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Turkish lahmacun

• Özlem Warren

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Serves 6

A little effort

Prep: 1 hr

Cook: 15 mins

plus resting

A star rating of 5 out of 5.8 ratingsRate

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Rolled with a zingy piyaz salad and sumac onions, our homemade lahmacun is so satisfying and delicious. Smaller versions can be served as meze

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Try Turkish lahmacun, then discover Turkish-style eggs, keşkek with aleppo pepper butter and gözleme with caçik, Turkish gozleme, Turkish stuffed peppers or Turkish ice cream (dondurma).

What is lahmacun?

Lahmacun is a thin, crispy flatbread topped with a spiced mixture of minced meat, tomatoes, onions and herbs, originating from Turkish and Middle Eastern cuisine. Often dubbed “Turkish pizza”, it’s typically served without cheese and enjoyed with fresh salad and a squeeze of lemon, either folded or rolled.

Özlem: "Some of the very best lahmacun, one of the nation’s favourite foods, can be enjoyed in Istanbul thanks to the talented ustas who migrated to the city from the south-east. Also much loved all through the Levant and the Middle East, almost every city in southern Türkiye makes their own speciality lahmacun – it gets spicier at the southern part of the country. I adore lahmacun with the delicious minced lamb topping, it is an all-day food for us. Make sure the meat has 20 per cent fat for the best flavour. I offer two ways of cooking lahmacun at home: in the oven for a crispier version, and over a non-stick pan for a softer lahmacun. If I am not making my own, I pop to Green Lanes in London – loads of Turkish restaurants offer good lahmacun there, including Antepliler restaurant."

Award-winning food writer and cookery teacher Özlem Warren was born and raised in Turkey, and is an expert in Turkish cuisine. Her latest cookbook, Sebze: Vegetarian Recipes from My Turkish Kitchen, is out now (£28, Hardie Grant).

Turkish lahmacun recipe

Ingredients

Nutrition

• 225g plain flour

  plus extra for dusting

• 1 tbsp olive oil

TOPPING

• ½ medium onion

  coarsely chopped

• ½ red pepper

  deseeded and coarsely chopped

• 1 sivri biber or 2 green Padrón peppers

  deseeded and coarsely chopped

• 1 medium tomato

  coarsely chopped

• 15g parsley

  coarsely chopped

• 240g 20% fat lamb mince

• 1 tbsp double concentrated tomato purée

• ½ tsp pul biber (use more if you like it hot)

PIYAZ SALAD

• 1 red onion

  thinly sliced

• 1 tsp ground sumac

• ½ red pepper

  deseeded and thinly sliced

• 3 medium tomatoes

  diced

• handful of parsley

  finely chopped

• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 lemon

  cut into wedges, to serve

Nutrition: per lahmacun

• kcal343
• fat14g
• saturates5g
• carbs38g
• sugars6g
• fibre5g
• protein12g
• salt1.9g

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Method

• step 1

  Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and stir in ¾ tsp of salt. Make a well in the middle and tip in the oil and 140ml of water. Knead for 2-3 mins to form a rough dough. Lightly flour a worksurface and knead the dough for 4 mins until smooth. Divide the dough into six equal pieces and roll each into a ball. Put side by side in a large bowl and cover at room temperature for 45 mins.

• step 2

  In the meantime, prepare the topping. Blitz the onion, peppers, tomato and parsley in a food processor until they are very finely diced but not mushy. Put the mixture in a large bowl and stir in the lamb, tomato purée and pul biber, then season with 1 tsp of salt and some ground black pepper. Use your hands to give it a good mix. Cover and chill until ready to use.

• step 3

  For the salad, put the onion in a bowl, stir in the sumac and season with salt. With clean hands, rub the sumac and salt into the onions. Stir in the pepper, tomatoes and parsley, drizzle over the oil and season. Combine well, cover and chill until needed.

• step 4

  If cooking in the oven, put two or three, if you can, large baking trays into the oven and heat to 220C/200C fan/gas 7.

• step 5

  Put a dough ball on a lightly floured worksurface and use a rolling pin to stretch into a 24cm circle. Repeat with the remaining balls and put side by side on a lightly floured worksurface. Put a 4½ tbsp of filling onto the middle part of each circle. Thinly spread the topping with your hands, leaving a 1cm border. Gently press in with your hands and repeat the same process with the remaining dough. Start cooking as soon as the topping is on so that the dough doesn’t get wet.

• step 6

  Take the hot trays from the oven and put two lahmacun on each tray and bake for 7-8 mins or until the topping is cooked and the edges start to crisp. Put the lahmacun on a large flat serving dish and wrap with baking paper or foil to keep warm.

• step 7

  Alternatively, if cooking in a pan, heat a 25cm non-stick lidded pan over a high heat. Lower a lahmacun gently on the pan and put on a lid. Cook over medium heat for 8 mins, checking with a spatula to see if the bottom is cooked and forming brown patches. Remove the lid and put the cooked lahmacun on top of each other and keep covered. Continue to cook the rest of lahmacun this way, keeping covered each time.

• step 8

  Take the salad out of the fridge. Serve the lahmacun straight away with a couple of spoonfuls of salad in the middle of each and a squeeze of lemon juice. Roll to wrap and enjoy.

More Turkish-style recipes

Authors

Özlem Warren

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