Gözleme

Unleavened and rolled paper-thin, filled, folded flat and cooked on a dry griddle.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains cheese whose rennet the source does not name, lamb.

Ingredients

the dough

• 500 g plain flour
• 280 ml warm water
• 10 g salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

the fillings

• 300 g white cheese, crumbled
• 300 g spinach, chopped and wilted dry
• 1 onion, finely chopped and softened
• 300 g minced lamb, cooked with onion
• a handful of parsley, chopped
• black pepper

to cook

• butter, for brushing

Method

1. IT IS UNLEAVENED AND ROLLED PAPER-THIN, which is what separates it from a yeasted flatbread. No yeast at all, no proving, no rising. A plain flour-water dough rested half an hour and rolled out until you can read through it -- a millimetre or less. With nothing leavening it, the sheet stays a sheet: it cooks in two or three minutes on a dry griddle into something thin and pliable with blistered patches, and the filling inside stays the thickest part of it. A yeasted dough rolled the same way puffs in the pan and the thing becomes a filled bread rather than a filled sheet.
2. THE FILLING MUST BE DRY AND COOKED BEFORE IT GOES IN. Spinach wilted and SQUEEZED, onion softened, lamb cooked and drained. Nothing goes in raw or wet: there are two or three minutes in the pan, which is nowhere near enough to cook a filling, and any moisture turns a paper-thin sheet to pulp. This is the opposite of the lahmacun on its own page, where everything goes on raw.
3. IT IS FOLDED FLAT, NOT ROLLED OR CRIMPED. The filling goes on half and the other half is folded over, or the four sides are folded in to make a rectangle. Either way it stays flat and thin, because the griddle only cooks what touches it. A rolled or thick parcel is raw in the middle.
4. THE GRIDDLE IS DRY AND THE BUTTER GOES ON AFTER. No fat in the pan -- the dough needs to stick slightly and blister. Butter brushed over each one as it comes off, which is where the richness comes from. Butter in the pan fries the sheet into something crisp and brittle that cracks when folded.
5. THE SEALED EDGE IS PRESSED WITH THE FINGERS AND NOT WET. A paper-thin unleavened dough is tacky enough to stick to itself under finger pressure. Wetting the edges of something this thin makes them slippery and they come apart in the pan.
6. The flour and salt mixed with the water and oil to a firm dough. Kneaded 8 MINUTES.
7. Covered and RESTED 30 MINUTES. No yeast and no rising.
8. The spinach wilted, cooled and SQUEEZED DRY. The onion softened in a little oil. The lamb cooked with onion and DRAINED.
9. Each filling seasoned and left to go COLD.
10. The dough divided into 6 and each rolled PAPER-THIN -- a millimetre or less, thin enough to read through.
11. Filling spread over HALF of each sheet, or in the centre of a square.
12. FOLDED FLAT -- half over, or four sides folded in -- and the edges PRESSED with the fingers. Not wetted.
13. A griddle set over a medium-high heat, COMPLETELY DRY.
14. Cooked 90 SECONDS to 2 MINUTES a side, until blistered and browned in patches.
15. Brushed with BUTTER as it comes off the pan, not before.
16. Cut into wedges or fingers and eaten at once, in the hand.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes