MiddleEastExplorer Home > Turkey >
Lavash
Found in: Words of Turkish origin Iranian cuisine
Lavash is a soft, thin flatbread of Armenian origin, made with flour, water, and salt. It is the most wide-spread type of bread in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran. Toasted sesame seeds and/or poppy seeds are sometimes sprinkled on it before baking, though this is very uncommon in Armenia. While some wrap breads sold in the United States label themselves as lavash, actual lavash is significantly thinner than those products.
Traditionally the dough is rolled out flat and slapped against the hot walls of a tandoor oven, also called tndir in Azerbaijani, tonir in Armenian, tanur in Persian and tandir in Turkish. This is still the method used all throughout Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, Turkey and in the United States.
While flexible like a tortilla when fresh, lavash dries out quickly and becomes brittle and hard. The soft form tastes better and is easier to use when making wrap sandwiches; however, the dry form can be used for long-term storage and is used instead of leavened bread in Eucharist traditions by the Armenian Apostolic Church. Dry, left-over lavash is used in Iran to make quick meals after being rehydrated with water, butter and cheese. Lavash bread is also used with kebabs. In Turkey, a meat kebab rolled in a lavash bread takes the name "durum", possibly qualified by the kebab's first name. For example, an Adana Kebab rolled in a lavash bread takes the name of "Adana durum", the most popular durum type in Turkey.
See also
Matnakash, another bread of Armenian origin
Yufka, a thinner variant of lavash of Turkish origin
External links
International Journal of Food Science and Technology Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 469-479.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Lavash