Sfiha
Levantine meat flatbreads, also known as lahm bi ajeen. The key point: raw meat goes straight onto the dough and bakes for barely 12 minutes. The meat should cook through and stay moist rather than drying out — which is why the layer must be thin and the oven very hot. The sour-sweet note comes from pomegranate molasses.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Dough 20 min
- Proving 90 min
- Topping 20 min
- Shaping 20 min
- Baking 25 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneKnead a soft dough with yogurt
Mix the flour with the yeast, salt and sugar, add the water, yogurt and oil and knead 10 minutes. The yogurt and olive oil keep the dough soft even once cooled.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 280 ml water · 7 g dried yeast · 3 tbsp natural yogurt · 3 tbsp olive oil · 1½ tsp salt · 1 tsp sugar
Prove an hour and a half
Cover and leave 90 minutes, until doubled. Sfiha has a thin but distinctly bready base — without a full prove it comes out hard and dry as a cracker.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 280 ml water · 7 g dried yeast · 3 tbsp natural yogurt · 3 tbsp olive oil · 1½ tsp salt · 1 tsp sugar
Squeeze the onion and tomato
Chop the onion and tomatoes very finely, almost to a paste, salt them with a pinch of the topping salt and squeeze them hard in a sieve. The crucial step for the topping: excess water from the vegetables would soak the dough, and in the oven it turns to steam that lifts the meat off the base.
Ingredients: 500 g minced lamb · 2 pcs onions · 2 pcs tomatoes · 3 tbsp pomegranate molasses · 1 tsp allspice · ½ tsp cinnamon · 1 tsp chilli flakes · 50 g pine nuts · 1½ tsp salt
Mix the topping raw
Combine the minced meat with the squeezed vegetables, pomegranate molasses, the rest of the salt, the spices and pine nuts. The topping stays raw — a thin layer cooks in 12 minutes, whereas pre-fried it would dry out in the oven.
Ingredients: 500 g minced lamb · 2 pcs onions · 2 pcs tomatoes · 3 tbsp pomegranate molasses · 1 tsp allspice · ½ tsp cinnamon · 1 tsp chilli flakes · 50 g pine nuts · 1½ tsp salt
Raw and moist, but with no free water in the bowl.Roll thin discs
Divide the dough into 20 balls and roll each into a 12 cm disc, about 3 mm thick. Thin, because thick dough will not bake in so short a time and stays raw under the meat.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 280 ml water · 7 g dried yeast · 3 tbsp natural yogurt · 3 tbsp olive oil · 1½ tsp salt · 1 tsp sugar
Spread the meat thinly to the edges
Spread about 2 tablespoons of topping (roughly 40 g) on each disc, thinly and right to the edges, pressing it down with your fingers. To the edges, because exposed dough burns at 240°C before the meat in the centre has set.
Ingredients: 500 g minced lamb · 2 pcs onions · 2 pcs tomatoes · 3 tbsp pomegranate molasses · 1 tsp allspice · ½ tsp cinnamon · 1 tsp chilli flakes · 50 g pine nuts · 1½ tsp salt
Thin and right to the edges — bare dough burns.Bake 12 minutes at 240°C
Bake in batches of 10 per tray, 12 minutes at 240°C on the lower shelf, until the edges turn golden and the meat is cooked through with no pink left, yet still juicy. The lower shelf gives heat from below, so the base bakes while the top does not dry.
Ingredients: 500 g minced lamb · 2 pcs onions · 2 pcs tomatoes · 3 tbsp pomegranate molasses · 1 tsp allspice · ½ tsp cinnamon · 1 tsp chilli flakes · 50 g pine nuts · 1½ tsp salt
Twelve minutes — the meat cooked through but juicy.Squeeze lemon over and serve warm
Squeeze lemon juice over the finished breads just before serving and serve with yogurt mixed with chopped mint. The acid matters here: lamb with molasses is fatty and rich, and lemon balances it.
Ingredients: 2 pcs lemons · 200 g natural yogurt · 10 pcs mint
Before you start
Pomegranate molasses is obligatory
It gives the topping its characteristic sour-sweet note. At a pinch: a spoonful of tomato paste with a spoonful of lemon juice — an approximation, not a substitute.
Sfiha, lahmacun and lahm bi ajeen
All three are versions of the same idea. Lahm bi ajeen (literally "meat on dough") is the Arabic name for such flatbreads, and the source of the Turkish lahmacun — large and very thin. Sfiha is usually small, with a slightly thicker base.
Freeze them baked
Baked sfiha freeze interleaved with paper. Reheat from frozen for 8 minutes at 200°C — they come back nearly as they were. The dough and topping can also be made a day ahead and kept separately in the fridge.
