Lavash Baked in a Tandoor at Yilma Tandir (Istanbul, Türkiye)

On our 2024 culinary tour to Istanbul, lavash oustas (master lavash bakers) showed us how thin flatbreads were baked in seconds in a blistering hot tandoor oven. Our education director Rosie Gill writes:

"At Yilma Tandir (Tandoori), a restaurant specializing in food from Erzican (in the northeast of Türkiye), we got to watch these two oustas (masters) make lavash and bake it in a tandoor. We got to try slapping the huge sheets of dough against the screaming hot walls of the tandoor - you use a large pillow attached to a stick. The dough goes on the pillow and, with a very quick motion, you push the pillow against the oven wall and the bread sticks, bakes in 20 seconds, and is ready. It's not easy! We ate the breads with Black sea butter and honey."