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6 recipes

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Aroog

Aroog

Fine bulgur (#1 grade) soaks in hot water until soft and fluffy. Lamb or beef mince mixes with the bulgur, grated onion, lots of chopped parsley and coriander, ground baharat, cumin and a pinch of cinnamon. The mixture should be soft enough to spread, if it's too dry the aroog crumble. Small portions press onto a hot oiled pan and flatten to 1 cm thick discs; cook for 4-5 minutes per side over medium heat until deeply browned and the meat is just cooked through. Lift, drain briefly, eat hot with lemon and yoghurt.

Snacks 1 hour 20 minutes Serves4
Briouat Bil Lahm (Meat Briouats)

Briouat Bil Lahm (Meat Briouats)

Onion is softened slowly in olive oil 15 minutes. Lamb mince browns with the onion; ras-el-hanout, cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper season. Stock or a splash of water; simmered for 8-10 minutes till dry-fragrant. Off heat: parsley, coriander, beaten egg, finely chopped preserved lemon. Left to cool. Warka strips lay flat; a teaspoon of filling at one end; flag-folded up the strip into a triangle. Sealed with egg-wash. Deep-fried for 3 minutes till deep gold.

Snacks 55 minutes Serves18
Fried Börek with Meat Filling

Fried Börek with Meat Filling

Fried börek are Turkish-influenced pastries that combine simple pastry (made from water, oil, and flour) with a seasoned ground meat filling. The meat is cooked in aromatics, bound together with egg, and enriched with fresh parsley. The pastry is thin and tender, becoming shatteringly crisp when deep-fried. The key to success is ensuring the filling is completely cold before assembling (otherwise it creates soggy pastry), rolling the pastry thin (for crispness rather than doughiness), and maintaining proper oil temperature during frying. These are best consumed immediately, while still warm and crispy.

Snacks 1 hour 35 minutes Serves30
Mutabbaq

Mutabbaq

The Saudi street snack that almost every food court and roadside griddle in the kingdom has running through service. You make a stretchy oil-rich dough and let it rest for a full hour so it develops the pliability that mutabbaq depends on (the trick is that the dough has to stretch translucent without tearing). While it rests you cook a filling of ground beef or lamb with onion, leek, garlic and baharat, cool it, then mix in beaten eggs and chopped parsley just before folding. The eggs go in raw and cook inside the pastry as it griddles. Each dough ball gets oiled heavily and pulled by hand on an oiled surface into a 35 cm square thin enough to see through, with the filling spread in a 15 cm square in the centre. The edges fold in to enclose, and the whole parcel griddles on a hot pan with a glug of oil for two or three minutes per side until it's amber-crisp on the outside and the egg has set inside. Cut into quarters, eaten warm at the counter or carried home wrapped in paper.

Snacks 1 hour 55 minutes Serves4
Sambousek Bil Lahm

Sambousek Bil Lahm

The meat-filled half-moon that sits next to the cheese version on every Levantine-Arabian table. You roll a soft butter-and-yogurt dough thin, stamp it into nine-centimetre rounds, and place a teaspoon of spiced lamb mince in the centre of each. The lamb is fragrant with baharat, onion, toasted pine nuts and a touch of pomegranate molasses that adds a sweet-sharp depth you can't quite place. The rounds fold into half-moons and crimp with a fork. From there they go either route: deep-fried at 170°C for three or four minutes per side, or baked at 200°C for eighteen to twenty minutes with an egg wash for shine. The pastry blisters lightly, the filling stays juicy. Eaten warm with a wedge of lemon, often as part of a meze spread alongside hummus, mutabbal, salata and warm flatbread.

Snacks 1 hour 55 minutes Serves6