Why It Works
- Mixing the dough gently helps hold the gluten relaxed, making it straightforward to roll and producing a crisp-tender texture.
- Shaping the dough balls earlier than cold-proofing lets the dough calm down additional.
- Processing the bell pepper and onion with a bit salt pulls out moisture, which prevents the meat topping from being excessively moist.
- Letting the meat topping heat up barely earlier than dolloping it on the dough makes it straightforward to unfold evenly with out deforming the form of the dough.
- Whereas lahmajun is great with little greater than a squirt of lemon juice, the optionally available onion-parsley salad—used as a garnish or a aspect dish—takes it to the following degree.
As a skinny, chewy-crisp flatbread with an fragrant, bright-red topping on it, lahmajun will get known as “Armenian pizza” by non-Armenians on a regular basis. That is superb, because it does give non-Armenians a strong level of reference for an in any other case unfamiliar dish, although the analogy actually solely goes to date. The place pizza is topped with cheese and a tomato-based sauce, lahmajun is cheeseless and topped with a skinny layer of a lamb- or beef-based paste that’s intensely flavored with chiles, tomato, fragrant onion, garlic, purple bell pepper, parsley, and heat spices. The onion and bell pepper are finely floor and drained of extra water, so the topping emerges from the oven steaming and moist, however not moist. On this means, lahmajun is much less like pizza and extra like a floor meat kofta—an Armenian “hamburger,” if you’ll—smooshed into a skinny layer onto the bread. However, lahmajun and pizza are each completely scrumptious, particularly when eaten scorching from the oven, and each are straightforward to make at dwelling, supplied you might have the precise recipe (specifically, mine).
The Key Methods for Correctly Formed, Tender Flatbreads
As with many flatbreads (together with pizza), the dough for lahmajun is rolled out thinly earlier than being topped. However this poses a technical problem. On the one hand, we need to roll out and form the flatbread correctly, however on the opposite, we need to stop extreme gluten formation from overworking the dough, which can lead to a tricky or chewy texture. So, how does one get the dough rolled out and formed correctly with out inflicting it to deform or get powerful within the course of? Over time, I’ve provide you with a bunch of methods for flatbread success, a number of of which I make use of right here.
First, I combine the dough gently, with out kneading of any form, apart from a brief hand mixing within the bowl to get the substances absolutely mixed. This might sound counterintuitive, since breads usually require structure-building by way of kneading, however so long as you select the precise flour—bread flour, on this case, with its excessive proportion of gluten-forming proteins—you find yourself with greater than sufficient construction to yield a chewy-crisp flatbread with out calling for kneading.
Secondly, I form the dough into balls after a quick room-temperature fermentation—about 90 minutes, simply lengthy sufficient to let the yeast in it get up and the dough broaden a bit—after which transfer them into the fridge. After that, they proceed to ferment slowly, for no less than eight hours (and as much as 24 hours). Shaping the dough balls early on in a protracted fermentation provides the dough ample time to calm down, which makes rolling it out straightforward, whereas additionally constructing taste.
Chilly-proofing formed dough balls additionally builds a measure of comfort into the recipe, since you make the dough in the future and bake them the following. Better of all, in contrast to many flatbreads, you roll out the lahmajun dough chilly, straight from the fridge, so you can begin baking as quickly because the oven and baking floor is scorching, with out having to spend time letting the dough heat up earlier than use.
Apart from flour, water, salt, and yeast, my dough method comprises a contact of vegetable oil for added tenderness and to advertise crisping, together with a bit sugar, to advertise speedy browning.
Methods to Make a Flavorful—Not Moist—Topping
To manage the water content material within the topping, I grind the onion and purple bell pepper in a meals processor together with a beneficiant quantity of salt; I then transfer the combination to a strainer to empty for 10 minutes. The salt attracts extra water from the greens, which drips by means of the strainer right into a bowl under. This helps scale back a watery topping later.
