A
proud member of the
kebab family to be savored till you've had ridiculously enough and need a
caterpillar winch to lift you to your balcony.
Where it originated in Turkey is a bit of a toss up between the two regions, Urfa and Gaziantep. It should be noted that the two regions, in addition to a few others, boast their own recipes for making a damn good lahmacun. I must admit, I never met a lahmacun I didn't like. So here's the deal:
Sift the flour into a wide bowl and remove a single cupful. Mix in one and a quarter table spoon of salt. Make a clearing in the middle of the mixture. Paste the yeast and sugar together with a quarter cupful of water and place in the middle of the mixture. Sprinkle a little flour on top and leave for approx. 10 minutes for it to leaven. Add the half a cup of cooking oil. Slowly empty the yoghurt into the mix, forming a soft dough until it ceases to stick.
Knead the dough for about 7-8 minutes. Keeping the temperature constant, allow to leaven further for 1 hour. Peel the onion and garlic after rinsing under the tap. Finely chop the onions and garlic. Remove the pepper's stem and clear away all seeds and give the parsley a good wash. Dice the tomatoes and the parsley into little bits and chop the pepper into small ringlets. Mix the tomatoes, pepper, onions, parsley and the mince with one table spoon of salt and a quarter cupful of water. Add the pepper paste and spices and mix.
Split the dough into 6 equal pieces. Grease the tray with a table spoon of oil. Immerse hands in flour and spread the single pieces of dough into circular sheets of about half a centimeter thick. Spread the mixture on all the circles of dough, leaving about a centimeter of space at the edges. Cook for 10 minutes in a pre-heated oven at medium temperature and serve piping hot.
"Mr Music! Will you play..."