Turkish flatbreads and a trip to Green Lanes

Much as marathoners carbo-load before the big race, I like to ensure that the meals before Passover contain enough bread products to see me through the next 8 days. Wednesday night there was homemade pizza, slathered with ricotta and wild garlic. Thursday, with a day off work, I made a much-anticipated trip to Green Lanes, a neighbourhood in Northeast London which is home to a large Turkish and Kurdish population, knowing that I’d find lots of things there that would soon be off-limits.

I began with a lahmacun, a thin, lamb-topped flatbread. One of the most popular restaurants on the strip, Antepliler, has expanded its operations to several other storefronts, one featuring casseroles and breads from an enormous open oven. Here, the young usta, or oven-master, rolled out a round of dough slightly thicker than a pita, then smeared it with a few tablespoons of a highly-seasoned minced lamb and garlic mixture. This was pushed into the oven on a long pole, from which it emerged several minutes later blistered but still pliable, to be topped with a salad of rocket, grated carrots and herbs and rolled up in a piece of paper. Not a bad (light) lunch for £1.50.

I ate it while inspecting the window display at a baklava shop, then headed several blocks north to Yasar Halim, a large, long-established bakery with well upwards of 100 varieties of cakes, cookies, breads and filled and topped sweet and savoury pastries. Amongst those I could recognise were tahinli, coils of sweet , yeasted dough layered with sesame paste, something I last had on a Golden Horn ferry ride and pide, canoe-shaped flatbreads topped with cheese and slices of beef sausage (sujuk). (The photo here is of a particularly good egg and lamb version which I had in Istanbul.) I came away with a spicy spinach pastry and a sweet one filled with pistachios and clotted cream—snacks for the late afternoon train ride up to Liverpool.

And to finish off, back to the Antepilier franchise for a bowl of spicy lamb and rice broth, served with a basket of warm, dimpled bread, crispy at the corners from a flash under the charcoal grill. I’ll be back soon for more breads, and photos, hopefully including the women who sit at the front of many of the restaurants making gözleme, almost like savoury crepes cooked on a concave griddle, with fillings of spinach, cheese, eggs and grated potatoes.

For now, though, it’s matzah time.

Antepliler

46 Green Lanes London N4

(020) 8802 5588

Tube: Manor House

Yasar Halim

495 Green Lanes

London N4 1AL

Tube: Manor House

Simit

Simit are to Istanbul what bagels are to New York City—the individually-portioned, ring-shaped breads not just an anytime staple, but an iconic part of what it means to be an inhabitant of that city, the object of habit, preference and memory.

Simit are made with a yeasted dough which is allowed to rise, then shaped into narrow rings. Following the second rise, the breads are dipped into water mixed with a bit of molasses (pekmez), then fully coated with sesame breads before being baked in a hot oven. The resultant breads tend to have a well-browned crust with a bit of resistance, giving way to a slightly sweet, soft yet chewy dough.

Just as with bagels, simit are not really made by home bakers. They are sold by bakeries and at a few new simit-specific chains. Most people, however, tend to buy them from one of the hundreds of carts located across the city. While the cart operators obtain a license to operate in a fixed location, there are also still some itinerant vendors, mostly in markets and some older neighbourhoods, who sell the breads from a tray balanced on their heads. Prices, while no longer government-subsidized, are fixed for both wholesale and retail; the maximum price which can be charged to a customer is 1 TL, or about 35p.

Like most breads, simit are at their best when fresh. While the carts have unmistakable charm and convenience, bakeries present the obvious advantage of happening upon a just-baked batch. Beyond that, some prefer their simit a bit sweeter (likely a product of more molasses in the dipping water), with a harder crust, or with slightly saltier dough.

Simit vendors keep a box of processed cheese triangles (like Laughing Cow) for those customers who believe that the first meal of the day must contain a bit of cheese. The new chains use them, much like bagels, as the basis for filled sandwiches, while cafes serving breakfast platters of cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, olives and cucumbers often throw a few segments into the bread basket.

It was snowing on my last morning in Istanbul. The local simit vendor was standing inside the vestibule of a nearby bank to keep warm, but dashed out when he saw me. That simit may not have reached the acme of ideal texture or flavour, but it’s the one I remember best.

