heat then grill the flatbread on both sides until golden brown (they might puff up and at this point, I pierce a little hole to let the air escape)
To serve, cut the gozleme into slices ready to be dipped in the yogurt and chives sauce or with a squeeze of lemon all over!