Last updated on January 12th, 2018 at 03:50 pm
Lahmacun or Turkish Meat Pies, known as Turkish pizza, but so much better. A thin piece of homemade dough topped with minced meat and vegetables.
As I’m sitting here writing this post I salivate just looking at these pictures and wish there were a couple more of these pies left. I had these for the first time years ago in Michigan from an Arabic bakery and ever since then I was hooked. I love these types of pies.
Lahmacun simply means meat with dough and it’s a round, very thin piece of dough, much thinner than pizza, topped with minced meat, usually beef or lamb, and vegetables and herbs. They are then baked and usually served sprinkled with some lemon juice and topped with lettuce, tomatoes, peppers or onions and then wrapped up.
The dough is pretty similar with pizza dough but you use milk instead of water and the dough has to be rolled out very thinly, about 2 mm in thickness. The meat mixture here was ground beef mixed with a mixture of onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, spices and herbs. It was a pretty spicy mixture because I used about a tsp of chili flakes, but if you don’t like the spiciness just omit the chili flakes.
If you want to impress someone I guarantee you these pies will surely impress. They impressed me and I’m the one who made them. Lol!
If you guys love this recipe, and most importantly make it yourselves, please let us know. Take a picture and tag it #jocooks on Instagram so we can see it. I always love to see what you guys come up with!
Lahmacun or Turkish Meat Pies
Ingredients
For the crust
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 1 tsp sugar granulated
- 1 tbsp active dry yeast
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
For meat mixture
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 green bell pepper
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 large onion
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp chili flakes
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 handful parsley
Instructions
- Warm the milk in the microwave so that it's lukewarm. Add sugar and yeast to milk, mix and let it rest until yeast dissolves.
- In the bowl of your mixer add the flour, salt and mix. Add yeast mixture and using the dough hook mix for a couple minutes. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with damp towel and let sit for an hour or two until it doubles in size.
- Place all the meat mixture ingredients, minus meat, in food processor and pulse until it resembles salsa. Pour the salsa mixture over the meat and mix thoroughly.
- Preheat oven to 500 F degrees.
- Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece so that it's about 12 inches in diameter and about 2 mm in thickness. Place the rolled out dough onto a pizza pan, or a cookie sheet. Take a couple spoonfuls of the meat mixture and thinly spread it over the dough. Bake for about 5 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Repeat with remaining dough and meat mixture.
- Serve sprinkled with lemon juice and topped with lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onion and rolled up, if preferred.
Notes
Nutrition
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It’s my first time trying this recipe.. while I was making the dough .. I felt it was kinda hard .. will it still double in size if it’s hard
If your yeast is good, yes it should.
Do you have a book that I can purchase I want to prints all these recipes all of them lol I would make a binder if you don’t have a book
Thanx
Venus
Hi there, I don’t have a book yet, working on one at the moment. 🙂
I just made this and it was really good, but I had some trouble with the dough… was it supposed to be light and fluffy? and flexible after baking? Because mine was hard to the touch when raw and turned cracker like when baked.
Well it depends on how thin you rolled out the dough, though it should be flexible, because the way these are normally eaten are rolled up like a wrap.
Do you brown the ground beef first?
Hi Jessica,
No you don’t, no need to, it will cook as it bakes. Give them a try, they’re awesome.
These are so good!! Thank you so much for the recipe!!
You’re welcome 🙂
Hi, Miss Jo! I am making it right now, sorry can’t wait for tonight. I will be making my ever-favorite Magic Chocolate Cake too for dessert. I will tell you which one was devoured fast since your chocolate magic cake always disappears at the dining table in 15 minutes flat, thanks for another delicious recipe. God bless you always.
Miss Jo, hi! I’m going to make this tonight! I’ll tell you what exactly my Salwa say about this. Can’t wait to try them, they look so delicious! Thanks!
I just about hurt my finger clicking over here as fast as I could! I grew up on lahmacun (my family’s Armenian) and I LOVE them. Yours look absolutely perfect. We use half lamb and half beef, Now I’m drooling and wishing I had the ingredients to make this! Love, love, love.
Lol, I hope your finger is ok. 🙂 I know, aren’t these pies the best!!
Looks too easy NOT to make!
They are! 🙂
Wow I plan to make a veggie way pie thanks to you.
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