Make your own lahmacun – How to make Turkish pizza
Making your own lahmacun is not as difficult as you might think. You can prepare the Turkish pizza really well and enjoy it rolled up for lunch. Or you can invite a few friends over, as it also makes a fantastic dinner that can be customized.
Lahmacun ingredients – what you need for the spicy pizza
This lahmacun recipe is a guarantee for absolute enjoyment. You definitely need a few really good ingredients for the Turkish pizza, as they are essential for the taste.
And also a little time, because it is made with a yeast dough that needs time to rest. You can quickly mix it together from flour, water, sugar, dry yeast and salt. So you can get straight down to topping the pizza.
The lahmacun filling, or rather the lahmacun topping, is a spicy and savory minced meat mixture. This mixture is made from minced meat, vegetables and spices. The ingredients can vary depending on the recipe. I opted for minced beef, onion, garlic, tomatoes, pointed peppers, parsley, paprika pulp and Levant spices.
And for the topping, you can chop up almost any classic salad ingredient and spread it on your lahmacun pizza after baking.
How easy it is to make Turkish pizza in your oven
You don’t need to be a master chef to make lahmacun, because you can’t go wrong with this recipe for Turkish pizza.
Have you got all the ingredients from the ingredients list? Then you’re ready to go:
- Prepare the yeast dough and leave to rise.
- Prepare and mix the vegetable and mince mixture.
- Roll out the dough balls, spread with the lahmacun topping and bake in a hot oven.
- Top with fresh salad and vegetables as desired and enjoy.
Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? And it is! Give the lahmacun recipe a try – I hope you enjoy it and, of course, bon appétit.
Recipe for making your own lahmacun
Ingredients
Dough
- 500 g Wheat flour type 405
- 7 g Dry yeast
- 1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
- 250 ml lukewarm water
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
Filling
- 350 g Minced beef
- 2 Onions
- 1 Garlic clove
- 400 g Tomatoes
- 10 g Parsley
- 2 pointed peppers (red, green or mixed approx. 160g)
- 1 Tablespoon Paprika pulp or alternatively tomato puree
- 1 Tablespoon Sumac
- 2 Teaspoon Salt
- 1 Teaspoon Sweet paprika powder
- 1 Teaspoon Chili flakes
- 1/2 Teaspoon Cumin
- 1 Pinch Pepper
Topping
- Lemon (in wedges)
- Iceberg lettuce (cut into strips)
- Red onion (cut into rings)
- Tomatoes (sliced)
- Parsley
- Sumac (at will)
Zubereitung
Dough
- For the lahmacun dough, mix the dry yeast and sugar in water and leave to stand for approx. 5 minutes.
- Mix the flour with the salt and then knead into a dough with the yeast water and olive oil for approx. 10 minutes (approx. 3-4 minutes with a food processor) and leave to rise in a warm place, covered, for 45 – 60 minutes.
Filling
- Peel the onions and garlic. Quarter the onion.
- Halve the peppers, remove the stalk and remove the seeds. Then cut into small pieces.
- Quarter the tomatoes.
- Finely chop the onions, garlic, parsley, tomatoes and peppers.
- Add the finely chopped vegetables to the minced beef together with the spices and paprika pulp or tomato purée and knead well.
Top and bake the lahmacun
- Preheat the oven to 250 °C top and bottom heat. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Divide the dough into 12 equal parts and shape into balls. Leave the dough balls to rest on a lightly floured baking tray for 10 minutes.
- Then roll out the dough balls very thinly and place on the baking tray.
- Spread the lahmacun mince mixture thinly and evenly over the rolled-out pastry up to the edges.
- Bake the lahmacun in the oven for approx. 8 – 10 minutes.
Top lahmacun
- You can optionally garnish your lahmacun with onion rings, a pinch of sumac, chopped parsley, tomato slices, iceberg lettuce and a squeeze of lemon juice and then enjoy.
Notes
Nährwerte
Tips for preparing lahmacun
- If you want to roll your lahmacun, layer them on top of each other and place them in a plastic bag or put them in a large pot and close the lid for a few minutes. This makes them elastic because the dough remains moist.
- Be sure to drizzle fresh lemon juice over your Turkish pizza. The acidity provides more flavor.
- If you have a few patties left over, you can simply freeze the lahmacun. To do this, pack them in well-sealed freezer bags and place them in the freezer. They will keep there for about 3 months .
- You can easily reheat lahmacun in the oven, microwave or hot air fryer. You can find out how to do this in the article Reheating kebab.
What is lahmacun and where does it come from?
Lahmacun or Lachmajun, as some people incorrectly pronounce it, is a type of wafer-thin flatbread pizza from Turkey. Lahmacun comes from the Arabic “lahma bi’ajeen”, which literally means “dough with meat”. The correct pronunciation is something like this: “lahma’joun”.
The dough is rolled out thinly for the flatbread, then coated to the edges with a spicy minced meat mixture and baked in the oven.
Because it is so similar to pizza, it is often referred to as Turkish pizza. This street food is very popular in Turkey and its composition varies depending on the region. It is often rolled up with grilled vegetables or salad, but is always topped with parsley and lemon juice.
Lahm bi Ajin is the Lebanese equivalent and you should also try it. You could also prepare them at the same time and see which you like better. Or would you prefer not to eat meat? Then just try the vegetarian version.
You can also follow me on Instagram for even more inspiration about Levante cuisine.
