Tarihi Hocapaşa Pidecisi ★ 4.2
Tarihi Hocapaşa Pidecisi in Sirkeci, where a kıymalı pide costs under 180 lira and beats every tourist trap on the historic peninsula for the same money.
Try: Wood-oven pide
History
Pide is the Turkish flatbread cousin of pizza and Levantine manakish, with documented origins in Black Sea cooking from the 19th century. The boat shape (pide is named for the elongated form) developed in the wood-oven pidecisi shops of Trabzon and Karadeniz, and spread to Istanbul in the 20th century. Tarihi Hocapaşa Pidecisi and Borsam Taşfırın are the city's reference operators, with sucuklu-yumurtalı (sucuk and egg) and kıymalı (minced lamb) the canonical toppings.
Common allergens: Gluten, Dairy, Egg
Make it at home
Ingredients
- For the dough: 500g strong white flour
- 10g instant dried yeast
- 1 teaspoon caster sugar
- 10g salt
- 300ml warm water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- For the kıymalı topping: 400g minced lamb (around 70% lean), 1 large onion finely grated, 1 large tomato finely diced, 1 long green pepper finely diced, 2 garlic cloves minced, 2 tablespoons tomato paste, 1 teaspoon pul biber, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 tablespoon flat-leaf parsley chopped, salt and pepper
- For brushing: 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon melted butter
- 30g unsalted butter melted, to brush after baking
- Lemon wedges, sumac onions, parsley to serve
Method
- Combine flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Add warm water and olive oil; knead 8 minutes to a smooth elastic dough.
- Cover and prove 1.5 hours until doubled.
- Mix all the kıymalı topping ingredients in a bowl. Squeeze handfuls to combine; the moisture from onion and tomato should bind the topping.
- Heat a pizza stone or heavy baking sheet at 250C for 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 4. Roll each piece into an elongated oval, 30cm long and 12cm wide at the centre. The dough should be 5mm thick.
- Spread a quarter of the topping across the centre of each oval, leaving a 2cm border.
- Fold the long sides inwards over the topping by 1cm to make a boat shape, pinching the two ends to seal into points.
- Brush the exposed dough with the egg-butter mixture.
- Slide onto the hot stone and bake 8 to 10 minutes until the dough is deep golden and the topping bubbling and slightly charred.
- Brush the crust with melted butter, scatter parsley over the topping, slice across into 5cm pieces, and serve with lemon wedges and sumac onions.
Tip from the editors. The dough must be thinner than pizza and the topping spread sparingly across the centre, not edge-to-edge.
Where to eat pide
Pide in Istanbul
Borsam Taşfırın ★ 4.2
Borsam Taşfırın in Kadıköy, an 80-lira lahmacun from a stone oven, three to a person at the lunch peak, in a market-edge counter open since 1968.
Try: Lahmacun
Borsam Taşfırın Kadıköy ★ 4.2
Borsam Taşfırın in Kadıköy, the 1968 stone-oven lahmacun counter that turns a single 15-minute bake into the city's most reliable lahmacun under 80 lira.
Try: Lahmacun and pide
More cities are in research. Want pide covered somewhere specific? Tell us where you want to eat.