food with friends
Sunday, December 1st, 2013
Recipe: lahmacun (turkish pizza)
I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a nice one this past week. I’ll tell you about ours later, but I need to share this recipe with you before it gets buried in my queue of posts! A few weekends ago, my stitch-n-bitch crew got together at Nichole’s house for lunch. It had been quite a while since I had seen some of these ladies. I mean, one of my girlfriends got married since I last saw her, and another got her Ph.D. (actually, I skied with her last spring – but still!). We spent time catching up and everyone offered a dish to share as well as hands to help Nichole with prep. I brought the rolled pistachio baklava as well as a quart of precious huckleberry ice cream.
But the real star of the show was Nichole’s Turkish pizza or lahmacun. I had never had it before and I obsessed over it for days afterward until I begged her for the recipe. The flavors, the fresh ingredients – it’s all wonderful. I did a little research online and cobbled together a compromise between Nichole’s version and another more traditional version to excellent results. I love it when my friends introduce me to new foods.
ground lamb, olive oil, red peppers, onion, garlic, tomato paste, canned tomatoes, parsley, pepper, salt, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, paprika
brown the lamb
drain the fat
You can use lamb or beef, but because we have truly excellent local Colorado lamb, the decision was practically made for me. Some recipes cook the meat before mixing it with the sauce ingredients while others leave the meat raw because it will cook when you bake the pizzas. I opted to brown the lamb and drain off the fat (of which there was a lot). Nichole cooked and simmered her sauce for a few hours and I swear it was phenomenally good straight from the pot. I just didn’t have the time to simmer the sauce and wanted to see if my quicker method would work.
chopped vegetables and diced tomatoes
process to a thick sauce
**Jump for more butter**
