Middle Eastern pizza (lahmajun)

The power of social media can be a wonderful thing sometimes. As much as I love thumbing through my cookbooks for creative ideas, sites such as Pinterest and Instagram are where I gain a lot of inspiration these days. I have come across things that would never have entered my stratosphere had it not been for the power of the World Wide Web.

So the other day, a friend in the US mentioned that they had a Lebanese-type pizza for lunch. Note I said "mentioned". I looked up the phrase online and instantly fell in love with what I found. It was all I could think about and I had to get to the shops and pick up what I needed to make it immediately.

Lahmajun (just one of its pronunciations depending on what Middle Eastern country you are in) translates to meat on bread. It's a heady mix of ground lamb, spices, tomatoes and parsley baked into a pizza and topped with onions. Immediately I thought that this dish is not only delicious enough to remain in my repertoire forever, it is ridiculously easy to make. I adapted this recipe from many that I found on the internet — if you have a favourite Middle Eastern spice that you love, throw it in.

Lahmajun

Serves 4 (1 large or you can make individual pizzas if making your own dough)
30 minutes

• pizza dough or pre-prepared base
• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• 500gm lamb mince
• 6 tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
• 1 white onion, finely diced
• 1 red capsicum, deseeded and chopped
• 4 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon sumac
• 1 teaspoon chilli flakes
• ½ teaspoon ground allspice
• additional parsley and red diced onion for topping

Preheat oven to 220°C.

Once you have your pizza dough ready, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and add lamb. Push the lamb flat with a wooden spoon which will give you a fine mince as it cooks (instead of large chunks of meat).

Add the remaining ingredients apart from additional parsley and red onion. Cook over a low heat for 10 minutes, stirring and continuing to break up lamb.

On your pizza dough, spread the lamb topping evenly and right out to the edges. Bake in oven for 10-12 minutes. Remove and sprinkle with parsley and fresh red onion, serve.