A pişi is a fluffy ball of fried bread served with breakfast in Turkey. If you think there is nothing more comforting than warm soft bread, then they are perfect for you. They are served to accompany cheese, slices of cucumber & tomatoes, olives, eggs, cold cuts, and many flavorful spreads & dips.
Pişis are delicious and so indulgent, I’m sure they’ll soon become a staple of your brunch too! If you serve them as a part of a Turkish breakfast feast, they are sure to be the star of the show.
Turkish fried bread
The first time I had pişi was at a Bed & Breakfast on the Aegean coast. For whatever reason, the owner took a liking to me and wanted to make me taste something Turkish I never had before. She made me pişi and what a revelation! I can still see her bringing a small basket full of steaming golden fried bread to my table. I wolfed it down in minutes, my husband was lucky he got any! I loved it so much that she surprised me with another batch the next morning and flat-out refused when I tried to monetarily compensate her for all her extra efforts. She claimed that my appreciation of her cooking was enough. Eating bread is life’s greatest pleasure (I’m French, I can say that), but fried bread? I can’t think of anything more indulgent!
My in-laws were surprised I had never eaten pişi before that vacation. I had been living in Turkey for a couple of years by that time but it just never came up. When they found out how much I loved it, fried bread became a central part of our Saturday breakfast. Now every time we eat a Turkish breakfast together, you can bet there will be pişi on the table. I think that the moral of the story is that Turkish people are very proud of their cuisine, and if you show a genuine appreciation for it they will feed you until you can literally not have another bite.
Raising agent
There are 2 different types of pişis:
- kabartma tozlu pişi: They are made with baking powder instead of yeast. These pişis are light, crispy and their centers are basically big air pockets waiting to be filled. They are faster to make as you don’t have to wait for the dough to rise. You should still leave the dough to rest for a while though, if you want airy pişis.
Unless my in-laws can buy bread dough from the bakery, these are the pişis they make because they are easier/faster.
- mayalı pişi: They are made with yeast and these are the ones I’m sharing a recipe for today! These pişis are pillowy, denser, and more akin to donuts texture-wise.
I have a slight preference for mayalı pişi over the baking powder ones because they are so fluffy and decadent! The only trouble is that they are more filling so you can’t have as many. I realize that this is a great problem to have!
Eat freshly fried
You can easily double the recipe if you’re having lots of people over for breakfast/brunch or if you simply want more. However, your eyes shouldn’t be bigger than your stomach because pişis don’t keep very well. As with most fried food, Turkish fried bread is best eaten on the day it’s made.
You can make the dough in advance and leave it to prove in the fridge overnight. Remove the mixing bowl from the fridge in the morning. Leave the dough in a warm environment for half an hour so that it comes back to room temperature. Then continue to step 3. The balls of pişi might not puff up as much as if you had prepared the dough on the same day, but they’ll still taste great! If you double the ingredients, the indicated proving times remain the same.
You can fill the balls with crumbled cheese and chopped parsley to make cheesy pişis. Lor peyniri (cottage cheese) or beyaz peynir (brined cheese similar to feta) are the most common cheeses used for this type of fried bread. Make sure that the filling is properly sealed so you don’t end up with leaks while frying.
Pişi
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- proving time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 25 minutes
- Yield: 6 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Frying
- Cuisine: Turkish
Description
A pişi is a fluffy ball of fried bread served with breakfast in Turkey. If you think there is nothing more comforting than soft warm bread, then wait until you try a pişi! It’s super indulgent and oh so delicious.
Ingredients
- 375g all-purpose flour (2 ⅔ cup)
- 1 tsp salt
- 5g instant yeast (1 ½ tsp)
- 185ml whole milk (¾ cup)
- frying oil (I used peanut oil)
Instructions
- Make the dough. Place the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the salt to one side and the yeast to the other. Gently heat the milk on the stove over medium heat until lukewarm. It shouldn’t be hotter than 43°C (110°F). Make a well in the flour and add the milk. Turn the mixture around with your fingers to pick up the ingredients from the side of the bowl. If you can’t gather all the flour, add a little bit of milk (1 tbsp at a time) and mix gently again until you form a dough.
