I have always loved trying new foods, and I have discovered so many through my blog. Turkish food was one of those discoveries, but it’s been a while since I’ve blogged any new Turkish recipes. That needs to change, so this week I have decided to try two recipes I have had my eye on for a while. I’m starting with this Easy Turkish Lahmacun. It’s a Turkish flatbread that’s topped with a spiced meat mixture and baked like a pizza. This recipe uses store-bought pizza dough to shave off a lot of prep time and effort. I’m all for making things easy, so let’s give this recipe a try!
Think of Lahmacun (Lahamajoun) as super thin, crispy Turkish pizza (or flatbread) topped with a flavor-packed mixture of minced meat with peppers, tomato, fresh herbs and earthy spices. I take a major shortcut by using quality store-bought pizza dough. But the secret is in the spice mixture.
The Ingredients
The ingredient list for this Easy Turkish Lahmacun recipe isn’t too long, and several of the items are spices. I had all but the Aleppo-style pepper in my pantry, but that was easy enough to order.
I had the olive oil, garlic, and shallot, but I had to shop for everything else. No worries, though, because the ingredients were all easy to find basics. I even found a pound of freshly made pizza dough for about $3. This recipe only needs a half pound, so I froze the extra.
The Process
I came pretty close to the 25 minutes total time listed on this recipe. Here’s how my time was spent:
- 20 minutes to prep
- 9 minutes to cook
- 29 minutes total
Easy Turkish Lahmacun certainly was easy! I started out by making the topping. That involved a little chopping and measuring, but my food processor did most of the work.
After that, I sprinkled some flour onto my largest cutting board and rolled out the dough. I was able to fit two pieces onto each of my sheet pans and cook all four lahmacun at once. The recipe made it sound like they would need to be cooked in batches, so I was really pleased.
I had enough topping to add five measured tablespoons to each rolled-out piece of dough. That was a little more than the 3-4 tablespoons listed, but it didn’t seem like too much to fit.
Then it was into the oven for 5-7 minutes to bake. I started with 5 minutes and increased by 2 minutes after checking for doneness. I ended up with a total baking time of 9 minutes to get the dough crusty around the edges.
As I removed the lahmacun from the oven, I noticed some grease pooled on the ground beef topping. You can see it soaked into the crust a bit before I had a chance to take photos. Otherwise, they looked like the author’s photos.
