Konya's Flatbread · Thin-Crust Bake

Etli Ekmek

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It's often nicknamed "Turkish pizza," but the dough is rolled far thinner than any pizza crust, closer to a cracker than bread once it comes out of the oven.

A boat-shaped, paper-thin dough is topped with minced lamb, onion, tomato, and pepper, then baked directly on the floor of a wood-fired oven until the edges blister and crisp. Konya's bakeries slice it into strips and serve it rolled with parsley and a squeeze of lemon.

Why it's made this way: Konya, seat of the Seljuk Sultanate and later a center of Mevlevi Sufi culture, built its bread-oven traditions around fast, thin flatbreads suited to the city's grain-producing Central Anatolian plains.