Lahmacun is a typical dish of Middle Eastern, Turkish and Armenian cuisine. It is prepared with a thin flat round bread base, on which a mixture of minced meat (usually sheep) and vegetables such as carrots, onions or garlic (depending on the region) and tomatoes, cumin, olive oil and black pepper is placed. It is usually served with sliced lemon, sumac and parsley.
We, being in the islands, have a hard time accessing all the ingredients, so what we have done is an interpretation of lahmacun.
Ingridients
- Chicken Meat / Turkey – 500gr
- Salt
- Peppers
- Garlic
- Sugar
- Onion
- Spicy pepper
- Celery
- Chive
- Lemon peel
- Marjoram
- Rosemary
- Basil
- Olive oil – 2 spoons
- Chilli Flakes
- Cinnamon
- Cumin
These ingredients are to be mixed together – I use them all in powder form – if you do not have them in powder – dont fret – just use fresh ingridients finely chopped and mix – just like seasoning any meat. The amount depends on oneself, I used 1 teaspoon of everything – it was just the pepper that I put a little more.
For the dough – it is originally prepared fresh – we decided to use wheat tortillas (wraps) we also tried corn tortillas!
Once you have the mixture ready, with one hand form a ball of meat and put it in the middle of the tortilla and with the tips of your fingers, spread until it reaches the edge.
In a pre-heated oven, put it in and wait until the meat is seen to bubble – which means the dish is ready. Garnish with lemon, some sumac (tangy flavour) and fresh parsley.
UPDATE
It was annoying me that I did not make the dish as authentic as possible and I went back to prepare the dish again – the meat was the same as before but we added a mixture of the following ->
- Onion
- Tomato
- Parsley
- Garlic
- Cinnamon
- Cumin
- lemon
- Chilli Flakes
- Paprika
Before mixing with the meat – we extracted all the water – as it did not have a fine sieve, I used the one for tea.