Lahmajun – The Next Big Thing In Street Food?

June 18, 2009 at 7:35 am · Filed under DC ·Tagged armenian food, jumbo slice competition, lahmajun, street food

Armenian food at the Armenian festival.

As I mentioned yesterday, Nonna and I ventured out to Alexandria’s Armenian Festival two weeks ago for a change of scene and to sample some lovely Armenian food. While I was a fan of the buttery rice and perfectly grilled lamb kebabs, it was the lahmajun that officially became my new obsession.

Lahmajun, also known as “Armenian Pizza,” is a thin flatbread that is traditionally topped with ground lamb or beef that has been cooked with tomatoes. The crust was thinner than a usual pizza crust, and had a soft and yielding texture that I found absolutely addictive.

Lahmajun can be eaten rolled up, like this . . .

The lahmajun at the Armenian festival were vegetarian – the topping was a mixture of tomatoes and spices. While I would have liked to have sampled the meat version, the vegetarian version was savory and satisfying – good enough that I’m wondering if lahmajun could be the next big thing in street food. Maybe I should set up a lahmajun stand in Adams Morgan and try to compete with the Jumbo Slice for the late-night drunken crowds? I bet I’d have a fair shot.

. . . or unrolled, like this.

While I have yet to make lahmajun myself, I did find a couple of recipes online that look tempting:

• Ivy over at Kopiaste, the beautiful Greek food cooking blog, has a lahmujn recipe that uses ground beef and spices as a topping.

• Dean and Deluca’s lahmajun recipe is fussier, calling for fancy ingredients like pomegranate molasses (available at Dean and Deluca stores, I’m sure). On the other hand, the recipe calls for store-bought pizza dough, which makes things a bit simpler.

One of these may just have to go on the recipe roster for this weekend. We’ll see how ambitious I get.

Dancers at the Armenian festival. Nothing to do with Armenian pizza, but I loved their tradition Armenian costumes.

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