Lahmacun

Lahmacun takes two or three minutes in a very hot oven: a round of dough rolled thinner than a cracker, a little wider than a dinner plate, spread with a paste of minced lamb or beef, onion, tomato, red pepper and parsley. The name comes from the Arabic lahm bi ajin, meat with dough, which is a fair description of the whole dish. It is eaten across south-eastern Türkiye, Syria and Lebanon, and Armenians make a close relative they call lahmajo. In Türkiye the home ground is Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa and Adana, where it is a lunchtime order rather than a snack, and a single person will put away two or three. Calling it Turkish pizza misleads on the main point: there is no cheese, the topping is scraped on thinly rather than piled, and the base is closer to a cracker than a bread.