"TURKISH PIZZA" WITH MEAT TOPPING (LAHMACUN)

Life is very busy....  It is always good to know short cuts for when you are in a hurry.  Although short cuts are not as good, they are close enough in taste to serve as quick alternatives.  Here is the short cut for this recipe...  Making the dough and the crust is the most time consuming part of this dish.  You can use store bought Tortillas for the crust.  Down side of using Tortillas is they are best right out of the oven but they dry out when left over for use the next day. 

Another option is use of store bought fresh pizza dough.  This option does save you time in making the the dough but you still have to roll them out to make the crust.  They keep well for the next day.  I personally don't like to do this because I find Pizza dough very sticky for this recipe.

Of course the best taste comes from making them from scratch...

Dough:
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon dry yeast (1 package)
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 cups flour

Topping:
500 gr. lean ground beef or lean ground lamb
3 medium sized onions
3 cloves of garlic
3 medium sized tomatos
3 cubanella peppers
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon red pepper paste
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Salt, blackpepper, cumin, red pepper flakes

Filling (Optional):
Parsley
Lemon juice
Onions

• To make the dough, heat 1/2 cup milk in the microwave to luke warm; in a tall glass.  Add in sugar and yeast.  Let sit for 15 minutes.  The yeast will rise in the glass.
• Mix together remaining milk, salt, yeast and flour.  Make a fairly hard dough.  If you need to, you can add a bit of water.  Let it sit for 10 minutes.
• Take your dough and break into small "balls" size of a large lemon.  Let it rest for 1 hour. 
• Prepare the topping by putting all of the ingredients into the blender and mix at high speed until you get a them to the consistency of a paste
• Roll out very thin crust with each of the small balls
• Divide the topping to equal the number of dough balls and put paste over each of the crusts
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  This is a must!
• Cook until the bottoms of your pizza turns golden brown (10 - 15 minutes)
• Serve with cut up lemon (to be squeezed on the pizza), sliced onions, parsley.  Some people also like sliced lettuce and graded carrots as a filling
• You spread lemon juice all over the "pizzas" and roll them up like a wrap to eat

If you end up with too much of the topping and not enough dough, try topping slices of French bread or English muffin for snacks.