Lamajun - Turkish Lamb Pizza

When I  attended the Ballymaloe Sushi course in 2011; not only did I learn how to make all types of sushi; but there was an added bonus of learning a few Turkish dishes also, as Shermin Mustafa was giving the course with Darina Allen. What a treat!!!

I intending on trying out Shermins Lamajun (Turkish pizza bread) many a time, but I never got round to it. Now all day I've had a hankering for this truly delicious pizza; it's like an itch I gotta scratch. So I  rooted out my Ballymaloe notes and googled Lamajun for a while before I decided on how I'd like to cook my own.

This recipe is adapted mainly from Shermins notes from the Ballymaloe Cookery School.  I've just substituted a few items, based on availability to me and also to satisfy my feta craving.

You can also eliminate the use of a food processor by using lamb mince as opposed to chunks and finely dicing everything by hand. Do whatever works for you! That's my motto!

You can use this recipe to create smaller lamajuns, a great little canape for that perfect mezze party.


Ingredients


For the Base

• 275g of plain white flour
• 225ml of natural yogurt

For the Topping

• 1 Tbsp of olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped finely
• 1 garlic clove
• 200g of lamb, diced
• 4 tomatoes, deseeded and diced
• 2 tbsp of chopped fresh mint
• Salt/pepper
• 1/2 tsp of cumin powder
• 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper

To serve

• Cous Cous
• Feta cheese, cubed
• Lemon Wedges

(Shermins recipe calls for lots of flat leaf parsley, but I've substituted mint and coriander as I couldn't get hold of the parsley and I wasn't waiting to pick some up to make this dish.)

Method

1. Using a food processor, blitz the onion, garlic, spices, tomatoes and lamb together. Season well.
2. Mix the flour and the yogurt together to form a soft dough
3. Divide the dough into balls (50g each) and roll out as thin as possible.
4. Spread the whizzed lamb mixture on to the rolled out base, on a baking tray dusted with flour. Close in the sides of the dough to prevent the mixture pouring out onto the baking sheet.
5. Bake in a preheated oven to 200 degrees for 17 minutes.
6. Serve with lots of lemon and herbs and scatter over the feta. (You can put the feta onto the lamajun before baking if you wish.

This is a different method to Sharmins recipe, this for me is the express lazy method, as Shermin would sweat and cool the onions first before add to the raw lamb mixture.She then would fry the prepared lamajun and then grill the lamajun; as opposed to my 1 step of baking in the oven.

 But this works just as well; its probably not as authentic, but that's alright with me. As long as something's tasty and easy, that for me is the main thing.