November Meeting - Turkey

Thank you to all of you who came to the meeting this month and a special thank you to Marian who accepted the invite to talk about this amazing country with such an interesting history. Did you know that the Republic of Turkey was not created until 1923? And with its modernization, a language reform was also established by the Turkish Language Association in 1932 to replace words of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents! I certainly learnt a lot and I hope you and your children did too.

It was a lovely day filled with great information, games and of course our communal lunch in the end where all the families had a relaxing time to talk and get to know each other. On the menu was Lahmucan - "a round, thin piece of dough topped with minced meat (most commonly beef and lamb) and minced vegetables and herbs including onions, tomatoes and parsley, then baked. Lahmacun is often served sprinkled with lemon juice and wrapped around vegetables including pickles, tomatoes, peppers, onions, lettuce and roasted eggplant. It is commonly referred to as "Turkish Pizza".  Yuuuummm!!  
Find the recipe in the end of this post.

 Have a look at the pictures of the day below:

Marian introducing Turkey to the group

Children watching the presentation sitting on beautiful Turkish rugs and cushions

Snacks were served during the presentation - dried apricots - a very traditional fruit in Turkey

Some words of the Turkish Language

Serious work at the kitchen! Thanks, Richard!

Wow - that's a lot of Lahmacun - what we know as "Turkish Pizza" Yum!

Rob preparing some of the lemon and lettuce to go with Lahmacun

Our search for countries begin!!

The Continents' names are put down on the floor and replicate same position as on the World Map

Children play with repositioning countries within the continent they belong to.

We also added the Equator line to divide the Earth and talked about Northern and Southern Hemispheres.  

Hmmmm... Delicious Lahmacun!!! 

                                                                                       

Please find the recipe for Lahmucan kindly given by Marian. Thank you!

Turkish Lahmucan 

This recipe will serve a family of four or five for dinner.

For the crust – part 1

• 5 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1.5 cups of water
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 20 grams of yeast mixed with warm water to activate

Combine all the ingredients for the dough in a bowl or mixer. Kneed or mix the dough for about 5 minutes and let it rise for two hours. It doesn’t rise a great deal, so don’t worry if it doesn’t do what bread does when it rises. Lahmacun crust is not like pizza crust, we aren’t after bubbles when rising.   

For the Topping – part 2

• Half a kilo of minced beef (we mince our own meat to get top quality, little fat meat)
• 1 red capsicum
• 1/2 a green capsicum
• 1 large tomato
• 1 large onion
• 3 tbsp tomato salca (pure tomato paste will work fine if you can't find salca)
• 2 tsp Pul Biber in Turkish but you may know it as Aleppo Pepper Flakes.  You can use paprika too, the flavour may alter slightly. 
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 – 1.5 tsp salt
• A handful of parsley.  Flat leaf / Italian parsley is preferable.  We grow our own.
• 1/5 cup olive oil

Put the capsicum, tomato, parsley and onion in a food processor and mix until everything is well ground. The consistency of the mixture should be in between a paste and sauce. Taste to see if you have the right level of heat, the mince will take the kick out of some of the spices but it’s best to add a little bit at a time to reach your own desired heat.
Combine your vegetable mix with the salca / tomato puree and olive oil. Bit by bit combine the spices to ensure you are getting the right heat for your family.  Then mix into the minced beef.   
Putting it together – part 3
When your dough has risen, start with forming little balls out of it. Mine are a bit bigger than a golf ball. Cover the balls so they don't dry out as you are batching them up.
Flour your work surface, take your roller pin and roll out your balls. You want your dough to be very thin, about two millimetres. Then, take a spoon and put the mixture on the bases and spread with the spoon. 
Pre-heat your oven until 200Cs and bake the lahmacuns for about 5-10 minutes (watch your first batch to test the oven/time ratio).  Now if you rolled them out thin, they will crisp up a bit, if they came out thicker then you can expect the colour of the dough to be much lighter. 
Serving – part 4
Squeeze a bit of lemon juice, put some salad on your lahmacun, wrap and enjoy!
Afiyet olsun!