A Turkish-style pizza, Lahmacun is a Turkish flat bread layered with a sauce of fresh tomatoes, peppers and lamb mince and a gorgeous, fragrant array of Mediterranean herbs and spices. Light, fresh, filling and tasty meal. If possible, make sauce the previous night for the best flavour.
Chilli sauce, harissa or Tabasco® hot pepper sauce. In place of the cabbage, you can combine 70g lettuce, thinly sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and red onion.
LOVED this. It's a real project, that's for sure, but I was expecting it to be. I made the sauce ahead of time, browning the lamb first and draining the fat before adding the other ingredients. The dough was very tight; I think next time I'll add more water. To shape the rounds, I divided the dough in 10 pieces and shaped them into balls. I covered them with plastic wrap and let the balls sit for 10 minutes to relax. Then, I started the round-robin process of flattening them into rounds. At first roll, the dough rounds were about the size of pita bread. It took three or four sessions with the rolling pin, resting in between each workout, to get the dough into a nice thin round like a flour tortilla. I baked them as directed, about two at a time on parchment-lined baking sheets; it took 8 minutes in my oven. (Meanwhile, I kept rolling out other dough rounds.) The breads were a little brittle the first night, but I stacked the rest in between the parchment I baked them on, put them in a zipper bag, and refrigerated them. The leftovers softened up and can be topped and rolled up nicely to bring for lunches. We topped them with shredded red and green cabbage, the yogurt sauce, chopped parsley, tomatoes, onions, and harissa. I gave a miserly bite to two of my coworkers, who promptly had to leave the building and go to the nearest gyro place for something similar—it's that good. - 13 Jan 2011 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)
As one who grew up in Istanbul and lived there for 14 years, I must say that this is an excellent recipe. Two extraneous comments on the recipe: 1) Be wary of how much tomato / tomato paste is used in the recipe as the tomato can easily overwhelm some of the more delicate tastes in sauce. 2) The garlic sauce and cabbage is more of a European addition to the lahmacun (a similar addition is made to Western European renditions of the Doner Kebap). In my experience, lahmacuns are best served with white onions (topped with sumac) and fresh parsley as garnish. - 31 Oct 2011 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)
I love lahmacun and usually never put basil but found it to be great. Thank you! - 23 Sep 2010 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)