Venison Lahmacun

A Turkish take on a Wisconsin Whitetail

Every year, I hunt a good friend’s family farm in the Driftless area of southwestern Wisconsin. It is pretty piece of country where clear streams cut through limestone, breaking up farms and woodlands dotted with deer stands, blinds, and overlooks. From these places, we hunt and the directions twist as the roads do amongst the rolling terrain, adding to my general uncertainty as a new deer hunter. 

I am not new to hunting, just to big game hunting. I am an upland bird hunter at heart, used to being on the move, following behind a dog as opposed to sitting, and waiting for a deer to cross my path. The impatience I feel in being stationary, coupled with a desire for a freezer full of meat led me to harvest doe deer on my first few trips.  Taking the first opportunities presented rather than waiting for a buck to cross my path. 

Last season, I sat on a hillside overlooking a small valley that had been productive in years past for other members of my group. After seeing nothing besides squirrels for 3 hours, I decided to move back up to the top of the hill to warm up with some coffee and check on the others. 

Not ten minutes later as I stood by my truck, chatting with a friend’s mom, I noticed two deer walking across the field about 200 yards away. It was a pair of bucks, with the larger of the two stopping to look my way.

There is romance to the chase and pursuit of an animal but for me, there is nothing romantic in killing game. And while I have been swinging a shotgun for the better part of my life and carry it with comfort and familiarity, I am still working to develop the same ease with a rifle. So, I took my time to set up, wanting to be confident of my shot, all the while certain the buck would move off as I struggled to get lined up.

It took several minutes for me to find a stable position, first I laid on the ground only to realize I was now too low and couldn’t see him, so I stood, steadied myself on my shooting stick, and took my shot. He must have found my efforts comical as he stood watching me. 

Finally set up and confident in my shot, I took it. The bullet cleanly through the heart, my first buck on the ground in the center of middle America, a long way from where I was born and raised in Germany. 

Even without the restrictions on travel we have experienced in the past few years, trips back to Germany are limited, so I lean into cooking favorite dishes from my homeland to comfort me when I am homesick. You’d think it would be brats or good Sauerbraten, but really, it is Turkish street food. Nothing better than a Lahmacun or a Döner at 2 a.m. on a Saturday after leaving the bars. And it is not hard to find a Kebab (Döner Shops) as there are about forty thousand of them in Germany, occupying street corners from the biggest cities to the small towns. This is due to the rich history of Turkish people in Germany, where they currently comprise the largest ethnic minority and the “street” food they are known for is the most popular fast food in Germany.

My favorite dish is Lahmacun. A thin flatbread, topped with spiced ground meat (usually lamb or beef), often used as a wrap and builds the base to a complete handheld meal. The word Lahmacun stems from the Arabian word lahm b'ajin, which simply means ‘meat with dough’.

The flavor profile of this flatbread is very fresh yet savory with the tartness of sumac and tomatoes, the spice of fresh chilis, and the earthiness of cumin. Cooking with sumac was a new experience for me, and while I am familiar with it as an important part of Za’atar, adding sumac to my preparation really added this feeling of home to the Lahmacun. It is tart, kind of like lemons, but more subtle.

In my experience, the traditional topping for Lahmacun is parsley, tomatoes, and onions drizzled with fresh lemon juice, but this varies slightly across the Middle East. I like to add a little cucumber and feta to mine and roll it up as a wrap.

The beautiful Driftless buck from last fall became this beloved Turkish dish, made from old family recipes in German-Turkish family-owned restaurants, adapted to ingredients found on a different continent with meat from an animal taken in the woods of southern Wisconsin. It’s a multi-cultural, multi-continental, multi-cuisine concoction. This is how I like my foods, how I relate to my roots, and my hunger for new foods at the same time. 

Prep Notes:

• After making the paste, I put it in the fridge for an hour. This allowed a bunch of liquid to separate from the solids. I poured the liquid out to make the paste a little drier, which worked really well. 

• To get the flavor just right, I take a spoonful of the paste and fry it in the pan to taste it, this allows me to adjust the salt as needed. 

