Back in the Kitchen: Turkish Pizza

It's funny how you can overlook the most simple recipes and sometimes they're simply wonderful. That's not quite the case with this turkish pizza. I wouldn't call it simply wonderful, but it was pretty damn good and a very quick, easy way to whip up a yummy Tuesday night meal.

After my weekend of minimal cooking I was keen to cook something new. My quest to cook all clippings is still going and I've had this one ear-marked for a while. I'm getting down to the very difficult ones, or those with expensive ingredients or those that require very long cooking times. So I'm not entirely sure how this one slipped past the radar. I think I tore it out of a Gravox promo booklet of all places.

The mint really makes it but being beef mince there's something quite homely about it. It reminds of spaghetti bolognese, or the toasties you might whip up from the leftovers. I ate so many bolognese jaffels as a student. Most students have some form of toasted sandwich maker and whilst the sandwich presses allow a little more "gourmette", you can't go past a jaffel surely.

I didn't use lamb and mint gravy mix last night, I used a plain gravox that was floating around in the pantry. But I'm sure beef stock would be exactly the same really. I upped the mint to compensate though.

Luckily this can be a cutlery free meal once cool enough. So I trekked outside with my piece of turkish bread pizza to watch the lunar eclipse. I think I missed the moon at it's reddest though, I thought it was all a little overrated until I saw the pictures in the paper today. Clearly I went at the wrong time. Nevermind.

Turkish Pizza
1 tbsp oil
4 spring onions
1 clove garlic, crushed
500 g beef or lamb mince
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/3 cup Gravox (insert registered trademark symbol here) lamb with mint gravy mix (sounds appetising huh? Just use beef stock)
1 1/4 cups water
4 tbsp tomato paste
1 long turkish pide loaf, halved horizontally
1/3 cup pine numts toasted
2 roma tomoatoes diced
1 tbsp finely chopped mint
2 cups tasty cheese
extra mint to garnish

Preheat oven to 230 degrees C. Heat oil and cook onions, garlic and mince until mince is browned. Combine spices, gravy mix, water and tomato paste. Add to the mince mixture, bring to the boil then reduce heat and cooke for a further 4 min.

Cut each pide in half and place cut side up on a baking tray. Spoon mince mixture evenly over each piece and top with pine nuts, tomatoes, mint and cheese. Bake for 15-20 min until cheese is golden and base is crispy.

Serves 4.

Mr Wolf, St Kilda

Karen Martini's creation if I'm right, this is what my friends SD & Newie would call “fancy pizza”. And coincidentally we all toddled off to Mr Wolf’s for SD & Newie’s farewell party. It was a sad and exciting occasion. Sad as two friends of mine are about to go overseas indefinitely and exciting because it spells new challenges for them AND means S-bo and I got to go to Mr Wolf. We went here the very first weekend I moved to Melbourne and loved it. But it’s not an everyday experience…they don’t call it “fancy pizza” for nothing.

I think I may have ordered the same pizza we had last time we went too…Pancetta (below). I can’t find it on the website’s menu but it had pancetta (obviously), mozzarella, basil I think, olives and chilli. Our first time to Mr Wolf I found the chilli a bit much so this time I asked them to tone it down a little. Unfortunately I then ended up with too little chilli. My mistake really. It’s not that I don’t like (moderately) spicy food; I’m just big on chilli overpowering other flavours. I should just build my tolerance.


S-bo had a special, Porcetta (top) (possibly dubious spelling here). The pizza consisted of pork, artichoke and lemon among other things. He was keen to try something different but wasn’t so sold on this. It was a little unconventional I guess, I think I liked it more than him.

There was a very different vibe on a Saturday night compared to the Sunday that we visited. Obviously, being busy, it wasn’t as relaxed. I remember the service first time round as being exceptional whilst this time it was simply adequate. The waitress was friendly and efficient, but did need chasing when drinks were empty. To be fair we were a difficult booking: large and early, arriving in dribs and drabs. The evening was far more about friends catching up and I’m sure service would have been its usual top notch if our objective was more about the food. I really don’t want to nit-pick the restaurant because the evening was great, but it does beg the question should service be of the same standard regardless of what night of the week you attend a restaurant?

Similarly the pizza wasn’t quite as good as I remembered, but then I did bland-down my pizza and on our first visit I was entirely in awe of all things Melbourne, having lived here for all of 1 ½ days. Don’t get me wrong, it’s exceptional pizza, fancy even, I just had particularly high standards on this occasion.

Mr Wolf does BYO on Tuesday nights, so I’m keen to head along and pair a bottle of Sangiovese that I’ve been hoarding for a while with a delectable pizza. They also have takeaway and home delivery.

Note: On second thoughts I may have had Calabrese on my first visit.... should return to compare and contrast me-thinks.

Mr Wolf
9-15 Inkerman St
St Kilda (03) 9534 0255