When I look back at photographs of myself as a child and see how chubby I was, I fall into a kind of nostalgic rêverie, thinking of all the dishes I loved to eat, all of them prepared by my mother, grandmother or aunt, except for one of my favourite breakfasts, manqûsheh, a flat bread topped with olive oil and za’tar. Lebanese home-cooks, at least those living in the city, did not bake their own bread. Each neighbourhood had several bakeries that catered to the community’s bread needs. But if home-cooks did not bake their bread, they baked their own savoury pastries, at least in part. They would prepare the filling or topping at home to take to the baker for him to use with his own dough and bake in his ovens. My mother was no different. She would send a maid with the topping for manaqish (plural for manqûsheh) to the bakery and I, being the family’s dedicated kitchen pest, often tagged along, not just to watch the action at the bakery but also to have one of the breads straight out of the oven. We never told my mother I ate there. I didn’t want her to say one manqûsheh was enough, nor to tell me off for eating outside. She was rather strict.
I never had any problems convincing the maid of the moment to keep my secret. They were all very kind, although I have vivid memories of only two. One, a pretty young girl from the mountains who had the most gorgeous long chestnut-coloured hair, until that is my mother and grandmother cruelly sheared it off one day when they realised it was her who had given us nits, and not someone at school. They then sent her back to her family, and replaced her with Omm Yussef, whom I adored. She was a middle-aged, portly Druze woman from the Huran mountains in Syria who arrived every morning wearing all her finery, layer upon layer of black embroidered clothes, typical of her region, which she then proceeded to remove one by one until she got down to her black satin underwear. Nothing sexy mind you. They were more like pyjamas than skimpy lingerie! And all the while, she jingled the many gold bracelets she wore around her wrists – they were her pension and all her savings went into adding to them. Every day, I would sit and watch her peel off her clothes while making her own music, never tiring of the scene.
Omm Yussef knew not to undress on manaqish day until after we came back from the bakery. By the time she got to us, my mother had the za’tar and olive oil already mixed in a bowl, which she placed in the middle of a large round metal tray – you couldn’t expect the baker’s za’tar and olive oil to be as good as the one you had at home. Omm Yussef picked the tray up and placed it on her head. She then grabbed my hand and we walked up the street to the baker. Sometimes we had to wait alongside our neighbours or their maids who had also brought their own topping or fillings to be used with the baker’s dough. Other times, the bakery would be empty and we were served immediately. It really depended on what was happening in the neighbourhood – big family gatherings or celebrations meant the baker had to make dozens and dozens of manaqish or other savoury pastries such as lahm bil-ajine (meat pizzas) or fatayer (pastry triangles filled with greens, labneh or cheese).
When it came to our turn, Omm Yussef made sure to remind the baker, on my mother’s instructions, to be generous with our za’tar topping. He already knew that from our previous visits, but my mother never failed to insist she should remind him. As soon as the first lot of manaqish came out of the oven, the baker folded one in half, wrapped it in paper and handed it to me, patting me on the head. He liked to see me eat. He then lined our tray with paper and spread the rest of the manaqish on it. When we had them all, Omm Yussef lifted the tray back onto her head and we walked home where my mother had already laid the table for breakfast with tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, labneh and fresh mint, all of which she put inside the manqûsheh to make one of the best wraps ever. I sat down with my siblings to my second manqûsheh with all the different garnishes, smiling naughtily at Omm Yussef while she peeled off her clothes.
Such small bakeries, providing both bread and an oven to the neighbourhood were the only ones I knew as a child. There are still some today, although many have now been edged out by large industrial bakeries with branches everywhere that produce industrial quantities of breads, as well as savoury pastries and ka’k (different shaped rusks leavened with fermented chickpea flour that are normally consumed for breakfast with hot milk). Naturally none of these bakeries produce breads or pastries that are as good as those made by the smaller bakers but most people in Lebanon, like everywhere else in the world, prefer to go for convenience and are happy to buy their breads and other baked goods from the chain bakeries. In fact, there is a noticeable difference between Levantine bakers and their Western counterparts. Whereas Western bakers do both savoury and sweet baking, those in the Levant only do savoury, leaving all the sweet stuff to specialist sweet-makers and if you are looking for recipes for sweets, you will need to go to the chapter devoted to sweet-makers.
Fortunately, there are still enough individual bakers in most neighbourhoods including a kind that didn’t exist when I lived in Beirut: tiny, hole-in-the-wall bakeries that are mostly manned by women and where the bread (known as marqûq, see here) is baked over a saj (a kind of inverted wok). The saj was once heated by wood fire but most are now fired by gas. The same can be said of the regular bakery ovens that are now also mostly gas-fired.
Pita Bread
KHOBZ ’ARABI
It is rare nowadays to find a pita bread bakery where the process is not completely automated, from when the dough is put into the cutting machine to when the loaves are baked and either dropped piping hot at the sales window to be sold straight away or spread out to cool before being packed into plastic bags to be delivered to shops and restaurants. One of my favourite pita bread bakeries is in Aleppo, next to the hotel where I used to stay. The large dark room is almost completely taken up by a snaking conveyor belt that starts at the dough-cutting machine then climbs up to the rollers, two sets, one on top of the other. The first rolls out the dough into ovals that are swivelled and transferred to the second set below to be rolled out into perfect circles. The discs of flattened dough are then slowly conveyed into the blazing oven where they puff up and bake in seconds before being ejected onto the cooling conveyor belt, made up of slats with gaps between to allow air to circulate. The cooling belt also climbs but this time to carry the loaves to the sales window. There they are taken off the belt and sold piping hot to customers waiting outside who spread them out on mats on the pavement to cool them before carrying them home. (If the pita is not cooled before being packed, the two layers of the loaf will stick together.) Loaves are also handed to packers inside the bakery who spread them out on the floor and let them cool before bundling them into packs of 12 and stuffing them into plastic bags. The system is ingenious and I wonder if it existed when I was a child. I don’t remember ever seeing it then. In the bigger industrial bakeries, the cooling conveyor belt ferries the loaves to a large packing room behind the bakery where muscly men spend the whole morning stuffing stacks of pita breads into branded bags that are sold in the shop section of the bakery or sent out in trucks to supermarkets.
Using the same pita dough, you can make both bread, as in the recipe below, or ‘pizza’ with different toppings. You can also vary the basic recipe to make different regional styles of bread, such as mishtah, which you can use as a base with the same range of toppings.
