I used to live in Manchester and one of my favourite shops was a little Turkish supermarket, called Venus, that among many things had a bakery section with fresh Turkish bread and simit produced several times a day. I would often go on a Sunday morning knowing that I would be able to bring my bread home still warm. Anyway, I really missed that bread since leaving and so decided to make my own.
Ingredients
- 230g strong white flour
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp milk
- 1 tsp yeast (dried fast-action)
- pinch salt
- pinch sugar
- ½ tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp sesame seeds
- 1 tsp nigella seeds (black onion seeds)
- 200ml warm water
Method
1) In a small bowl add the warm water and mix in a pinch of sugar and about a tsp of the flour.
2) Add the yeast to the mixture, stir and leave in a warm place for about 30 minutes.
3) The mixture should have bubbled up, showing the yeast has activated. Add the flour, the salt and the olive oil and mix for around half a minute.
4) Grease a container around 25cm x 15cm with some olive oil (I use a tupperware box and the size doesn’t matter too much as long as it has enough room for the dough to rise). Transfer the mixture to this box, cover it with clingfilm or a wet tea towel and leave in a warm place for around an hour.
5) Get a well floured baking tray (I tend to use some foil backed baking paper instead as this is less messy) and place the dough on it and leave to rest for about 20 minutes. At this point pre-heat the oven to 220oC/ 200oC fan.
6) Whisk the egg and milk together to make an egg wash and after the 20 minutes brush the dough with the egg wash and sprinkle over the sesame and nigella seeds.
7) Bake for around 12-15 minutes, or until golden.
A Geographer's Kitchen 