At the beginning of my vegetarian days, it was a challenge to resist the variety of non-vegetarian food options available in the restaurants especially in Dubai which is a heaven for non-vegetarian food lovers. One such dish was a thin crust Pizza available in a lot of restaurants serving Arab food. Unfortunately, my eyes fell on that tempting dish after turning vegetarian and no vegetarian version of it was available in the market. The dish was Lahmacun also known as Lahmajoun or Turkish Pizza/ Armenian Pizza/ Lebanese pizza/ Syrian pizza/ Arab pizza. It’s a thin crust pizza topped with minced meat, vegetables, herbs, Arab spices and looks delicious. Slowly, resisting the non-vegetarian food became easier for me and I no longer find it hard to resist eating it so I stopped noticing Lahmacun also. As you know I am on a food and book voyage where I am trying to see the world through vegetarian food and books from different countries, a few days back I read a wonderful book – The Bastard of Istanbul. I would highly recommend that book to you if you also love reading. Though the story is not about food the author has very nicely described the Turkish and Armenian cuisine in it. The perfect way in which food is infused in the story makes me strongly believe that the author must be a Food Lover like us. Even the name of every chapter is the name of something edible like vanilla, wheat, pistachio, etc. That book made me curious to know about Turkish culture and food so I started reading about it in my free time. I googled every dish mentioned in the book and also looked for their vegan or vegetarian versions. One day while doing this study, I came across the vegan version of Lahmacun! Till that day I didn’t even know the name of the dish. Just from the picture of that dish I got to know that it’s the same dish, resisting which had become a challenge for me in my initial green days. Luckily I was also planning a Middle Eastern or Arab feast for Amit that weekend so I included Lahmacun on my menu. It was super delicious and very easy to make. This is something which will now be cooked regularly in my kitchen.
More vegan/ vegetarian Arabic recipes
Vegan Arabic sandwichTabboulehFattoushMiddle Eastern Couscous frittersMiddle Eastern Bean Salad- BalelaMuhammaraEgyptian Farro SaladVegetarian Armenian eggplant salad
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