Green sandwiches on homemade turkish bread stuffed with silky smooth hummus, avocado, cucumber, spring onion, parsley, goat’s cheese and lettuce.  Jump to Recipe 

As I write this, we are driving through the dry, mountainous south-west of Turkey, having departed the coastal town of Fethiye earlier this morning. Pamukkale will be our final destination today – the famous natural white terraced thermal pools set into the hillside. Over-hyped tourist trap or must-see wonder of the world? More updates to come.

But more importantly – the food. So far in the trip, it has been a bit of a mixed bag. Confined to the touristy old quarter of Istanbul, Sultanahmet, and exploring small, rather touristy towns like Goreme, has meant it has been mostly kebabs, kofte (meatballs) and mezze platters (some much better than others). In saying this, the sweets have been amazing – every imaginable flavour of turkish delight and nougat, big juicy dates (with a hundred different varieties), sesame helva, dripping pistachio baklava, and lokma – small doughnuts coated in a honey syrup and dusted with cinnamon that practically explode inside your mouth. However, we have a couple of extra days in Istanbul this weekend to hopefully experience more contemporary, high quality Turkish cuisine, rather than the standard fare on the tourist trail.

The most unique dining experience by far, however, was a couple of days ago in Konya. As the most conservative city in Turkey, it was the first time that Mum and I really had to cover up (no knees, elbows, or anything in between), and the majority of women on the streets were garbed in the hijab (headscarf) with a long overcoat to hide their female shape. Remember, this is also in 35° weather. The difference in culture was confronting: coming from my perspective of being brought up never questioning that I have exactly the same rights and opportunities as my brothers, that I have freedom of expression and freedom of choice, the obvious inequality of men and women in strict Muslim society is difficult to understand. Before this I had only read about it, and never walked down the street to see cafes filled with with a ratio of 90:10 men to women, and young men wandering around wearing and doing whatever they wanted while grim-faced women covered from head to toe hustled children inside.

Religion is at the forefront of everybody’s lives: both in what you see and what your hear, with the call to prayer echoing around the city five times a day to remind us of the greatness of God. It also meant that more than 90% of Konya’s inhabitants were fasting for Ramadan, and it was almost impossible to find a restaurant that would serve you before 830pm, or sunset. Walking through the streets to dinner, hundreds of people sat outside, tables piled high with food – and none was touched before the signal from the mosque speakers rang out that it was time to break fast – the iftar meal. The restaurant where we ate, just 200m from Turkey’s most holy site – the tomb of the Islamic scholar and poet Rumi, was transformed for Ramadan: a huge leafy outdoor area filled with white table-clothed seating, candles and strung up white lights. The hundreds of people needing to be fed at exactly the same time required a set menu – luckily our waiter spoke enough English to explain it to us, as we really had no idea what we were in for.

The table was already set with condiments: not limited to salt and pepper, in Turkey this means plates of olives and dates, a rose water syrup, smears of tahini, a clay pot of thick yogurt for each person and a disc-like, dry bread that is a specialty of Konya. Traditionally, three dates are eaten first to break the fast, but many around us, deprived of nicotine from the day, got straight into the cigarettes. Soup came first – a bowl of tomato-like soup with lots of green okra, while other starters were a spiced mince wrapped in warmed grape leaves, like a Turkish rice paper roll, and layered spinach and feta gozleme. The main was a lamb kebab – tender roasted lamb served atop bread with the typical salad we have had all around Turkey – a tomato-cucumber mix with parsley and green chilli, flavoured with a light pomegranate dressing. Of the specialty drink, a heady spiced pomegranate juice with strong notes of nutmeg and cinnamon, I could only manage a sip. By this time some of the tables were emptying around us, with everyone hastening home to get some sleep before the 4am wakeup to eat again before sunrise. Was dessert coming? One waiter said no – but unsure if he understood our question, we asked another – and YES! The boys grinned. Some of the best dessert of the trip arrived: a thick brown caramelized sesame halva paste, shaped into a flower, and a honey-drenched layered pastry. Now 10pm, we wandered home past the lit-up mosque, where hundred of people knelt on mats to pray, bought dates at a small shop near the hotel, and stumbled into bed with full stomachs. The amount of food was perfect for those who hadn’t let anything pass their lips for 15 hours, but was colossal for those of us who had eaten all day!

Anyway – to the recipe. This is my favourite version of Turkish pide – soft and full of big air-pockets, it is perfect eaten plain with olive oil, with a smear of homemade hummus and a sprinkle of dukkah, with this Middle-Eastern lamb salad, or in these sandwiches. Here in Turkey, pide is often made very thinly, covered in mince, cheese or vegetables, and cooked in a wood-fired oven, but this version, adapted from Little & Friday, is as good as it gets at home. No kneading is required – just a few turns every half-hour, and 3 hours after you first tipped the flour into the bowl, you have warm, fluffy bread that can be paired with just about any meal.

The hummus is my favourite version yet – and the quickest way I have found to make the smooth, creamy dip without the fuss of cooking dried chickpeas or having to peel them, because sometimes you just need hummus now. The three key facets of it are the initial blitz of the tahini to smoothen it out and blend it with the other ingredients, being patient and processing the chickpeas for a couple more minutes to make it extra smooth, and using iced water to lighten up the emulsion – giving you a creamy, fluffy end product. Of course, if you have a few extra minutes, feel free to peel the chickpeas – your hummus will be silky smooth. I could eat it by the spoonful.

The sandwich is elevated astronomically by its components: a thick smear of creamy hummus, slices of smooth avocado, the crunch of cucumber, parsley leaves, spring onion and goats cheese as sparks of flavour, salt and pepper to lift it all up, lettuce for a bit of substance and texture, and, if you so choose, a bit of hot smoked salmon just because it is SO good.

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