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Feteer Meshaltet

Served plain, and nothing is ever baked inside it — the layers are the whole dish.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter), dairy (ghee).

Ingredients

Method

  1. IT IS SERVED PLAIN, AND NOTHING IS EVER BAKED INSIDE IT -- the layers are the whole dish. That is what separates it from the filled pastry made of the same dough, which has its own page here. This one is flour, water, salt and an enormous quantity of ghee, and it arrives at the table as a plain round to be torn and dipped: honey or molasses on one side of the table, cheese and olives on the other. Put a filling in it and you have made the other pastry; the restraint is the point, because the only thing being judged is how many layers there are and how cleanly they separate.
  2. THE DOUGH IS STRETCHED TRANSLUCENT AND FOLDED, AND THEN STRETCHED AND FOLDED AGAIN. A rested piece is pulled out on an oiled surface with the backs of the hands until it is a sheet you can read through, brushed with melted ghee, folded in from four sides into a parcel, rested, and the whole thing done a second time. Two rounds of stretch-and-fold take four layers to something closer to sixty-four. One round gives a pleasant flaky pastry; two give the shatter the thing is made for.
  3. THERE IS THREE HUNDRED GRAMS OF GHEE TO SIX HUNDRED OF FLOUR AND THAT IS NOT A MISPRINT. Half the flour's weight in fat, brushed on in layers. It is what separates the sheets, what fries them from within as they bake, and most of what the pastry tastes of. Cut it down and the layers weld.
  4. THE GHEE IS MELTED BUT NOT HOT. Liquid and barely warm. Hot ghee cooks the dough where it touches and tears the sheet; cold ghee will not brush thin and sits in lumps that burst through in the oven.
  5. IT IS STRETCHED ON AN OILED SURFACE AND NEVER A FLOURED ONE. Flour absorbs into the sheet and makes the layers stick to one another, which is the opposite of what is wanted. Oil, and oiled hands.
  6. IT IS BAKED HOT AND THE TOP IS BUTTERED AS IT COMES OUT. 230°C for twenty-five to thirty minutes to a deep blistered gold, then melted butter brushed over immediately. The butter goes on after, not before -- before, it burns at that temperature.
  7. The flour and salt mixed with the warm water to a soft dough. Kneaded 12 MINUTES until very smooth.
  8. Divided into 4, rolled in a little of the ghee, covered and RESTED 1 HOUR.
  9. A work surface and the hands OILED -- no flour anywhere.
  10. One piece STRETCHED with the backs of the hands to a TRANSLUCENT sheet.
  11. Brushed with MELTED, BARELY WARM ghee and FOLDED IN FROM FOUR SIDES into a parcel.
  12. Rested 20 MINUTES, then STRETCHED AND FOLDED A SECOND TIME the same way.
  13. The parcel pressed out gently into a round about 24 cm and laid in a buttered tin.
  14. Baked at 230°C for 25 to 30 MINUTES, to a deep blistered gold.
  15. The melted butter brushed over the moment it leaves the oven.
  16. TESTED: torn open, it should come apart in many distinct sheets. Few thick layers mean only one round of stretch-and-fold, or flour on the surface.
  17. Torn at the table and dipped, sweet or savoury.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Egypt · All recipes