Sam's Kitchen

Lahmajun or Lovemajun as my oldest munchkin likes to call it is a staple on our dinner table.

Lahmajun is a popular Turkish style pizza. Traditionally it is made out of a thinly rolled out dough with meat and vegetable ( mainly tomato and capsicum salsa ) mixture spread over the top in a thin layer and cooked in a wood fire oven, then served topped with salad, a squeeze of lemon juice and rolled into a roll. It’s extremely delicious and very hard to stop on just one.

Here I’m sharing a cheats way of making Lahmajun where I came up with an idea of using a ready made flatbreads and avoiding the time-consuming dough rolling method.

My recipe is very simple and tasty. Hope you will enjoy it.

Ingredients

10-12 large, soft, thin flatbreads
500g lamb or beef mince
1 red capsicum
2 ripe, large tomatoes
1 large onion ( white or red ), peeled
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 handful flat leaf parsley
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup tomato paste
1/2 tbsp smoked Hungarian paprika
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg or cumin
1/2 tbsp chilli flakes ( optional )
1 tsp sea salt or to taste
Pinch of black pepper

To serve

1 bunch flat leaf parsley-washed, stems removed
1-2 lemons cut into wedges

2-3 tomatoes – cut into slim wedges or to your liking
1/2 onion – thinly sliced
Small handful flat leaf parsley leaves
1/2 tsp sumac

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200C.
   Prepare a lined with baking paper large baking tray.
2. Cut tomatoes in half, remove the seeds. Roughly cut capsicum. Cut onion into quarters. Place tomatoes, capsicum, onion, garlic and parsley into a food processor and process till finely chopped, but not too much, or simply chop finely using a sharp knife.
3. Place meat, chopped vegetables, oil, tomato paste, paprika, nutmeg, chilli flakes, salt and pepper into a large bowl. Mix well using your hands or a spoon.
4. Lay flatbread on a chopping board or a working bench. Spoon two spoonfuls (less or more depending on the size of the flatbread) of the meat mixture on top of a flatbread and spread evenly using the back of the spoon or your fingers, creating a thin layer or the meat mixture.
5. Move onto a prepared baking tray and bake in preheated oven for 7-10 minutes. When cooked move to a prepared plate and cover with foil to keep lahmajuns warm. Repeat with remaining flatbreads.
6. Place parsley leaves and lemon wedges into a plate or a bowl. Prepare a salad by mixing cut up tomatoes, sliced onion, parsley leaves and sumac in a small bowl.
7. Serve lahmajuns warm with a handful of salad placed across the middle and squeeze of lemon juice over the top. Roll and enjoy.

Tip

To keep my lahmajuns warm I cover them with a piece of foil while others are still cooking