When my friends invited me to a “Good Friday” breakfast the other day, I immediately started thinking what I should make to take with me as an addition to this nice breakfast. So I was in full speed baking last night until around 1 a.m. and I ended up baking some sweet cookies and a salty pastry. In this post I will give the recipe for the salty one, the cookie is yet for another post.

By some nice and surprising luck. another friend came to my place last night and he tasted the cookie and the pastry and he loved them. Half-jokingly, half serious, he is urging me to open my own cafe – wish I could…

Well, anyway, dreaming is for another time, now is the time for giving you the recipe of this salty pastry with a little Turkish touch.

Ingredients:

for the dough:
2 dl yogurt
1.5 dl oil (you can use olive oil or something else, I used canola oil aka rypsiöljy)
1 egg (white and yolk separated)
(about) 2 glasses flour
1 table spoon baking powder
1 coffee spoon salt

for the filling:
2 potatoes
1 onion
1 table spoon oil (again, I used canola)
Salt, black pepper, aleppo pepper
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1. Boil the potatoes before you start preparing the dough etc. since you should have the boiled potatoes ready after you leave the dough to rest (at the end of step 3 below).

2. Put yogurt, oil, egg white and salt in a bowl and whisk it. Add baking powder and whisk a bit more.

3. Start adding the flour little by little and kneading the dough. I knead the dough with my left hand (as I am left-handed!) and add the flour bit by bit with my right hand (a handful of flour each time). When you finally have a very soft, greasy and smooth dough, stop adding flour. Knead for a long time – I almost made a few extra muscles on my left arm from this kneading last night! Anyway, when the dough is ready, cover it with a damp cloth and leave it to rest for 30 minutes.

4. As you are waiting for the dough to rest, prepare the filling. Peel the boiled potatoes and grate them.

5. Peel the onion and grate it too.

6. Put oil on a pan, put the grated onion and stir a while, until they turn a little golden brown. Add the grated potatoes and stir a little more. Add a little salt, black pepper and aleppo pepper, stir for 1 more minute.

7. Heat the oven to 180C.

8. When 30 minutes pass, get back to your dough. Take pieces that are bigger than a whole walnut in size. Spread the dough on your hand in rather round shape and put some filling in the middle. Do not put just a little bit of filling, but put as big a portion as you can – it will be tastier with a rich filling. Close the dough piece however shape you like, so that the filling stays inside (I did it in the shape that you see in the picture but this is not an absolute condition).

9. Take the egg yolk and put some on each pastry piece, spread it on the whole surface with the help of a brush. When all pieces are covered with egg yolk, put the tray inside the oven, in the middle section. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the surface is golden brown. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the final pastry!!! Instead, I will put here the photo of another similar pastry – only the filling was different, and last night’s pastry looked actually the same…)

This is a very traditional Turkish pastry called “Pogaca” (in Turkish). Instead of potatoes and onion, you can use cheese, minced meat, olives, sausage… almost anything you want as filling. Enjoy it with some nice black tea!