Lebanese Meat Pies

Recipe:

800 g ground beef

1 yellow onion

1 large tomato

1 red or green pepper

1 1/4 teaspoon Lebanese 7 spices

1 1/2 teaspoon sumac

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1/4 cup pine nuts

3-4 tablespoons cooking oil or parchment paper

1 dough recipe:

3 cups lukewarm water

1 tablespoon yeast

1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

6 cups flour

1/4 cup flour for dusting

Directions:

1. Make dough by mixing water, sugar, and yeast in a bowl and leave it for 5 min.

2. When yeast creates a foam on top of the water, add the oil and salt. Then slowly start to add flour while mixing in a stand mixer or by hand.

3. Knead the dough for 5 mins by hand or 2 min in a mixer. Then cover the bowl and leave it to the side to rise for 30 min. to 1 hr. (You can make you dough a day ahead of time and leave it in the fridge overnight, remove from fridge when you want to bake 2 hours beforehand)

4. Cook ground beef in a pan on low heat so it is half cooked (we do this in home cooking because the meat will be cooked at the same time with the dough while baking)

5. Add the tomatoes to a food processor and pulse until it becomes liquid. Then pour over half cooked meat.

6. Then unpeel onion and un-seed pepper and cut it into pieces. Place onion and pepper in food processor. Pulse until the onion and pepper are very small pieces.

7. Add the onion and pepper to meat mixture. Then add the spices, pomegranate molasses, and pine nuts.

8. Mix the beef mixture well then place the mixture in a colander to squeeze out the liquid from the vegetable (squeeze well, it will not minimize the flavor, we do this to make sure the dough doesn’t get soggy or wet while baking)

9. Divide the dough into small 2 inch balls. (you can decide on the shape but ideally they are shaped into squares.)

10. Dusting a clean countertop, then roll the dough into a thin circle

11. Place a tablespoon of the meat mixture into and pinch the dough in four sides to make a square (see video)

12. Preheat oven to 425 F and oil a baking pan (or for less oil in the food, use a parchment paper)

13. Place each meat pie on the baking pan when complete and leave a space between them for the dough to rise.

14. When you complete a pan, bake it at the bottom rack for 8 min. or until the bottom is golden brown. Then move it to the top rack and broil for 5 min. or until golden brown.

15. Serve with a squeeze of lemon and a side of greek yogurt or fattoush and hummus. Sahtean!

    If you have extra dough then make it into mini pizza or zataar!