Gözleme with spicy minced meat filling

Ingredients for 10 servings:

• 900 g flour
• 500 ml milk, room temperature
• ½ cube of fresh yeast
• 20 g salt
• 1 egg(s)
• 30 ml sunflower oil
• 30 g butter or margarine
• 650 g minced beef
• 2 m.-large tomato(s)
• 5 m.-sized onion(s)
• 1 bunch spring onions, large, 5 – 6 pieces
• 3 large bell peppers, colored
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 50 g tomato paste
• 3 tbsp, heaped paprika powder, sweet
• 3 tbsp, leveled spice mix (chili spice)
• 2 tsp, heaped thyme
• 3 tsp, leveled salt
• 2 tsp, levelled pepper, white
• 1 tsp, heaped cumin powder
• some margarine and oil for frying

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Rest time approx. 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 2 hours 30 minutes

Dumplings from Turkey

Peel and dice the tomatoes. Finely chop the onions, spring onions, and bell peppers, and finely chop a handful of parsley. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large, deep frying pan and brown the ground beef until crumbly. Add the chopped onions and fry briefly until the onions are slightly translucent. Then add the chopped tomatoes, spring onions, bell peppers, and parsley. Mix everything thoroughly and fry for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, weigh out the tomato paste and mix it well with the ground meat and vegetable mixture. If the mixture is a bit too thick and threatens to burn, add a very small splash of water to the pan, but be careful not to make it too runny, or the batter will become soggy later. Now add the spices and fry everything for another 2-3 minutes. You can adjust the seasoning if desired. The mixture can be a bit spicier, as the dough will tone down a bit later. Everyone decides this according to their own taste. Then remove the pan from the heat and set the meat mixture aside to cool. Now we take a large bowl, weigh out the flour, and make a small well in the center. Then we add the egg, salt, oil, and margarine or butter. Crumble the yeast into the room-temperature milk, dissolve it with a fork, and stir it in. Then we pour the dissolved yeast into the flour and the other ingredients, and we begin to knead a smooth dough with our hands. You may need to add a little more flour if necessary. The dough is perfect when it is no longer sticky and is firm enough that you can make a permanent indentation in it with your finger. It will then look somewhat similar to pizza dough. Cover the bowl with the dough with a tea towel and place it in a warm, dry place. The dough is allowed to rise for half an hour. Next, I weigh out dough balls of around 150g (I get around 10 of them), which I then roll out one by one with a rolling pin into flat, round, and thin pancakes, which are then half-filled with the now cooled mince mixture. The other half of the dough is then folded over to form a half-moon. The dough is then pressed together all around so that it is well sealed and cannot come apart. Once everything is finished, take a large frying pan and melt some margarine in it; it is perfectly fine if the bottom of the pan is moistened with fat. The dumplings don’t have to swim in it. Then I start frying the dumplings. I always fit two in the pan at a time. They are then fried on both sides until they look deliciously golden brown. You may need to add more fat to the pan when turning it over. If it is almost dry, you definitely need to add more fat. The heat should be high when frying, but not too high. This depends on the stove and how you feel. As mentioned above, you’ll get about 10 parcels out of this. The finished parcels will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and can be frozen for up to 6 months. I’ve never tried this, though, because they’ve always been eaten up before. While the recipe is time-consuming, it has the advantage that you can make the gözleme exactly how you like them. You can add garlic, for example, or feta cheese. The sky’s the limit.