Fatayer

Folded into a three-cornered pyramid and sealed on three seams, so it is closed where the open pie is not.

Vegan.

Ingredients

the dough

• 500 g plain flour
• 280 ml warm water
• 7 g fast-action dried yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 10 g salt
• 4 tablespoons olive oil

the filling

• 800 g spinach, washed and finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons salt, for drawing
• 2 onions, very finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons sumac
• juice of 2 lemons
• 80 ml olive oil
• 60 g pine nuts
• black pepper

Method

1. IT IS FOLDED INTO A THREE-CORNERED PYRAMID AND SEALED ON THREE SEAMS. A round of dough, filling in the centre, then three points of the circumference brought up to meet above the middle and each adjoining pair pinched together from the centre outward -- giving a closed triangular parcel standing on a flat base. Closed is the whole point: the filling is spinach that will steam inside it and the juices stay in. The open square boat in this same batch is the other half of the pair, and they are made from nearly the same dough.
2. THE SEAMS ARE PINCHED FROM THE CENTRE OUTWARD AND MUST BE DRY. Thumb and forefinger, working out to each corner, pressed firmly. And no filling may touch the seam -- oily or wet dough will not stick, and any gap lets the whole parcel open flat in the oven and spill.
3. THE SPINACH IS SALTED AND SQUEEZED BONE DRY, AND THIS IS THE STEP THAT DECIDES IT. Eight hundred grams chopped, rubbed with two teaspoons of salt, left twenty minutes, then wrung out in fistfuls until no more comes -- most of a cupful of green water. Spinach is almost all water, and any left in it will burst the seams from inside and soak the base. This is the commonest failure and it happens in the oven where it cannot be fixed.
4. THE SPINACH GOES IN RAW, NOT COOKED. Salted and wrung, but not wilted in a pan. It cooks in the twenty minutes inside the parcel, and pre-cooking makes it dark, slimy and twice-cooked.
5. SUMAC AND LEMON BOTH, AND PLENTY. Three tablespoons of sumac and two lemons for this quantity. Spinach, onion and oil are mild; the sourness is the flavour of the pie and timid amounts give a bland green parcel.
6. THE ONION IS CHOPPED FINE AND ADDED RAW TO THE SQUEEZED SPINACH, THEN SALTED NO FURTHER. The spinach has already taken salt. Salting again at this point draws yet more water out inside the parcel.
7. The flour, yeast, sugar and salt mixed with the water and oil, kneaded 10 MINUTES and risen 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES.
8. The spinach chopped fine, rubbed with the 2 teaspoons of salt and left 20 MINUTES.
9. WRUNG OUT IN FISTFULS until no more water comes. The water thrown away.
10. Combined RAW with the chopped onions, sumac, lemon juice, olive oil, pine nuts and pepper. NOT salted again.
11. The dough divided into 20 and each rolled to a round about 10 cm.
12. A spoonful of filling in the centre, keeping the EDGE CLEAN.
13. THREE points brought up to meet above the middle and each pair PINCHED FROM THE CENTRE OUTWARD into a closed pyramid.
14. Set on lined trays and baked at 200°C for 20 MINUTES, until golden.
15. TESTED: every parcel should still be closed. One that has opened means a wet filling or filling on the seam.
16. Served warm or cold with lemon.

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 Lebanon · All recipes