While Saudi pizza has all the community benefits of slices everywhere, she lacks nuts and bolts westerners might expect, like tomato sauce and cheese. Instead, she’s loaded with earthy fennel and black caraway, lamb, and green onion. The fennel and the lamb combine to make a sausage-like flavor, while the green onions give a hint of spring in each bite. Traditionally, Saudi’s would mix the lamb with kurrath, not green onion. Kurrath is a cousin of garlic also known as spring leek, but I’ve never seen this in Oklahoma.
The pizza is served with a lemon, garlic, tahini sauce. A little drizzle adds subtle flavor to the meat and binds it all together.
One of our readers informed me that the Arab name, Aysh abu Laham literally translates to Bread, father of meat… or something like that… which is just about the coolest name I can think of.
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| 1 pizza |
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While Saudi pizza has all the community benefits of slices everywhere, she lacks nuts and bolts westerners might expect, like tomato sauce and cheese. Instead, she’s loaded with earthy fennel and black caraway, lamb, and green onion. The fennel and the lamb combine to make a sausage-like flavor, while the green onions give a hint of spring in each bite. Traditionally, Saudi’s would mix the lamb with kurrath, not green onion. Kurrath is a cousin of garlic also known as spring leek, but I’ve never seen this in Oklahoma.
The pizza is served with a lemon, garlic, tahini sauce. A little drizzle adds subtle flavor to the meat and binds it all together.
One of our readers informed me that the Arab name, Aysh abu Laham literally translates to Bread, father of meat… or something like that… which is just about the coolest name I can think of.
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Ingredients
For the bread
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup shortening
- 2 eggs , beaten
- 1 tsp instant-
- 3/4 cup water (warm)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 1/2 tsp nigella , a.k.a. black caraway
- olive oil , for brushing
For the sauce
- 2-3 Tbsp tahina (sesame seed puree)
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 cloves garlic , mashed
- salt
- pepper
For the topping
- 3/4 lb ground lamb
- 1 cup green onions , sliced
- salt
- pepper
- 1 tomato , sliced
Servings: pizza
Units:
Instructions
- Next, mix together all the dough ingredients and knead well. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled in bulk (about 2 hours)
- Next, press the dough into a 1/2″-3/4″ thick rough round, being sure to leave the sides slightly lipped. Place the dough on a lined pizza pan (traditionally, they use an oversized round baking dish with high sides, but I don’t have something this size). Let the dough rest again, meanwhile preheat the oven to 350F. Brush liberally with olive oil and bake until light golden and cooked through (25-35 minutes, time will vary depending on the thickness of your dough). The dough will bake up firmer thanks to the eggs, which makes a great base for the lamb topping.
- Now time for the topping! Mix together the tahini sauce in a small bowl. Be sure to add plenty of salt and pepper. Remove from heat, add the sliced green onion, and stir in some of the tahini sauce (to taste, reserve the remainder for the table). Sprinkle on the salt and pepper.
- Top the pizza with the lamb mixture and finish it off with a few tomato slices for color and moisture.