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Anyone here familiar with Turkish Lahmacun?

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Jenise

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Anyone here familiar with Turkish Lahmacun?

by Jenise » Mon Nov 07, 2022 4:16 pm

The spelling from Turkish doesn't transfer over to English well, so there are a variety of spellings. I took the one in my title from a recipe I looked at on line which seems true to the flavors and is absolutely true to the texture and consistency of what I know as a Lahmacun or Lahmajoun (closer, with that 'j' sound, to what I know from the Armenian food world). That recipe and picture is below.

https://www.turkfoodsrecipes.com/how-to ... -home.html

My investigation was due to having just viewed a segment of Milk Street in which my least favorite of his staff chefs made and absolute abomination of Lahmajoun. First of all, she made a yeast dough. Look at that picture again. No yeast, right? It's a paper thin flatbread, just water and flour, with a very thin edge-to-edge paste topping. She divided her dough into two big balls to make two 'pizzas' and in fact she kept saying 'pizza' over and over again. Her belief that what she was making was akin to same seemed to influence everything about her approach: the yeast dough and thickness of it, the fat edges, the egregious thickness of her filling within the 1" margins of bare dough (so wrong, as even this recipe cautions against), and even the seasoning of the filling (smoked paprika and cumin).

Judging by all the images on Google that match the picture on this recipe, never on God's green earth was lahmajoun supposed to look like hers. Nor has it in my experience. My Armenian roommate and I used to buy them frozen, a dozen to a bag, at little Middle Eastern markets in the area, usually owned by Armenians or Turks and where the 'Mahjouns were made by their wife or mother. We'd reheat them on a cookie sheet til the edges were crisp and typically put a salad in the middle to roll the Majoun around, burrito-like. I absolutely loved them and miss them since moving north.

It's time for me to make my own! I'll start with this recipe. Btw, it's an enjoyable read, written by a very earnest person for whom English was not a first language.
My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov
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Barb Downunder

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Re: Anyone here familiar with Turkish Lahmacun?

by Barb Downunder » Tue Nov 08, 2022 3:11 am

That is a fun read! :D weird but easy enough to follow if you have some common sense.
Whilst I don’t recognise the Turkish name a very similar dish was readily available in my old neighbourhood and oftentimes referred to as Turkish pizza. They were quite flat but I thought they were yeasted as sone very flat Arabic breads often are. They usually offered two or three different mortars :roll: :lol:
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Karen/NoCA

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Re: Anyone here familiar with Turkish Lahmacun?

by Karen/NoCA » Tue Nov 08, 2022 11:15 am

I know I would love the topping, peppers and hamburger...yum
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Paul Winalski

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Re: Anyone here familiar with Turkish Lahmacun?

by Paul Winalski » Tue Nov 08, 2022 2:02 pm

Jenise,

That recipe you linked to mentions an oven temperature of "250 degrees" and a cooking time of 7-8 minutes. I assume that temperature is Celsius, not Fahrenheit?

-Paul W.
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Re: Anyone here familiar with Turkish Lahmacun?

by Jenise » Tue Nov 08, 2022 2:37 pm

Paul Winalski wrote:Jenise,

That recipe you linked to mentions an oven temperature of "250 degrees" and a cooking time of 7-8 minutes. I assume that temperature is Celsius, not Fahrenheit?

-Paul W.


I kind of presumed that too, while thinking it pretty high. I'm a 400-450 kind of girl.
My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

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