After that, I return the drained combination to the meals processor, together with the remaining seasonings: parsley, purple pepper paste (a.ok.a. biber salçasi in Turkish—most manufacturers are made there), tomato paste, a couple of garlic cloves, allspice, paprika, cumin, and black pepper. I course of all the things to a superb, even paste, then add the meat in small nuggets and pulse all the things collectively till it simply comes collectively, to retain some texture to the meat.
As for what sort of meat to make use of, beef or lamb, that’s as much as you. I like lamb finest myself, however I’m Armenian, in order that’s a given. Irrespective of which you select, attempt to discover meat that’s freshly floor with a coarse-but-even texture; often this implies going to a butcher. Classically, the topping for lahmajun was hand-minced with a knife (or a pair of them), which divides it finely with out mashing it to an amorphous paste; utilizing freshly floor meat is the following smartest thing to hand-mincing it. That mentioned, if all you’ll find is prepackaged meat, use it! I do generally, and it really works superb.
As with the dough, the topping will be made as much as 24 hours forward of time and saved within the fridge. You do need to let it heat at room temperature for about half-hour earlier than baking, since that can make it simpler to unfold with out mashing or deforming the rolled-out dough.
Methods to Assemble and Bake Lahmajun
Historically, lahmajun is baked in blazing scorching wood-fired ovens. The excellent news is you could nonetheless make an awesome one in a house oven at a temperature of 500˚F (or 550˚F, if you’re fortunate sufficient to have an oven that goes that prime), so long as you utilize a strong dwelling pizza baking method:
Cook dinner them on a preheated baking stone or, ideally for extra conductivity, a baking metal (heated at your most oven temperature no less than half-hour for a metal or an hour for a stone), and positioned excessive within the oven, which ensures speedy heating from each above and under, for even, fast cooking. Simply be certain to not set the oven rack so excessive that it’s a problem to get the lahmajun out and in; you need to give your self 4 to 5 inches of headroom, which implies both the highest or second from the highest rack place.
As soon as the floor is nice and scorching, you will get right down to baking. As a result of the dough must be good and relaxed by now, it gained’t take a lot effort to pat and roll out. You’ll want to use loads of flour on the dough and the counter to stop sticking, to keep away from tearing or overworking it. It is best to roll from the middle out, rotating the dough repeatedly, to maintain the circle as spherical as attainable. As soon as it’s between 11 and 12 inches, transfer it to a floured peel.
Professional lahmajun bakers simply smoosh the topping with their fingertips across the dough in a matter of seconds, however this takes tons and plenty of observe to tug off with out manhandling the dough and/or making an unsanitary mess. I exploit a distinct method to reduce hand contact with the paste: You scoop the topping combination in a 1/2 cup dry measuring cup and use a small spoon to distribute dollops of it evenly across the disc. You then use the again of the spoon and a fingertip to flatten the dollops and canopy the dough utterly, apart from a 1/8-inch-wide border.
Then it goes into the oven to bake till the crust is browned across the edges and on the underside, which takes about 5 minutes. (The topping might be steaming scorching at this level, however it mustn’t dry out or brown.) Whereas one bakes you may roll out the following one, and all 4 flatbreads ought to take lower than half an hour to finish.
Serving Lahmajun
Lahmajun is nice with little greater than a squirt of recent lemon juice as a foil for its richness. But it surely’s additionally usually served with a crisp, cool, and tart vegetable salad, both as a aspect dish, or—higher but—as a filling to fold or wrap the flatbread round, burrito-style. One basic Armenian salad I like to make use of right here is thinly-sliced purple onion and parsley, dressed with floor sumac, lemon juice, and olive oil. To mood the pungency of the onion, I first soak it in boiling water for five minutes to tug off many of the intense sulfur compounds that kind when it’s lower.
When you strive it—it makes an awesome mild lunch and is a welcome addition to a mezze unfold—I feel you’ll agree that whereas lahmajun and pizza should not the identical, each are value including to your flatbread repertoire.
