Lahmacun

The topping goes on raw, spread paper-thin, and everything cooks in three minutes in a very hot oven.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

the dough

• 400 g plain flour
• 240 ml warm water
• 5 g fast-action dried yeast
• 8 g salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

the topping

• 300 g minced lamb
• 1 onion, grated and squeezed dry
• 2 tomatoes, deseeded and very finely chopped
• 1 red pepper, very finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons hot red pepper paste
• 1 tablespoon tomato purée
• a large bunch of parsley, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons salt

to serve

• lemon wedges
• more parsley
• sliced red onion with sumac

Method

1. THE TOPPING GOES ON RAW AND IS SPREAD PAPER-THIN, and everything cooks in three minutes. Nothing is pre-cooked: raw mince, raw onion, raw pepper, raw parsley, all mixed cold and smeared across the dough in a layer barely two millimetres deep. At 250°C or above, a two-millimetre layer of mince is cooked through in the same three minutes the thin dough needs, which is the whole trick. Cook the topping first, as for a pizza, and by the time the base is done the meat is dry and granular; spread it thick, and the base burns before the middle of the meat is safe.
2. THE TOPPING MUST BE DRY OR THE BASE WILL NOT CRISP. The onion grated and squeezed hard, the tomatoes deseeded and chopped fine, the pepper chopped rather than blended. Anything watery steams the dough from above and the lahmacun comes out limp and pale. A blender makes a wet purée and is the single commonest way this goes wrong.
3. THE DOUGH IS ROLLED PAPER-THIN AND NOT PROVED AFTER ROLLING. Thinner than seems possible -- you should see the board through it. And it goes straight from the pin to the topping to the oven: a rolled base left to prove puffs and becomes a pizza.
4. THE OVEN IS AS HOT AS IT WILL GO AND THE TRAY IS PREHEATED. 250°C or higher, with a heavy tray or stone in there for half an hour first. The base needs fierce heat from below in the first thirty seconds. A cold tray gives a pale soggy bottom whatever the oven is set to.
5. IT IS ROLLED, EATEN IN THE HAND, AND NEVER CUT. Parsley, onion and a hard squeeze of lemon go on after it comes out, then the whole thing is rolled up like a cigar. Cut into slices it is a thin pizza; rolled, it is lahmacun.
6. The flour, yeast and salt stirred together, then the water and oil added and mixed to a soft dough.
7. Kneaded 10 MINUTES and risen 1 HOUR.
8. The oven heated to its MAXIMUM, 250°C or more, with a heavy tray or stone inside for 30 MINUTES.
9. The onion grated and SQUEEZED HARD. The tomatoes deseeded and chopped FINE. The pepper chopped fine. Nothing blended.
10. All the topping ingredients mixed COLD and RAW. It should be a thick paste, not a wet one.
11. The dough divided into 8 and each rolled PAPER-THIN, about 22 cm across -- thin enough to see the board through.
12. 2 heaped tablespoons of topping spread over each, right to the edge, in a layer barely 2 mm deep.
13. Slid straight onto the preheated tray. NOT proved.
14. Baked 3 to 4 MINUTES, until the edges are crisp and the meat is just cooked.
15. TESTED: the base should be crisp and the topping dry to the touch. Pale and limp means a wet topping or a cold tray.
16. Parsley, sumac onion and a hard squeeze of lemon added, then ROLLED UP and eaten in the hand at once.

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