Lahmacun, Turkish Pizza

Lahmacun is one of those great Turkish dishes. Cheap and easy to eat with an unbeatable price.  You go to restaurants and get 1 for about 1.50TL each and that comes with loads of various salads.  Depending on which area you are in depends on the salad served.  Gaziantep usually give pickled red cabbage, mint sprigs and the usual tomato, cucumber and onion salad.  Adana will give a plate of parsley, onion salad and sliced tomato and onions.  Istanbul usually has mixed tomato, cucumber and onion salad with lemon wedges.  Middle Turkey usually just has tomato and onion slices.  I like the food in Adana and Gaziantep because they give plates and plates of salads with every service. Tarsus also gives large plates of salads. Lemon wedges are served everywhere and some will also serve hot pickled chillies. 


One is usually enough for me with the babies having nearly one each and my husband eating 2.  So for about 10lira we can have a nice family meal out including a drink.  While we like going out as a family we also like to have quick and easy things at home.  


With the fırın culture as it is here this is very easy to do.  You start by going to the butchers, there is one at every corner here and next to the butchers you will find a bakery and also a veggie stall. They seem to all come together.  Why? well I wondered the same thing when we came here nearly 2 years ago. It is because people will buy the meat or chicken and vegetables for the various dishes then give it all to the bakery to be cooked.


The other night we decided to have lahmacun for a change and it was very easy.  I just set the table, put out the chillies and a bit of salad and waited. The butcher made the meat mixture and then we gave it to the bakery to be made.  For 8 lira we got 12 lahmacun.  You can make these at home and they are very easy.  The trick is baking these in a very hot oven and taking them out before the base goes brown as you want these to stay soft.

You can use a food processor

Lets hope he washed his hands!

Spreading the mixture on the dough.

Going into the oven

Ready to eat.

To make these at home you need


250gr minced meat
3 tomatoes
1 large handful parsley
2 sweet or hot peppers
garlic if desired


basic bread dough


Put the sauce ingredients and put them all in a food processor and pulse until it is all combined and paste like. Then take small apple sized pieces of dough and roll out fairly thin in an oval or circular shape. Spread some a couple of tbsp of sauce and spread out thinly over the surface.  Bake in a very hot oven until meat is cooked.


Serve with lemon wedges and salad.