Makes 10 individual breads
500g (1lb 1oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1 heaped tsp (½ × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
2 tsp fine sea salt
60ml (2fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing
Mix the flour, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour the oil into it. Using the tips of your fingers, rub the oil into the flour until well incorporated.
Gradually add 310ml (10½fl oz) of warm water, bringing in the flour as you go, then knead until you have a rough, rather sticky ball of dough.
Sprinkle your work surface with flour. Transfer the dough to it and dust with a little flour. Knead for 2–3 minutes, sprinkling with more flour if the dough sticks. Invert the bowl over the dough and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Remove the bowl and knead for a few more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic and rather soft. Shape the dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning the dough to coat all over with oil. Cover with cling film and let it rise in a warm, draught-free place for 2 hours.
Fold after the first hour to strengthen the dough and make it rise better. The best way to do this is to first dust your hands and work surface with flour, then invert the bowl over one hand to let the dough drop onto your palm. Gently slide it onto the work surface and pat it into a thick flat circle. Fold one-third of the dough over from your right. Fold the left third over, then fold the top third over and the bottom one over it. Return to the bowl, with the folded sides down, and leave to finish rising. By the end, the dough should have doubled in size.
Transfer the dough to your work surface. Divide into ten equal-sized pieces, each weighing just under 90g (3oz). Roll each piece of dough into a ball, cover with a tea towel that is wet but not dripping and leave to rise for 45 minutes.
Roll out each ball of dough to a disc about 15cm (6in), dusting your work surface and the dough with flour every now and then and making sure you form even circles. A good way to achieve this is to give the disc a quarter turn between each rolling out. You can also use a pasta machine to roll out each piece of dough. Transfer to non-stick baking sheets (or ones lined with baking paper or a silicone mat). Cover the discs of dough with a floured baker’s couche or tea towel and leave to rest for 15–20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to its highest setting.
Bake in the oven for 6–8 minutes or until well puffed and very lightly golden. The baking time will vary depending on how hot your oven is. I suggest you start checking the pita breads after 5 minutes. You may have to bake them in separate batches if your oven is not large enough. These are best served immediately or at least still warm. Alternatively, you can let them cool on a wire rack and freeze them for later use. When you are ready to serve them, simply defrost them in the bag before removing from the bag and reheating in a warm oven.
Spicy Pita
MISHTAH
Mishtah is an interesting flatbread that is little known outside southern Lebanon. I had never eaten it until a few years ago when I met my friend Nayla Audi, whose family comes from that part of the country – her father and his father before him represented their constituency in parliament. I was researching my baking book then and Nayla gave me some mishtah she had in her freezer in Beirut. Unlike pita, it is not a pocket bread, just a thin flatbread. But it has texture because of the jrish (cracked wheat) mixed in with the flour and a wonderful, rather unusual flavour due to the spices in the dough. I was curious to see how it was made and Nayla very kindly took me to her local baker before giving me a spectacular lunch at her father’s nineteenth-century house where the family graveyard is just off the courtyard. The old baker, Jawwad Yussef Daher, let us into the primitive bakery to watch the ladies make not only mishtah but also marqûq bread. And he gave me the following recipe that can be used to make manaqish. Since then, I have visited other bakeries, including one where the baker made a very long mishtah which he sold by the piece, a little like the long focaccias of Rome or Puglia. Each baker has his own formula: some make a softer and spongier version of the bread, while others might use less cracked wheat or fewer spices. So you can vary the recipe slightly (at least as far as the cracked wheat, seeds and spices are concerned) to make a mishtah to your taste. If you want it softer and spongier, for instance, either leave it to rise for longer or use more yeast, and when you flatten it, make sure it is a little thicker than what I suggest here.
Makes 6 individual breads
500g (1lb 1oz) wholewheat flour, plus plain flour for dusting
2¼ tsp (1 × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
1 tsp fine sea salt
3 tbsp anise seeds
3 tbsp sesame seeds
½ tsp ground mahlab
½ tsp ground aniseed
½ tsp daqqaat ka’k (a special spice mixture from the south) (optional)
100g (3½oz) organic jrish (cracked wheat), soaked in cold water for 1 hour and drained
Extra-virgin olive oil for greasing
Mix the flour, yeast, salt and spices in a large mixing bowl. Be sure to distribute the spices evenly at this stage as it may be more difficult to do that when kneading the dough.
Stir in the cracked wheat and make a well in the centre. Gradually add 250ml (9fl oz) and 1 tablespoon of warm water, bringing in the flour as you go, then knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
Transfer the dough to a work surface lightly dusted in flour. Knead for 3 minutes, sprinkling with a little flour if the dough sticks. Invert the mixing bowl over the dough and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Knead for 3 more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Grease a large bowl with a little olive oil. Shape the dough into a ball and place in the bowl, turning it to coat all over with oil. Cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm, draught-free place for 2 hours. Fold after the first hour (see here). By the end, the dough should have doubled in size.
Transfer the dough to your work surface. Divide into six equal-sized pieces and roll each into a ball. Cover with a tea towel that is wet but not wringing and leave to rise for 45 minutes.
Flatten each ball in your hands into a disc about 20cm (8in) in diameter. Transfer to non-stick baking sheets (or ones lined with baking paper or a silicone mat). Cover with a floured baker’s couche or tea towel and leave to rest for 10–15 minutes. If you are going to make manaqish, spread the za’tar and oil mixture over each disc as soon as you flatten it, making sure you oil the edges, and then leave uncovered.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to its highest setting.
Bake in the oven for 10–12 minutes or until lightly golden. Serve warm or cool on a wire rack to serve at room temperature.
Lebanese Morning Bread
KHOBZ AL-SABAH
The following recipe, a variation on pita, is from the same baker who gave me the recipe for mishtah. I’ve never asked him why he calls it morning bread, but I guess it is because it is eaten mostly for breakfast. He uses three different types of flour in the dough to give the bread more texture.
Makes 12 individual breads
500g (1lb 1oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
100g (3½oz) wholewheat flour
100g (3½oz) fine cornmeal
2¼ tsp (1 × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
4 tsp fine sea salt
Mix the flours, cornmeal, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and gradually add 375ml (13fl oz) and 1 tablespoon of warm water, bringing in the flour as you go. Knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
Dust your work surface with a little flour and transfer the dough onto it. Knead for 3 minutes, sprinkling with a little flour if the dough sticks. Invert the bowl over the dough and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Knead for another 3 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Roll into a ball and place in a clean, lightly floured bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm, draught-free place for 2 hours. Fold after the first hour (see here). By the end, the dough should have doubled in size.
