Turkish Lahmacun Recipe
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160 minutes prep time
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15 minutes cook time
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Intermediate
Break your meal monotony with a spicy Turkish lahmacun. Impress friends and family by making the flatbreads from scratch. Everyone will have great fun grabbing their own spicy lamb-topped flatbread and rolling it around tangy sumac pickled onions.
The recipe is really ‘hands-on’, so start the fun early and have the kids help. They’ll love squishing the spices into the minced lamb!
Is lahmacun Turkish or Armenian?
A flatbread topped with spiced lamb is known as the national dish of Turkey and Armenia, with both countries serving the dish as a speciality. In Turkey it is called lahmacun, while in Armenia it is called lamadjo.
What does lahmacun mean?
Lahmacun means a round, thin piece of dough topped with minced meat.
Dough recipe for lahmacun Serves: 8
- 500g plain flour
- 300g water
- 7g instant yeast
- 10g salt
- Olive oil
Onion & parsley salad
- 2 onions, finely sliced
- 4 tbsp lemon juice or mild vinegar
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- 2 tsp sumac
- 15g parsley, torn into pieces
Lamb topping for lahmacun
- 130g lamb mince
- 2 tsp (5g) Aleppo pepper
- 1 tomato, minced (you can use tinned if easier)
- 1 onion, minced
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 7g parsley, finely chopped
- ½ tsp dried mint
- ½ tsp fine salt
Method
- With your hands, mix together flour, yeast, salt and water until no lumps remain. Knead for 8 minutes in a stand mixer, or for 12-15 minutes by hand. Place dough in an oiled mixing bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise for 1 hour, or until the dough doubles in size. You can do this step the night before, leaving the dough to rise overnight in the fridge.
- Tip the dough onto a work surface, press out into a rectangle shape using your fingertips. Cut into 8 equal pieces. Roll out until they are 5mm thick. Cover with oiled clingfilm and leave to prove for 1 hour, or until they puff up a little at the edges.
- While the dough proves, make the sumac pickled onions. Mix together sliced onions, lemon juice, salt, and sumac, and set aside in the fridge.
- Heat your oven to 200 C. In another mixing bowl, use your hands to together the lamb mince, tomato, onion, garlic cloves, Aleppo pepper, chopped parsley, dried mint and salt. It will form a paste. Divide into 8 parts and spread onto the risen dough, leaving 1/2 cm gap at the edges. Bake for 12 minutes.
- Leave to cool a little. Stir the torn parsley into the sumac pickled onions. Sprinkle over the flat breads to serve.
Find more Middle Eastern ingredients here, or try making our easy za’atar flatbread.
