Spinach pockets – Fatayer
T hanks to my Lebanese eating habits, I’m actually already pretty spoiled culinary-wise. Why? Because I can rarely really decide what to eat. I would prefer to take something from everything. That’s exactly why I love oriental mezze plates. You always get something of everything – and what would the best mezze be without the classic Fatayer spinach pockets?
Triangular bags full of happiness!
Of course, when my parents invited guests over for dinner, there was always a richly set mezze table. And you have to know: In our house, you were actually always invited to eat as soon as you came anywhere near the front door. And fatayers were particularly often on the list of dishes served.
Fatayers are triangular pockets of yeast dough with a delicious filling of spinach, onions, a little feta and a pinch of cinnamon. They taste good both warm and cold – even days later.
I remember very well how I liked to visit the kitchen with my siblings. And since my mother always felt at least 50 recipes at the same time has worked, we were always something delicious in the mouth and then pushed out of the kitchen. Especially popular were always the delicious spinach pockets.
I got to help in the kitchen at one point and one of the highlights for me was the elegance with which my mother filled the spinach pockets and then plucked them together into the typical shape.
In principle, it’s not even that difficult: Here a rag up, there a side connect, here times press and tada: Ready is the lump with spinach around it. But in the meantime I can do it better.
If you’re in the mood for more dumplings or dumplings, also try the following recipes:
- Sfiha:Lebanese mince pockets
- Rekak: Crispy cheese rolls
- Pide with spinach and feta
- Pide with cheese and garlic sausage
Now I wish you but first a lot of fun trying and of course a good appetite!
Recipe for Fatayer
Ingredients
Yeast dough
- 500 g Flour
- 7 g Dry yeast
- 80 ml Olive oil
- 50 ml Milk
- 260 ml Water lukewarm
- 1,5 TSP Salt
- 1 TSP Sugar
Zubereitung
Dough
- Dissolve the sugar in lukewarm water, add the dry yeast and leave to stand for approx. 10 minutes.
- Then knead a dough with all the dough ingredients. You should knead the dough for a good 20 minutes.
- Place the dough in a large bowl, cover and leave to rise at room temperature for approx. 90 minutes.
Filling
- Defrost the spinach leaves if necessary.
- Salt the spinach and knead well with your hands for a few minutes. The spinach will collapse and lose volume. (This happens with fresh spinach, frozen spinach has already gone through this process).
- Now drain the spinach properly either in a sieve or in a straining cloth. Squeeze out as much water as you can.
- Roughly chop the spinach again with a knife.
- Peel and finely chop the onion and mix directly with the sumac.
- Crumble the feta neatly by hand.
- Mix all the ingredients for the filling together and season again with salt and pepper.
Shape spinach pockets
- Remove the dough from the bowl onto a floured table.
- Briefly knead the dough again and then cut into quarters.
- Leave the dough covered with a cloth for another 10 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 200 °C.
- Roll out one of the dough pieces thinly and cut out circles approx. 10 cm in diameter. (I always use a small bowl for this).
- Spread approx. 2 tsp of filling per circle. (I always do this with my fingers)
- To seal: take circle on two sides, press together at top centre and seal along one side.
- You now have a lace, closed side and to the other side there is still a flap open.
- Take this flap and pull it up. Close the sides.
- You should now have a kind of pyramid. Press the seams together really well, otherwise juice could leak out during baking.
- Bake the spinach pockets on a baking tray lined with baking paper for approx. 20 minutes.
- Repeat with the other dough pieces.