Transfer the dough to your work surface and divide into 12 equal-sized pieces. Roll each into a ball and place on a lightly floured tray. Cover with a tea towel that is wet but not dripping and leave to rise for 45 minutes.
Roll out each ball of dough into a disc about 15cm (6in) in diameter. Transfer onto a large non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Cover with a floured baker’s couche or tea towel and leave to rest for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to its highest setting.
Bake in the oven, in batches if necessary, for 6–8 minutes or until puffed up and very lightly golden. The baking time may vary, depending on how hot your oven is. As with pita bread, I suggest you check the breads after 5 minutes. Again, these are best served immediately or still warm. Alternatively, you can let them cool on a wire rack and freeze them for later use.
Lebanese ‘Pizza’
MANAQISH BIL ZA’TAR
Manaqish topped with za’tar or kishk make the quintessential Lebanese breakfast. Throughout most of the country, they are made with the same dough as pita or marqûq (see ‘bread’), while in the south they are often made with mishtah dough, which gives them a more interesting flavour as well as texture. All versions are incredibly moreish and perfect for any time of day, whether breakfast, lunch or a mid-morning snack.
Makes 8 individual breads
1 quantity of pita or mishtah dough
For the za’tar topping
6 tbsp za’tar (thyme mixture)
125ml (4½fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for brushing
For the kishk topping
150g (5oz) kishk (dried yoghurt – see here)
4 tbsp toasted sesame seeds (to toast them yourself)
1 small onion, peeled and very finely chopped
190–250ml (6½–9fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium-sized ripe tomato, deseeded and diced into small cubes
Pinch of fine sea salt
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Following the instructions in the recipes on here and here, shape the pita or mishtah dough into discs about 17.5cm (7in) in diameter and leave to rise/rest.
Meanwhile, mix the za’tar and olive oil in a bowl or mix together the ingredients for the kishk topping.
Raise the edges of the discs of dough to form an outer lip by pinching them upwards and prodding with your finger to make dimples all around the edge of the dough. Divide the topping of your choice between the breads, spreading it over each circle of dough. Brush the edges with oil and leave to rest for 15–20 minutes.
In the meantime, preheat the oven to its highest setting.
Bake in the oven for 7–10 minutes or until golden. Manaqish are best served immediately or warm; if made with the za’tar topping, they can be accompanied with labneh, olives and fresh mint, although they are just as delicious served on their own.
Sweet Holy Bread
QORBAN
You find this sweet bread and variations on it in both Lebanon and Syria, where there are sizeable Christian communities, and in the Palestinian territories. As well as being baked for communion, it is also served on various saints’ days – distributed to the congregation after it has been blessed by the priest. There is a fairly comprehensive description of the communion ritual in Helen Corey’s Syrian Cookery – how the priest divides up the bread and what each part symbolises – although my main memory of these religious occasions is not so much the ritual but rather the sweet, slightly exotic taste of the cube of bread that the priest gave me to eat, followed by a delicious sip of sweet wine. Whenever I pass by a bakery where they are baking these breads, usually to order from one of the churches, I try to convince them to let me buy a loaf to make up for all those measly little bites I’ve been offered at communion. The following recipe is based on one in Corey’s book, although mine is sweeter and possibly softer. I normally bake it to eat on its own as if it were a cake, and sometimes I use it to make sweet-savoury sandwiches filled with either mortadella or kashkaval, a hard, mild cheese made from sheep’s milk.
Makes 6 individual breads
500g (1lb 1oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
2¼ tsp (1 × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
1½ tsp fine sea salt
¼ tsp ground mahlab
125g (4½oz) golden caster sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp orange blossom water
Mix the flour, yeast, salt, mahlab and sugar in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the butter to the well and rub into the flour until well incorporated. Add the orange blossom water then gradually add 190ml (6½fl oz) and 1 tablespoon of warm water, mixing in the flour as you go. Knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
Lightly sprinkle your work surface with flour. Transfer the dough onto it, dust with a little flour and knead for 3 minutes, then roll into a ball. Invert the bowl over the dough and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Knead for a few more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Roll into a ball and transfer to a clean, lightly floured bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm, draught-free place for 2 hours. Fold the dough after the first hour (see here). It should be double the original volume by the end.
Transfer the dough to your work surface and divide into six equal-sized pieces. Roll each into a ball. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
Roll out the balls of dough into discs about 15cm (6in) in diameter. Transfer to non-stick baking sheets (or ones lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Cover with a tea towel that is wet but not dripping and leave to rise for 1 hour.
Twenty minutes before the breads are ready, preheat the oven to 200ºC (400°C), gas mark 6.
Uncover the breads about 5 minutes before they are ready for baking to allow the surface to dry. Sift a thin film of flour over each, then lightly score a geometric design in the middle of each bread using the tip of a knife – or, if you have one, stamp with the special stamp that is used for holy bread. With a pointed chopstick, make five holes at regular intervals around the outer rim of the design to stop the bread from puffing up during baking. Bake in the oven for 15–20 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack, then serve at room temperature, or reheated, and spread with very good unsalted butter.
Ramadan Bread with Dates
KHOBZ RAMADAN
Ramadan, which is the month of Muslim fast, is a time of contrasts: no food or water allowed to pass anyone’s lips from sunrise to sunset, followed by lavish feasting throughout the night. These breads are one of the many specialities that are made throughout the month. Sold from carts and bakeries throughout the souks of Tripoli (northern Lebanon), Damascus and Aleppo, they are also made at home. They vary in size, too, from small to very large and pricked all over to achieve a decorative effect. The following recipe comes from a charming baker in Byblos, Lebanon, who makes them either filled with dates, as below, or plain as a kind of brioche-like loaf. His recipe is perfect except that my version puffs up in the oven while his stays pretty flat. I’m not quite sure what his trick is, but the texture and taste are pretty much the same. The breads freeze very well, and I usually make a batch to freeze and have for breakfast every now and then.
