Sunday, June 26, 2016

945. Turkish Lahmacun


No Turkish lahmacun tastes as good as the original bought off the streets of Istanbul. Regardless, one may put a valiant effort at replicating it at home. Very similar in concept to the Iraqi lahm ajeen, it is a sort of meat pizza with a very thin crust.
Baking it correctly over a searing hot pizza stone lends an unparalleled crispiness to the crust. Being so thin, they do not require not more than a few minutes in the oven per pizza.


Ingredients:

The base:
3 to 3/12 cups white flour
1 Tbsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 cup warm milk
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp dried yeast

The topping:
1 onion
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
2 tomatoes
1 Tbsp tomato puree
1 big bunch parsley
2 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp black pepper
500 g minced beef
1 generous drizzle olive oil


Method:

Make the dough: mix the flour, salt and sugar into a bowl.
Dissolve the yeast into the milk and pour into the flour as you mix by hand, or with dough hook in a machine.
Finish with the oil and knead the dough well for at least 5 minutes until its soft and elastic.
Leave in a bowl, covered with a tea towel, to prove for an hour in a warm room.
Make the topping: Peel and roughly chop up the onion.
Deseed and chunk the peppers then quarter the tomatoes.
Place all of them into a food processor with the purée, parsley, salt, paprika, cumin and pepper.
Blitz to a course paste, not a smooth purée.
Transfer to a big mixing bowl and combine with the beef.
Preheat an oven to 450F and heat up a pizza stone in the oven if you have one (use a baking tray if you don't).
Roll the dough: knock the air from the dough then divide into 8 parts.
Roll each part super thin (about 2mm) on a lightly floured surface.
Transfer to a small chopping board sprinkled with semolina so that you can easily transfer it to the oven.
Top and bake: Spread a thin layer of the meat mixture all over and right to the edges.
Slide the pizza onto the hot stone and bake for 5-6 minutes.
Remove from the oven and place onto a plate.
Repeat to use up the rest of the dough and topping, stacking each newly cooked pizza on top of the last.
Sprinkle with fresh parsley to serve.


صحة و عافية

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