I’ve been wanting to make a lamb dish, and it’s been a while since I made Turkish food. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I’ve also been looking to challenge myself a little more in the kitchen, and this Turkish-inspired gozleme recipe is like nothing I’ve ever made. Meat pies stuffed with ground lamb, feta cheese, veggies, and spices sounds beyond delicious and like a fair amount of work using skills I’m not sure I have. Challenge accepted!
Savoury homemade flatbreads from scratch filled with ground lamb, spices, herbs and feta cheese. You won’t be able to eat just one!
The Ingredients
After reading over the list of ingredients for this gozleme recipe, I was sure everything would be easy to find except the ground lamb. I don’t buy ground meat very often, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice variety at my local grocery store that included ground lamb.
Everything else was easy to find, just as I expected. I did have to buy a bag of frozen chopped spinach that was about double what the recipe called for. Then I had to weigh out the right amount when I was ready to make my gozleme. Even without a scale, I’m sure I could have eyeballed the amount without much impact on the final outcome.
The Process
The instructions for this recipe broke everything down really well and were easy to follow. The prep work took me 23 minutes, cooking took 52 minutes, and the total time for this recipe was 1 hour 15 minutes, just as listed on the recipe.
I did find that I had to roll the dough out very thin to get it to the specified size. That had me worried at first, but it really wasn’t an issue. I did notice a few small holes after I folded the dough around the filling, but dampening the dough with a little water and pinching it closed was an easy fix.
The cooking times went faster than listed. I found that each side took only 2-3 minutes instead of 3-4 minutes. I would recommend carefully lifting the gozleme with a spatula after 2 minutes to check and see if it is browning or burning. To me, it seemed like the goal is more to cook the dough and just warm the filling. Plus there is no real danger of undercooking since the meat is cooked before it’s added to the dough.