Makes 6 individual breads
500g (1lb 1oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
¾ tsp (1⁄3 × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
⅛ tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp powdered milk
¾ tsp baking powder
30g (1oz) icing sugar
½ tbsp unsalted butter, softened
4 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
Toasted sesame seeds (to toast them yourself) for sprinkling
1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp water, for brushing
For the filling
225g (8oz) pitted Medjool dates (about 10–11 in total)
4 tbsp unsalted butter
Mix the flour, yeast, salt, powdered milk, baking powder and sugar in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the butter and oil to the well and, with the tips of your fingers, rub into the dry ingredients until well incorporated. Gradually add 250ml (9fl oz) and 2 tablespoons of warm water, incorporating the flour as you go. Knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
Transfer the dough onto a work surface lightly dusted in flour and knead for 3 minutes. Invert the bowl over the dough and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Knead for 3 more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Shape into a ball and place in a clean, lightly floured bowl. Set aside to rise in a warm, draught-free place for 2 hours. Fold after the first hour (see here). By the end, the dough should have doubled in size.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Put the dates in a food processor and process until coarsely chopped, then add the butter and process until you have a fine paste. Roll the mixture into a ball, wrap in cling film and refrigerate while the dough is rising.
Transfer the dough to your work surface and divide into six equal-sized pieces, each weighing about 130g (4½oz). Roll each into a ball, cover with cling film and let the balls of dough rest for 15 minutes.
Divide the date paste into six equal-sized pieces and roll each into a ball.
Roll out each piece of dough into a disc about 15cm (6in) in diameter and flatten each ball of date paste into a circle about 10cm (4in) in diameter. Place each date disc in the middle of a circle of dough and fold the dough over to completely cover the date filling. Pinch the edges to seal and, with your hands, flatten further to mould into an even disc.
Scatter sesame seeds all over a couple non-stick baking sheets (or ones lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Transfer the filled breads onto the baking sheet, placing them seam side down. Cover with a tea towel that is wet but not dripping and leave to rise for 30–45 minutes. Uncover 5 minutes before baking to let the surface to dry.
About 20 minutes before the breads are ready for baking, preheat the oven to 220ºC (425°F), gas mark 7.
Brush the top of the breads with the beaten egg yolk and sprinkle liberally with sesame seeds. Bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes or until golden brown all over. Cool on a wire rack and serve at room temperature.
Lebanese Fatayer
FATAYER BI-SABANEGH
Homemade fatayer (savoury pastries) are small and dainty, baked to serve with drinks or as part of a mezze spread. My mother and grandmother spent whole mornings shaping fatayer into the most perfect tiny triangles, and I often annoyed my mother by stealing one or two as I passed the tray on which she’d arranged them ready to be taken to the table or served to guests. Fatayer made in bakeries, on the other hand, are much bigger and sold to eat on the hop as a snack or quick lunch. Whether made at home or commercially, the filling is the same – either greens (spinach, Swiss chard, purslane or fresh thyme), labneh (strained yoghurt) or qarisheh (curd cheese) – although the pastries from bakeries may be less generously filled and the ingredients not as fine.
I often drove from Beirut to Damascus before the Syrian revolution and I remember once stopping for lunch at a modest-looking bakery on an ugly stretch of road just before the border. Not my kind of place, but my driver and I were hungry and I liked the look of the veiled lady who was standing in the doorway next to an old man who turned out to be her father. I expected pleasant service if not great fatayer. But as soon as the lady lifted the cotton sheet covering the last of her pastries (it was quite late), I knew we were in for a treat; and despite the rudimentary set-up and the rickety gas-fired oven, crudely welded from thin metal, her fatayer were just perfect, filled with a succulent combination of Swiss chard, diced tomatoes and onion, seasoned with sumac and very good olive oil. A revelation. I hope I find her there, still making excellent fatayer, when the situation in Syria improves and I am able to go to that bakery again.
You can use the dough, filled in various ways, to make either baked triangles, as in the recipe below, or fried crescents known as sambusak that in Syria confusingly describes triangles made with a very thin filo-like pastry, which you see being made in the streets of Damascus. The pastry-makers pour a thin layer of batter in overlapping rings on a wide metal hotplate, starting at the outer edge and slowly and meticulously working their way towards the centre, until the hotplate is covered with a very large, thin sheet of pastry. They then peel off the sheet, lay it on a piece of cloth and start again in a process that is just as complicated and skilled as making filo. In the recipe below, you can vary the filling by substituting the spinach with the same quantity of purslane (leaves only), sorrel, Swiss chard, young dandelion leaves or fresh thyme.
Makes 18–20 small or 4 large pastries
300g (11oz) plain flour, plus extra for dusting
Fine sea salt
60ml (2fl oz) extra-virgin oil, plus extra for brushing
For the filling
1 medium-sized onion, peeled and very finely chopped
½ tsp finely ground black pepper
2 tbsp ground sumac
400g (14oz) spinach (or other greens – see introduction above), shredded into very thin strips
2 tbsp pine nuts
Juice of 1 lemon or to taste
9cm (3½in) diameter pastry cutter
Mix the flour and 1 teaspoon of salt in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the oil to the well and, with the tips of your fingers, work into the flour until well incorporated. Gradually add 125ml (4½fl oz) of warm water and mix until you have a rough dough.
Transfer the dough to a work surface lightly dusted in flour and knead for 3 minutes, then roll into a ball. Invert the bowl over it and leave to sit for 15 minutes. Knead for 3 more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Divide the dough into two, roll each piece into a ball and cover with a clean, damp tea towel. Let them rest while you make the filling.
Put the chopped onion in a small mixing bowl. Add a little salt, the pepper and sumac and, with your fingers, rub the seasonings in to soften the onion.
Put the chopped spinach in another bowl, sprinkle with a little salt and gently rub in with your fingers until the spinach is wilted. Squeeze the spinach until it is very dry with all excess moisture removed. Transfer to a clean mixing bowl and separate the leaves.
Add the onion to the spinach, together with the pine nuts, lemon juice and olive oil, and mix well. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary – the filling should be quite strongly flavoured to offset the rather bland dough. Cover with a clean tea towel and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 220ºC (425°F), gas mark 7.
Roll out one ball of dough as thinly as you can, to about 2mm (1⁄16in), then use the pastry cutter to cut as many discs of dough as you can. Knead together any leftover dough and keep under the damp tea towel with the other ball of dough.
Place a little less than a tablespoon of the filling in the middle of each disc of dough – don’t be tempted to add more or the filled pastry may split open during cooking. Pick up the sides of each disc and stick them together two-thirds of the way down. Next pick up the bottom part of the disk and stick the middle of it to the joint formed by the other two sides, then press each half to the loose edges to form a triangle with raised joints. Pinch the joints firmly together – these triangles have a tendency to open during baking and you want to make sure they remain well sealed.
