Open Olive Flatbread (Pide)
Black Sea style open flatbread topped with black olives, cheese and oregano — the smell fills the house as it bakes.
- Time
- 35 minutes
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Medium
- Cuisine
- Turkish
In Türkiye, pide divides in two: the closed kind with its edges folded over, and the open kind where the topping stays exposed. This recipe is the second — thin dough, visible topping, short bake. In closed pide the filling cooks in its own steam; in open pide it takes the oven's heat directly, which is why the cheese browns, the edges of the olives shrivel and the flavour concentrates.
Open olive pide is a morning product of Aegean bakeries. Unlike meat pide it is cheap, quick and meatless — the pastry counterpart of the olive-oil kitchen.
Directions
- Mix the flour, salt and yeast. Add the warm water and 2 tablespoons of olive oil and knead to a smooth dough.
- Cover and leave to rise for 45 minutes.
- Heat the oven to 220°C. Divide the dough into 4 pieces and roll each into a long oval.
- Scatter over the grated cheese and the olives. Sprinkle with oregano and chilli flakes and drizzle with olive oil.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until the base is crisp and golden.
- Serve hot.
Tips & storage
Roll it thin — genuinely thin. The entire logic of open pide is thin dough. Rolled thick, the top bakes while the base stays raw.
Preheat the oven — no negotiation. Pide that goes into a cold oven dries out without rising. Wait for 220°C, and heat the tray in the oven too if you can.
The cheese decides the salt. Tulum is far saltier than white cheese. If you use it, cut back the olives; the two together are too much.
Slice the olives. Whole olives roll around as it bakes and leave the dough beneath them raw. Slices stay put and cook evenly.
Olive oil again as it leaves the oven. The oil during baking is there to fry; fresh extra virgin poured over on the way out keeps its aroma. Two different jobs.
Eaten hot. One of the rare "serve hot" recipes in this family; the dough stiffens as it cools.
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