- Knead the dough. Coat the work surface with a little bit of oil and tip the dough onto it. Knead for 10 min until you have a smooth ball of dough. You can add more oil to the work surface if the dough sticks too much while kneading. Place the dough in a large lightly oiled bowl and cover with oiled plastic wrap. Place the bowl in a warm spot. I like to heat the oven to 50°C (120°F) for a couple of minutes before turning the oven off and placing the bowl in there. Leave the dough to rise for 1h, or until doubled in size.
- Shape the pişi. Line a baking tray with baking parchment and lightly flour it (or use a clean working surface). Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Roll each piece of dough into a tight ball. With your finger, make an indentation in the center of each ball but don’t go pierce all the way through. Place them slightly apart on the prepared tray. Loosely cover the balls with a damp tea towel and leave to prove for a further 30 min. They only need to puff up a bit, not double in size.
- Fry! Line a plate with 2 layers of paper towels. Fill a pan no more than ⅓ full with the oil. Heat the oil over medium-high heat to 180°C (355°F). Fry batches of 2 to 3 pişi at a time for 5 min (turn them halfway through cooking). Carefully remove pişis from the pan using a slotted spoon, drain on the paper towels and serve immediately.
Notes
Turkish fried bread is best enjoyed the day it’s made. You can store any leftover in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days but they will get drier.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 pişi
- Calories: 449
Keywords: brunch ideas, turkish breakfast, breakfast platter, fried breakfast
Are you looking for other traditional Turkish breakfast recipes? Here are some of my favorites:
Joseph
will air fryer work ???
Amélie
Well I can’t be 100% sure because I never used one but some people use air fryers to ‘fry’ donuts so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for pisis! To be on the safe side I would divide the dough into 8 pieces instead of 6 to make them smaller (to be sure they would cook throughout).
Océane
Très bon et facile à faire !
★★★★★
Abderahman (Abood)
First time to hear of this recipe!
First time using my mom’s kitchen!
I’m her son, not her daughter!
So, for any reason and in any circumstances I failed, it would be not only the first and last time to use her kitchen, this will make her gloat at me forever and ever! 🙂
It could be a technical fault from my balance weight, but let me comment that I needed to add more milk to make the dough smoother, maybe 220 ml or more🤐 instead of 185 ml. It took a lot of time from me while I’m adding 10 ml every time🤣. I was really afraid exceeding the 185ml 😅😅
I will add a reply on this comment after I’m done, Amélie!😇😇
★★★★
Amélie
Wow, first let me say, you are braver than most! Starting your baking/cooking journey with a yeast based recipe is no small feat! Second, I am sorry the recipe caused you anxiety 😅. Different flours have different protein levels and due to that, flours absorb liquid differently. A higher protein flour will be ‘thirstier’ and absorb more liquid than lower protein flour. French all-purpose flour can be considered quite ‘weak’ protein-wise compared to other all-purpose flours. Probably, that’s why I only need 185ml.
Since I can only test recipes with flours that are available to me, measurements are given as an indication but indeed they might have to vary from person to person, from country to country. Precisely how much more liquid might be needed is very tricky to determine in advance, that’s why I caution to only add 1 tbsp at a time. Anyway, thanks for your comment, it was a good reminder that nothing in cooking is written in stone. I’ll edit the ingredient list to highlight that more milk might be needed! I hope the rest of the recipe will go smoothly. Do let me know!
Mark
I saw a Pişi being made on a Turkish street food video on Youtube. They stuffed and crinkled it like an empanada with pastrami and cheese (I used mozzarella) inside. I made the dough, filled it and fried it like above, and I have to say it turned out really, really good. Thank you for the recipe!
★★★★★
Amélie
Yum yum yum that sounds really good! Thank you for your comment!