Transfer to non-stick baking sheets (or ones lined with baking paper or a silicone mat). Make the remaining triangles and transfer to the baking sheet. Brush with oil and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the triangles are golden.
While the first batch is baking, make the rest of the triangles in the same way using the remaining dough, including any leftover pieces from cutting out. You should end up with 18–20 triangles. Once they are all baked, serve warm or at room temperature.
If you want to make the larger triangles, divide your dough in four equal-sized pieces. Roll out each piece to a thin disc, then fill and shape in the same way, using a quarter of the filling for each triangle, and bake for slightly longer in the oven.
Syrian Fatayer
FATAYER JIBNEH SÜRIYEH
I used to have a routine in Damascus, always staying at the Talisman, a beautiful hotel with the most enchanting courtyard in the Jewish quarter behind Straight Street. It was once the palatial residence of a Jewish family but they, like many other Jewish families, left the country after the 1967 war and abandoned their beautiful home. Looking at the narrow lane and the tiny entrance door, you would never imagine such space and splendour behind it. And because the lanes are all quite similar, I often get lost returning to the hotel. Luckily, there is a welcome landmark a few doors up – a tiny fatayer bakery where a group of young men and boys, spend each day making some of the best fatayer in town. Syrian fatayer are mini versions of Turkish pide, which describes both the flat, spongy Turkish bread and a whole range of savoury pastries made with the same dough. When pide is applied to a type of savoury pastry, the word is always preceded by the name of the vegetable or ingredient used in the filling. What is interesting, though, is that I don’t remember having these fatayer during my childhood summers in Syria. Neither my aunt nor my cousins made them at home and in those days Mashta el-Helou had no commercial bakery. I can only assume they were and still are a street speciality made and sold at tiny hole-in-the-wall places in the old city or from larger bakeries in the modern districts. They are the ultimate street food in Syria, at least in Damascus where you find specialist fatayer bakeries in the souks and on the main streets. The dough for these pastries is quite different from that of Lebanese fatayer. Made with milk and a touch of ground mahlab, it gives the pastries an exotic flavour. It is slightly sweet, too, with a softer texture than the Lebanese version.
Makes 8 pastries
225g (8oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1 heaped tsp (½ × 7g) fast-action yeast
1 tsp caster sugar
⅛ tsp ground mahlab
Fine sea salt
1 small organic egg
60ml (2fl oz) full-cream organic milk, at room temperature
For the filling
250g (9oz) akkawi cheese or cow’s milk mozzarella, chopped very small
1 small organic egg, beaten
Unsalted butter
Few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped
Finely ground black pepper
Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, mahlab and ½ teaspoon of salt in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the egg and the milk to the well and mix these together before slowly incorporating with the flour. Knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
Lightly dust your work surface with flour and transfer the dough onto it. Knead for 3 minutes, sprinkling with a little flour if the dough sticks. Invert the bowl over the dough and let it sit for 15 minutes. Knead for 3 more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic, then roll into a ball. Place in a clean, lightly floured bowl and leave to rise in a warm, draught-free place for 2 hours. Fold after the first hour (see here). By the end, the dough should have doubled in volume.
Meanwhile, mix the filling ingredients together, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.
Transfer the risen dough to your work surface and divide into eight equal-sized pieces, each weighing just under 30g (1oz). Shape each piece into a ball, then cover with a clean tea towel that is wet but not wringing and let the balls of dough rest for 30 minutes.
Using your hands, flatten each ball into a thin disc about 12cm (5in) in diameter. Stretch each disc into an oval, then spread 1 tablespoon of filling down the middle. Fold one third of the oval over the filling, then fold over the other third, leaving a little of the filling showing, and pinch the sides together where they join at the tips. Transfer to a large non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Cover with the damp tea towel and allow to rest for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to its highest setting.
Bake in the oven for 10–12 minutes or until golden brown all over. Serve hot or warm.
Turkish Bread
PIDE
Pide is the type of bread that Turks eat most frequently – a soft, long, oval flat loaf, often sprinkled with sesame seeds. The bakeries making pide are dotted throughout the various neighbourhoods of a town. Most have large windows through which you can watch the bakers at work as they divide the dough into pieces and shape each part into a long flat loaf, stabbing it with their fingers to create the long indentations that are so characteristic of this bread. Sesame seeds are then sprinkled all over the loaves before they are loaded onto a peel to slide into the wood-fired oven. Beyond the wooden or marble counter on which the bakers work is a large area covered with wooden slats on which the baked bread is spread out to let it cool without steaming. Customers gather at the window to buy the freshly baked bread and you can tell who has a large family from the number of loaves he/she buys. As with Lebanese pita, the same dough is used both for bread and to make savoury pastries, ones that are quite similar to Syrian fatayer. Oddly enough, the same bakery won’t make both: each bakery has its own speciality, either making the bread or the pastries.
Makes 1 loaf to serve 4
450g (1lb) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
2¼ tsp (1 × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
2 tsp golden caster sugar
2 tsp fine sea salt
2 tbsp extra-virgin oil, plus extra for greasing
1 small organic egg beaten with 1 tsp water, for brushing
1–2 tbsp sesame seeds
Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the oil into the well and rub it into the flour, then gradually add just under 250ml (9fl oz) of warm water, incorporating the flour as you go. Knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
Transfer the dough to a work surface lightly dusted in flour and knead for 3 minutes. Invert the bowl over the dough and let it sit for 15 minutes. Knead for another 3 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Grease a large bowl with a little oil and place the dough in it, turning to coat in the oil. Cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm, draught-free place for 2 hours. Fold after the first hour (see here). By the end, the dough should have doubled in volume.
Transfer the risen dough to your work surface and shape into a ball. Place on a non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Cover with clean tea towel that is wet but not wringing and let the dough rest for 15 minutes. Using your hands, flatten it into a long oval loaf, about 1.5cm (⅝in) thick. Cover with the wet tea towel and leave to rise for 45 minutes.
Twenty minutes before the dough is ready for baking, preheat the oven to 200ºC (400°F), gas mark 6.
Uncover the dough about 5 minutes before baking to let the surface dry. Brush with the egg mixture, then using your fingertips make dimples all over the top of the loaf and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until golden all over. Cool on a wire rack and serve at room temperature or reheat to serve later.
