Lahmacun (sort of)

Making pizza is such a pain in the arse, mainly because nobody ever has mozzarella knocking about in their fridge, since it's so unreasonably expensive (in the UK, at any rate). Some may also say that making dough is a pain in the arse, but I think once you've done it a few times, and don't mind having huge balls of fermenting goo kicking around your fridge, you can prepare some dough in advance and put something together in 15 minutes when you feel like it. So those people are wrong.

Anyway, instead of having an Italian style pizza without cheese, try getting a bit Turkish and doing something spicy in the vain of their national street food 'Lahmacun'.

The typical recipe for lahmacun involves frying onions, garlic, minced or finely chopped lamb, tomato, turkish chilli flakes (biber) and perhaps a little allspice into a sauce, then spreading on very thin rolled dough, baking till it's browned but still pliable, then serving with parsely, mint and lemon, and possibly yoghurt, since that seems to turn up everywhere in turkey. You don't want to use too much tomato, since it would swamp all the other flavours.

However, the principle is robust and adaptable, and you can concoct all sorts of dense, spicy, tomato sauces for meats and fish, bake these on a thin bread base to serve with something cooling and fresh, like herbs and yoghurt.

Some examples that I think work:

• Sardines or other oily fish (tuna?) with a pinch of saffron, chilli, allspice and a good spoon of sumac.
• Beef with a little cumin and chilli, with yoghurt flavoured with crushed garlic and salt.

Note: it's worth sourcing some Turkish chilli flakes - there's something totally unique about them, and letting people sprinkle the damp stuff over their own food enhances a meal disproportionately.