• The dough needs to be rolled until thin and spread the paste very thinly. It doesn’t take much paste since it is super flavorful and you want to make sure it cooks in the short time in the oven.

• I like to use a wooden pizza peel to launch the lahmacun in the oven. If you don’t have one, you can also use an upside down cookie sheet. Dust the peel or cookie sheet with flour to prevent sticking.

• I doubled up on the paste and froze half. This allows me to only need to make the dough for the next batch and lets me use a full pound of venison.

I did prepare my lahmacun in anOONI pizza oven, which brings it closest to the preparation in traditional wood-fired ovens. I also made some in my “conventional” oven with a pizza stone. Both worked very well. I have seen people using frying pans on stove tops to prepare the lahmacun. I haven’t tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

Yield: 10

Author: Simon Tiedge

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Venison Lahmacun

My favorite dish you find in any Turkish restaurants is Lahmacun. A thin flatbread, topped with spiced ground meat (usually lamb or beef), that is often used as a wrap and builds the base to a complete handheld meal.

Prep time: 1 H & 30 MCook time: 1 HourTotal time: 2 H & 30 M

Ingredients

Dough

• 600g Bread Flour (about 5 cups)
• 1 package of yeast
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 1.5 cups of water (adjust based on the water absorption of your flour)

Paste

• 1/2 lb of ground venison
• 1 tbsp of tallow or lard (you can also use any other fat like butter or ghee)
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 large pepper (Bell pepper or Anaheim)
• 1 red chili
• 1 green chili
• 1/2 onion
• 1/4 bunch of parsley
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1.5 tsp of kosher salt
• 1.5 tsp sumac
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tbsp dried oregano

Topings

• 1 block of feta cheese in cubes
• 3 tomatoes in cubes
• 1 cucumber peeled and in cubes
• 1/2 red onion thinly sliced
• 1/2 bunch of parsley finely chopped
• 1.5 tsp sumac
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp olive oil (or to taste)
• 1 tsp kosher salt (or to taste)
• fresh cracked pepper

Instructions

Dough

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. I use a whisk to mix them all together before adding liquids.
2. Add oil and water slowly while mixing the dough on a low setting. If you don't have a dough mixer you can do all this by hand.
3. Mix till dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and it has a silky smooth surface (5-8 minutes).
4. Take the dough out of the bowl, pour about 1 tsp of oil into the bowl and spread with your hands. Place the dough back in the bowl, cover with a dish towel and let it rise for about an hour.
5. Remove the dough from the bowl and knock it down. Now you can separate the dough in 10 equal pieces. My dough was a nearly perfect 1000g so I weight each dough ball to be 100g.
6. Roll each dough piece into a ball and let it rest on the counter, covered with a dish towel till you are done with your paste.

Paste

1. Roughly chop tomatoes, pepper, chilis, onions and parsley and add to the food processor together with salt, oil, all spices and herbs.
2. Blend it till it comes to a homogeneous paste.
3. Add venison and tallow and blend for another 30 seconds or till all is mixed well.

Topping

1. Dice tomatoes, cucumber and feta in bite size cubes.
2. Toss all ingredients in a bowl.

Lahmacun

1. Pre-heat OONI oven to 800F or gas/electric oven to 500F (if using a conventional oven with pizza stone or steal, pre-heat for 45 minutes)
2. Use rolling pin to roll out dough in a thin 12" ish circle and transfer to pizza peel.
3. Spread a thin layer of paste on the dough.
4. Launch lahmacun into oven and cook for 2 minutes while turning frequently (about 5 minutes in conventional oven. No turning needed)
5. Lahmacun is done when the dough bubbles and the bottom is nice and brown.
6. Take Lahmacun out and store on large cookie sheet covered with another cookie sheet or a towel. I used a large deep frying pan covered with a lid. Lay them face on face, like this they won't dry out. This step is very important if you want to roll the lahmacun.It makes them nice and soft and keeps them warm at the same time.
7. Take one Lahmacun, add toppings, drizzle with fresh lemon juice, roll up and enjoy.