Aubergine Pastries
PATLICANLI PIDE
Pide (the pastries, that is, and not the bread – using the same name can be confusing) are quite similar to Syrian fatayer but made much larger. In some places a little of the filling is left showing in the middle while in others it is completely encased, but the shape remains the same – long and oval, a little like a boat. You won’t see many of these pastries on sale in bakeries in Turkey, certainly not the way you see them in bakeries abroad like those on Green Lanes in north London. Most are filled with cheese or spinach, the latter often with eggs baked on top. The recipe below is for aubergine pide adapted from a wonderful version in Ayla Algar’s Classic Turkish Cooking. You can make the pastries large, as suggested below, or small to serve with drinks. For small pastries, you’ll need to divide the dough into 12 pieces and shape in the same way but making them thinner and shorter.
Makes 4 pastries
265g (9½oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
¾ tsp (1⁄3 × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
Fine sea salt
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
For the topping
2–3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1 medium-sized aubergine (about 200g/7oz), trimmed and diced into small cubes
½ red bell pepper, trimmed, deseeded and finely chopped
Finely ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
1 × 200g can of Italian chopped tomatoes
⅛ tsp dried chilli pepper flakes or to taste
Few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped
Few sprigs of coriander, most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped
Few fresh basil leaves, to garnish
Mix the flour, yeast and 1 teaspoon of salt in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the olive oil into the well and, with the tips of your fingers, rub it into the flour until well incorporated. Add 125ml (4½fl oz) of warm water and mix until you have a rough ball of dough.
Sprinkle a little flour on your work surface and transfer the dough onto it. Knead for 3 minutes, then invert the bowl over the dough and let it rest for 15 minutes. Knead for 3 more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Cover with a clean tea towel that is wet but not dripping and let the dough rise in a warm, draught-free place for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Put the olive oil, aubergine and red pepper in a saucepan and place over low heat. Season with salt and pepper, cover with a lid cook for 15 minutes, stirring regularly.
Add the garlic, tomatoes and pepper flakes and cook, covered with the lid, for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the vegetables are done and the sauce is very thick. Add the parsley and coriander and cook, uncovered, for another minute or so, then take off the heat and let the mixture cool.
Preheat the oven to 220ºC (425°F), gas mark 7.
Divide the risen dough into four equal-sized pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, then cover with a clean, damp tea towel and let the balls of dough rest for 15 minutes. With your hands, flatten each ball into a circle about 12.5cm (5in) in diameter. Then stretch the circles into ovals and flatten further. Transfer to a large non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat).
Make indentations inside the edge of each pastry to raise it slightly, then place a quarter of the filling inside each one, spreading it up to the raised edge. Bake for 10–15 minutes or until golden. Serve hot or warm, garnished with basil.
Yufka
Turkey has probably the biggest selection of savoury pies of all the Levantine countries, including many types of börek, savoury pastries made with multiple thin sheets of yufka. This is like filo but varies in thickness depending on the type of pastry (it would be very thin for baklava, for example). Before being used in savoury dishes, yufka is either blanched in boiling water or very lightly baked on a saj (a special domed hotplate set over a gas fire). The recipe I give here is for yufka as bread rather than pastry to roll around a filling. The bread is often made in large quantities and left to dry so that it lasts a long time. Then when people want to serve it, it is moistend with a little water wrapped in a clean cloth and left to soften for about half an hour when it goes back to being as if it had been freshly baked. You can reheat it at that stage or serve as is.
Not so long ago and by sheer luck, I stumbled across a yufka factory in Gaziantep, in south-eastern Turkey. I had just been to my favourite ice-cream maker, Özgüler (see here), to have a mastic ice cream and I was about to jump into a taxi to return to my hotel when I noticed a big sign for yufka on the ground floor of the building next door. I walked up the few steps leading to the sign and pushed open a large double door to find a large man stacking huge round sheets of pastry. I asked if I could go in. He beamed a broad smile at me and waved me inside. The place had been someone’s flat once, with large airy rooms and lovely big windows giving out onto greenery. In the main room sheets of yufka were being hung up to dry by a beautiful young boy who dunked each sheet into a metal tub full of water, then carefully lifted it out and draped it over rods that lined the walls of the room, each rod wrapped in foam so that the wet yufka didn’t stick. There was a magical quality to the scene: this tanned creature in his white cotton vest and trousers rolled to the knee, bathed in light as he worked slowly and methodically, lifting the wafer-thin sheets of yufka from the water and draping them over the rods without ever tearing one. And even though what he was doing had nothing to do with Omm Youssef or my life in Beirut, the scene reminded me of her and brought back memories of the family flat in Beirut where all the rooms were filled with light, just like the one I was standing in.
In the next room were two men who rolled the sheets of yufka. They were older than the boy and they worked side by side, each with a marble slab in front of him and a thin metal rolling pin or oklava. One of them had a stack of small thick discs of dough to his right, which he took, one by one, to roll out. He then lifted the flattened disc of dough onto his rolling pin and laid it on his colleague’s slab for him to roll out further into a very thin, perfect circle. This man then draped the dough over his rolling pin and slapped it against a large saj to his left, leaving it on the hot surface for a few seconds to dry out and bake but without browning. They both worked quickly, with the man baking the sheets building them into a stack on top of the saj; every time he added a new sheet, he would flip the stack to make sure that at least one side of each sheet came into contact with the heat.
I love the fact that, even today, with all the modernisation going on throughout the world, I can still come across masters of their craft working in the way their fathers and grandfathers did using specialist skills passed down from one generation to the next. Gaziantep is worth visiting for this reason alone, not to mention its many other attractions such as the bazaars and the wonderful cuisine. If you happen to be there in the autumn, everyone in the town will be busy preserving or drying or harvesting the bountiful produce in fields nearby. Whether in the old or modern part of the town, you will come across groups of women, both young and old, sitting by their doorway coring aubergines to dry on their roof, or trimming and deseeding peppers to have them minced in a gigantic food processor before the pepper purée is carried up to the roof in buckets to spread out to dry in the sun (see here).
Makes 10 individual breads
50g (2oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
50g (2oz) bread flour
3 tbsp wholewheat flour
½ tsp fine sea salt
Mix the flours and salt in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Gradually add 80ml (3fl oz) and 2 teaspoons of warm water and knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
Transfer the dough onto a work surface lightly dusted in flour and knead for 3 minutes. Invert the bowl over the dough and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Knead for 3 more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Divide the dough into ten equal-sized pieces, each weighing about 20g (¾oz). Shape each into a small ball, rolling the dough between the palms of your hands and pressing on the joint with the side of your palm to seal. Sprinkle a tray or part of your work surface with flour and place the balls of dough on the floured surface. Cover with a clean, damp tea towel and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
Roll out each ball of dough – ideally with a thin rolling pin like the Turkish oklava – sprinkling with flour every now and then, until you have a disc about 20cm (8in) in diameter. Turkish women can roll the dough into a thinner, larger circle, but this is as far as I can go. Place the discs of dough in between floured baker’s couches or layer them between floured tea towels.
