Beef, spinach and feta gozleme: Spiced beef, salty cheese fill Turkey’s high road meals

Outside the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, a lady in a scarf slaps a ball of dough between her formidable fingers and stretches it over the dome of a big saç griddle.

She sprinkles half of the paper-thin dough with chewy white cheese, a tangle of bitter greens and a crumble of spiced beef. By the time she folds it shut with a protracted wood dowel, the flatbread is already bubbly and browned.

This is gozleme, one in every of Turkey’s commonest road meals. The scene is repeated throughout Istanbul, and it’s straightforward sufficient to duplicate at dwelling with a number of substitutions.

For this recipe in our ebook “COOKish,” which limits recipes to only six substances with out sacrificing taste, we use objects simply present in a U.S. grocery store. Spinach as a substitute of the bitter greens, flour tortillas and feta cheese, which has an analogous saltiness to the Turkish one, made a faithfully tasty stuffed flatbread.

To shortly construct taste, we cooked the bottom beef with tomato paste and cumin earlier than including the spinach to the pan. And we made positive to prepare dinner the stuffed tortillas within the skillet till golden brown for extra texture and a toasty aroma.

Beef, Spinach and Feta Gozleme

Start to complete: 40 minutes

Servings: 4

1 pound 90% lean floor beef

3 tablespoons tomato paste

2½ teaspoons floor cumin

Kosher salt and floor black pepper

5-ounce container child spinach, roughly chopped

4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (¾ cup)

Four 10-inch flour tortillas

2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided

In a nonstick 12-inch skillet, prepare dinner the meat, tomato paste, cumin, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper and ½ cup water, till the meat is now not pink. Add the spinach and prepare dinner, stirring, till the pan is dry. Transfer to a bowl; cool for 10 minutes, then stir within the feta. Wipe out the skillet. Divide the combination among the many tortillas, spreading it over the middle third; fold every like a enterprise letter. In the skillet, warmth 1 teaspoon of the oil till shimmering. Add 2 tortillas and prepare dinner till golden on each side, then switch to plates. Repeat with the remaining oil and tortillas.

Get extra recipes and dinner concepts from The Washington Times meals part.