Moroccan challah

The impending arrival of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) brought on an unexpected desire to bake challah.

While I enjoy the process of preparing dough and bake pizza and/or chapatti about once a week, I am lucky to have a phenomenal bread selection—3 bakeries, ranging from quite good to excellent and covering between them sourdough, baguettes, granary and Central European seeded loafs—just down the street. It seems foolish, therefore, to expend time producing an inferior loaf. But as challah isn’t on the rota of any of these shops, nor is there anything like a critical mass of celebrating Jews in Brixton to generate sufficient demand for a holiday special, I felt like I could indulge my whim without any unfavourable comparisons to professional products.

My mother’s challah recipe is justifiably requested by many who eat at her table. But it wasn’t quite what I had in mind: too large to be easily consumed during its short shelf-life (unlike my father, I’m not a big fan of French toast) and not the most obvious match to the Sephardic meal I had planned. Instead I unloaded the books of Claudia Roden (whose Book of Jewish Food demonstrates little interest in Ashkenazic cuisine but is an unparalleled resource on the food eaten by Sephardim from Libya to India to Turkey) and Joan Nathan (whose books on Israeli food and French-Jewish food capture how North African Jewish food in particular has been transplanted and adapted to different milieu over the last 60 years) and got to work.

Based on the evidence provided, the challah of Tunisian Jews differs from the Ashkenazic standard only in its particular braiding and shape. By contrast, Algerian and Moroccan Jews use quite distinctive flavourings of anise and sesame seeds. The more refined versions of these challot, known as pain petri, are enriched with vegetable oil, egg and more sugar; some were also braided and glazed with egg yolk. The simpler are just lightly sweet, flavoured loaves, slightly flatter and wider than a conventional challah. (I also found one version, intended for the dairy break-fast meal after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, where the water was substituted with milk. This is very similar to other Moroccan bread recipes not specifically associated with its Jewish population.)

I settled on the simplest version, known as a pan de casa in the dialect spoken by some Moroccan Jews. The dough came together easily and was ready to be shaped into a free-form loaf after about 90 minutes of rising time. After a further half hour, it was sprinkled with more sesame seeds and went into a medium-hot (375C or 190F) oven for 30 minutes.

It may not have been quite the challah of my youth, but my guests, who included an Anglican vicar and an Austrian Catholic, seemed unperturbed by any perceived break from tradition and very pleased with the taste.

Pan de Casa

adapted from Joan Nathan’s The Food of Israel Today

Total time: 2 ¾ hours; Active time: 15 minutes

I used a scant 2/3rds of the measurements given to make one free-from loaf large enough to feed four as a starter with dips, with leftovers for breakfast the next morning. I give the original measurements below, with the suggestion that the three smaller loafs are instead shaped into two slightly larger, higher ones. I did not find that this affected the baking time, but it may well require a few more minutes in other ovens.

The only other adjustment made was in substituting bread flour for all-purpose. I was advised by my mother than this would enable more gluten development and a higher, lighter loaf. (It seems to have worked.)

This dough makes a relatively soft crust. If you’d like something crisper, you might try putting the dough into a hotter oven, then immediately turning it down, or allowing it to cool in the switched-off oven, keeping the door open.

5 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon instant yeast

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon salt (I tend to use a bit more than called for in most bread recipes)

1 tablespoon anise seeds

1 tablespoon sesame seeds, with more to sprinkle on the shaped, unbaked loaf

1 ¾ cups warm water

Add the flour, yeast, sugar, salt and seeds to a large bowl. Pour in the water gradually, mixing by hand or with a large spoon to make a rough, slightly wet dough. (Add a bit of flour or water if the dough isn’t coming together.)

Turn out the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead until smooth and pliable, up to 10 minutes. Place back in the bowl, cover well and let rise in a slightly warm place until doubled, about 90 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375C (190F). Grease two cookie or baking sheets. Punch back the dough and divide into two balls. Shape as desired and place on the cookie sheets. Sprinkle with additional sesame seeds. Cover and allow to rise for a further 30 minutes.

Bake the loaves for 30 minutes, or until they sound hollow on the bottom. Allow to cool fully before slicing.