Place a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat, and when the pan is very hot, cook the discs of dough, one after the other, for a minute or so on each side. They should be lightly golden with small burned spots where they have bubbled up. Layer the cooked breads between clean tea towels.
You can use these immediately to make wraps; or you can stack them in a dry place, wrapped in a tea towel, where they will keep for weeks. When you are ready to serve the breads, sprinkle each sheet with a little water to soften it, fold in half and wrap in a clean tea towel. Let it rest for 30 minutes so that it becomes soft and pliable, then serve as bread.
Tannur Bread
Even though Lebanon and Syria were one country for centuries – Lebanon was not given its independence by the French until 1943 – the choice of bread and savoury pastries is quite different in each place. Last time I drove from Aleppo to Beirut, I asked my driver to stop somewhere simple to eat – there are seriously extravagant road-stop restaurants in Syria. He suggested a bakery where they make tannur bread, a large flat loaf baked in a pit oven (see ‘bread’).
The idea appealed to me. My Syrian aunt baked tannur bread for us when we stayed with her, but the place suggested by my driver was not at all what I had expected. It was quite unlike the roadside tannur bakeries I had stopped at with wood-fired ovens like my aunt’s, often manned by cheerful ladies whose method – flattening the dough by hand into a large disc – was the same as hers except for when it came to putting the loaves in the oven. While my aunt simply draped the dough over her hand and slapped it against the wall of the oven, not minding the fierce heat, the roadside ladies, by contrast, draped the dough over a cushion before slapping it against the oven wall. Once in the oven, the bread would be watched closely – like bread cooked on a domed hotplate or saj, tannur bread bakes in seconds – but as it started to peel off the wall, my aunt just lifted it with her hand while the ladies used a metal hook.
Everything at my driver’s bakery was different, however. There were several ovens lined up on a platform, each of them industrially moulded out of clay and lit by a gas fire. The bakers were men and they worked in even more primitive conditions than my roadside ladies. Their breads were smaller and thicker, and instead of leaving them plain, they topped them with cheese or pepper paste to make a cross between fatayer (see here) and manaqish (see here), but not as good as either. Still, the place was fun and the atmosphere friendly, with mostly taxi and lorry drivers gathered in lively groups, discussing everything from politics to jobs. I was the only woman there and I tried to ignore their oblique glances. They must have been wondering what an Arabic-speaking, foreign-looking (my years abroad have made me look more foreign than Arab) creature was doing sharing their modest fare and chatting with her driver, all of which are definite no-nos for a respectable Arab lady.
Makes 8 individual breads
300g (11oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp fine sea salt
Mix the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Gradually add 170ml (6fl oz) and 1½ tablespoons of warm water, incorporating the flour as you go, and knead until you have a rough ball of dough.
Dust your work surface with a little flour and place the dough on it. Knead for 3 minutes, then invert the bowl over the dough and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Knead for 3 more minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Divide the dough into eight equal-sized pieces, shaping each into a ball. Sprinkle a tray or part of your work surface with flour and place the balls of dough, seam side down, on top. Cover with a tea towel that is wet but not dripping and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
Roll out each ball of dough, sprinkling with flour every now and then, until you have a disc 20cm (8in) in diameter. Place the discs of dough in between floured baker’s couches or tea towels.
Place a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat, and when the pan is very hot, cook the discs of dough, one at a time, for a minute on each side. They should be lightly golden with small burned spots where they have bubbled up. They will puff up, as with pita, but will deflate as soon as you remove them from the heat; you could try pricking them with a fork here and there to stop them puffing up. Layer them between clean tea towels to keep soft and warm. Serve immediately or let the breads cool and freeze for later use.
Turkish Cheese Pie
SU BÖREĞI
According to Evliya Çelebi, author of a seventeenth-century travel book, there were no less than 4,000 börek shops in Ottoman Turkey as against only 1,000 bakeries. I am pretty sure that nowadays there are still more börek shops than bakeries. This is not to say all of them will be good; indeed, I am always careful about which ones I go to. I love one particular tiny bakery in Sarıyer on the Bosphorus where the golden pastries are piled high in the window. Some are shaped in a figure of eight, others in large rectangles of lasagne-like pies, with bright green spinach sandwiched between the buttery layers, and others in long flat rolls filled with crumbly cheese or minced meat; and all are made with flaky layers of thin yufka (like filo – see here). As I don’t speak Turkish, I ask for my favourite types by just pointing at them, then spreading my hands to indicate the size of the piece I want the vendor to cut for me. Every single one of their pastries is delectable. And the added attraction of the bakery being near the waterfront makes it a must for me to visit whenever I am in Istanbul.
After purchasing my pastries, I settle on a bench near a tea vendor who sells piping hot tea or coffee from a lovely cart and I gesture to him to pour me a cup of tea. The moment is always perfect as I sit with the Bosphorus at my feet and everything just how I like it: the börek as crisp and flaky as when I last ate it, the tea hot and sweet without being cloying, and the tea vendor and passers-by just as charming. The traditional way to make su böreği is by using yufka that is rolled out even thinner than described in the recipe on here then boiled for a few seconds before being layered in a baking tin with a cheese or spinach filling – a sort of Turkish lasagne. However, it is quite a skill to boil large sheets of very thin dough and so I always use filo for my su böreği, which I buy from Turkish shops because it is thinner than Greek filo, not to mention the supermarket ones. Despite being thinner, it is easier to handle because it is softer.
It was far from the Sarıyer bakery that I first watched a woman preparing the boiled yufka for su böreği. That was at a restaurant near Safranbolu in the Black Sea region – a wonderfully preserved old town which is now a UNESCO world heritage site – where we had stopped with a group of foodies (all of us guests of the local government who had organised a food festival) on the way to a rahat loukoum (Turkish delight) factory. The restaurant was closed but they agreed to let us in for coffee, and as luck would have it, there was a young lady making su böreği. Working quite differently from the men I had seen in Gaziantep, she rolled out the sheets of yufka on a wooden board with her rolling pin. Then she carried the sheets to a large pot full of boiling water and carefully dropped one sheet of yufka at a time into the water, gently immersing it with the help of a wooden spoon. She then lifted it into a colander and from there into a buttered baking dish where she smoothed it out to cover the bottom of the dish. She worked quickly and painstakingly, sprinkling melted butter on each sheet, until she had eight layers in the dish. She then spread crumbled cheese all over the yufka and resumed boiling and spreading the sheets of pastry until she had eight more layers covering the cheese. She tucked the sides in before covering the pie with a sheet of yufka that wasn’t boiled to give the pie a crisp top. Sadly, we never got to taste her pie as we were rushing so as not to miss watching rahat loukoum being made. I still regret not tasting what must have been a very superior su böreği.
