Lahmacun is very famous among Turks. To give you an idea I can easily say that lahmacun for Turks is what pizza is for the Italians. Talking about Italians; I recently read that a Napolitan Pizza chef has told a visiting Chef that the Italians modified lahmacun from visiting ships in old times. This might bring another fight among countries about which owns the dish – so I will just close the subject by saying that probably the Napolitan Chef was being a good host.
So here it is this is home made – small sized lahmacun. It is not as hard as you might think. The size depends on you. You can change the size using the same recipe. It is a very tastey treat that can be eaten any time of the day. If you do not want to do it with meat or if you are out of meat and still have some dough left you can use cheese and parsley as topping.
Traditionally you are supposed to curl the lahmacun inwards and eat with your hands. You can stuff somer parsley in between or squeeze a few drops of lemon too. Or just go ahead and eat it plain. One other good thing about lahmacun is once cooked it remains delicious for 2-3 days. Plus you can freeze it. If you decide to freeze make sure that the topping size faces each other and covered with a lid or put in a food bag.
While preparing the topping after you chop or process the garlic make sure to wash and then drain the onion. This will wash away the sour taste of the onion, which will eventually help you prepare a much more tasty lahmacun.
Pictures below are from one of my Turkish Cooking Lesson. My dear friend has done a perfect job with the dough and cutting – actually with all the lahmacun. No left-overs is a good sign of this.
So next time when you crave for lahmacun, try doing it yourself. Actually I think kids will have fun preparing it too.
Petite Turkish Lahmacun
Ingredients
Yeast
- 20 gram fresh yeast or 10 grams instant yeast
- 50 millilitres warm water for melting the yeast
- 50 millilitres milk
- 1 pinch sugar
Crust
- 400 grams flour
- 50 millilitres olive oil
- 150 millilitres warm water for the dough
- ½ teaspoon salt
Topping
- 200 grams minced meat half beef, half lamb, medium fat
- 1 tomato
- 3 onions
- 1 red pepper
- 1 green pepper
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon pepper paste
- ½ bunch parsley
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon sumac
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 75 millilitres olive oil
Instructions
Crust
- Add 50 millilters warm water and 50 millilitres milk to a small bowl. The mixture should be 30-40° Celsius. You can measure using your pinky finger. If you can barely keep it in for 10 seconds the yeast will activate. Add the yeast to the water when you obtain the correct warmth. Also add a pinch of sugar. Mix well with a fork or whisker making sure the yeast is dissolved. Set aside for 1-2 minutes.
- Meanwhile sieve the flour. Put 300 grams of flour in a mixing pot and in the middle pour the yeast water. Add the remaining 100 grams while you add the rest of the crust material.
- Start kneading. Add all the remaining crust material one by one, while kneading gently. The dough should become non-sticky. Not too hard or too soft. Knead about 10 minutes.
- Make one large dough ball. Cover with a clean kitchen towel. Then set aside for at least half an hour.
Topping and Preparation
- Meanwhile, using a food processor mince the following one by one; tomatoes, peppers (after discarding the seeds), parsley and onions.
- After you mince the onion, put in a colander with tiny holes and wash with cold water. Press down while in the colander to get rid of the excess water. This is done to get rid of the smell and the bitter taste of the onion.
- If the vegetables leave out too much water, also use a colander to get rid of this water. The mixture should not be watery.
- Add all the remaining topping ingredients, including the ground meat and mix until everything is well combined. Keep in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
- The dough should have expanded by the end of 30 minutes.
- If the dough is too sticky to work with, sprinkle some flour on your working space, roller, dough and/or your hands.
- Cut small-walnut-sized balls out of the dough. And make small plate-sized sheets out of this ball. Turn the dough each time you use the roller to obtain a round shape. It should be about 2 millimetres thick, thinner the better. If you are not happy with the shape; you can use a tool to cut. Keep the dough covered all the times, so it does not dry.
- Spread a thin layer of the meat mixture on each dough sheet leaving the corners clear.
- Place them on a warm oven tray with an oven paper or spread some oil on it.
- Cook in a pre-heated oven at 220° Celsius until nice and brownish on the bottom and the top is cooked. Should take about 8-10 minutes.
- Garnish with lemon wedges and onion slices mixed with chopped parsley.