Serves 6
1 × 400g packet of Greek or Turkish filo pastry (about 14 sheets, measuring 28 × 43cm/11 × 17in)
125g (4½oz) unsalted butter, melted
For the filling
150g (5oz) good feta cheese, crumbled
Few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped
1 medium-sized organic egg
Pie dish about 25cm (10in) in diameter
Preheat the oven to 200ºC (400°F), gas mark 6.
Mix the ingredients for the filling together in a bowl.
Brush the pie dish with a little of the melted butter. Lay the sheets of filo, one at a time, in the dish and using half the packet. Brushing each with melted butter and cross the sheets over to cover the sides equally. Trim the corners.
Spread the filling evenly over the filo layers. Cover with the remaining sheets of filo, not forgetting to brush each sheet with butter and cross them over. Trim the corners and tuck any loose filo inside the dish.
Pour any leftover butter all over the top and, with a very sharp knife, cut into the top layers of filo to make six triangles. Su böreği is normally served cut into squares, but I prefer to serve it in triangles.
Bake in the oven for 15–20 minutes or until golden brown all over, and serve hot or warm.
Spinach Börek
ISPANAKLI TEPSI BÖREĞI
Börek is probably the most ancient type of Mediterranean savoury pastry, brought by the Turks when they migrated west from Central Asia. Made with filo, yufka (like filo – see here) or rough puff pastry, it is served as part of a meal or eaten as a snack, either on the street or at home. Even though the choice of fillings is simply meat, greens or cheese, the variety is tremendous, depending on the region or particular family.
Serves 4
100g (3½oz) unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
1½ tbsp organic full-cream milk
1 medium-sized organic egg
12 sheets of Greek or Turkish filo pastry (measuring 28 × 43cm/11 × 17in)
For the filling
500g (1lb 1oz) spinach
2 medium-sized onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 medium-sized organic eggs, beaten
3 tbsp crumbled feta cheese
Fine sea salt
Finely ground black pepper
Baking dish measuring 22.5cm (9in) in diameter and 2.5cm (1in) deep
First make the filling. Wash and drain the spinach and put in a large saucepan. Place over medium-high heat and cook for a few minutes, stirring regularly, until just wilted. Drain and allow to cool, then squeeze all the moisture from the spinach until it is very dry. Separate the leaves and set aside.
Put the chopped onions, oil and butter in a large frying pan and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until lightly golden.
Add the spinach and cook for another minute or two. Take off the heat and stir in the eggs and the cheese. Season with salt and pepper and return to the heat. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring all the time, until the eggs are very softly scrambled, then set aside while you prepare the filo pastry.
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F), gas mark 6, and grease the baking dish with a little butter.
Mix the melted butter with the milk and egg.
To assemble the pie, first lay one sheet of filo across the dish, leaving half hanging outside. Keep the other sheets of filo covered with cling film or a clean, damp tea towel so that they don’t dry out. Brush the sheet in the dish with the butter, egg and milk mixture and fold the other half over it. You can leave the edges hanging over the sides of the dish, or you can trim them. I like leaving them – the pie looks very appealing with a crisp, golden skirt, as it were. Brush again with the milk/butter mixture, then repeat the operation with four more sheets of filo.
Spread the filling over the pastry. Cover with the remaining filo sheets, brushing each layer as you go. Pour any remaining butter mixture over the top and cut into quarters, slicing all the way to the bottom of the pie.
Bake in the oven for 25–35 minutes or until golden all over and serve hot or warm.
Turkish Meat Börek
KOL BÖREĞI
I always use Greek or Turkish brands of filo pastry as the sheets are bigger than the regular supermarket ones, and they are rolled out noticeably thinner, with less cornflour between the sheets. If you have a choice, select a Turkish variety as the filo is usually thinner than Greek or other Western brands.
Makes 20 pastries
10 sheets of Greek or Turkish filo pastry (measuring 28 × 43cm/11 × 17in)
125g (4½oz) unsalted butter, melted
For the filling
1½ tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
½ tsp cumin seeds
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 tbsp pine nuts
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
½ red bell pepper, preferably Romano, trimmed, deseeded and diced into small squares
½ fresh red chilli pepper, trimmed, deseeded and finely chopped (scant 1 tbsp)
200g (7oz) freshly minced lean lamb, from the shoulder (either ask your butcher to mince the lamb or do it yourself using the fine attachment on a meat grinder)
1 × 200g can of Italian peeled tomatoes, drained and finely chopped
1½ tbsp sultanas
Few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped
2 tbsp finely chopped dill
½ tsp ground allspice
Fine sea salt
Finely ground black pepper
First make the filling. Put the oil in a large frying pan and place over a medium-high heat. Add the cumin seeds and stir until they become aromatic. Add the onion and pine nuts and cook, stirring regularly, until lightly golden, then stir in the garlic.
Add the peppers and lamb and stir – pressing on the meat with the back of the spoon to break up any lumps – until the meat is no longer pink. Add the tomatoes, sultanas, herbs and allspice and season with salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until all liquid has evaporated. Set aside to cool while you prepare the pastry.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC (400°F), gas mark 6.
Lay one filo sheet on your work surface. Keep the others covered with cling film or a clean, damp tea towel so that they don’t dry out. Brush the filo sheet with melted butter, then cut it in half widthways. Turn both halves around so that the cut sides are nearest to you – the two filo halves are being filled at the same time. Place 2 teaspoons of filling in a thin line across each of the ends nearest to you, leaving 1.5cm (⅝in) free at the edges and from the top. Carefully fold the filo over the filling and roll, brushing with melted butter every two or three folds, to make a thin cylinder. Flatten one unfilled end, fold it over and roll the cylinder to make a coil. Brush with butter on both sides. Tuck the loose unfilled end under the coil and place on a large non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Make the other coils in the same way and transfer to the baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15–20 minutes or until golden brown all over. Serve hot or warm.