Mutabbaq
Saudi Arabia's folded street snack: paper-thin dough wrapped around spiced mince and egg, then crisped flat on a hot griddle.
Overview
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.
Ingredients
Dough
- 400 g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 60 ml sunflower oil
- 240 ml warm water
- A bowl of extra oil (for stretching the dough)
Filling
- 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
- 1 onion (large, finely diced)
- 1 leek (small, white and pale green, finely chopped) OR 4 spring onions
- 4 garlic cloves (crushed)
- 400 g ground beef (or lamb)
- 1 ½ teaspoons Baharat
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
To assemble
- 4 eggs (large, beaten lightly)
- 4 tablespoons fresh parsley (chopped)
- 4 tablespoons fresh coriander (chopped)
- 1 green chilli (finely chopped, optional)
For cooking
- 4 tablespoons sunflower oil (for the griddle, 1 tablespoon per parcel)
To serve
- 2 limes (cut into wedges)
- Pickled chillies (or sweet chilli dipping sauce)
Method
Stage 1 - Dough
- Mix flour and salt; add oil and warm water; knead to a soft sticky dough.
- Knead 10 minutes by hand or 7 in a stand mixer until very smooth and elastic.
- Divide into 4 balls.
- Smear each with oil; rest in an oiled bowl, covered, 1 hour minimum.
Stage 2 - Filling
- Heat oil over medium; add onion; cook 6 minutes until soft.
- Add leek and garlic; cook 3 minutes.
- Add mince; brown 6 minutes, breaking up.
- Stir in baharat, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper; cook 1 minute.
- Off heat; cool fully (very important).
Stage 3 - Stretch the dough
- Heavily oil a wide work surface AND your hands.
- Take one dough ball; flatten between palms; pull and stretch outward into a paper-thin square 35 cm across. The dough should be translucent in the centre. Small tears are OK (they fold over).
Stage 4 - Fill and fold
- Just before folding, mix one quarter of the cool filling with 1 beaten egg and 1 tablespoon each of parsley and coriander.
- Spoon into a 15 cm square in the centre of the stretched dough.
- Fold the four edges of the dough over the filling - left, right, top, bottom - overlapping into a flat closed square parcel about 18 cm.
Stage 5 - Griddle
- Heat a wide non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat with 1 tablespoon oil.
- Place the parcel seam-side-DOWN.
- Cook 2-3 minutes; the underside should be golden-brown.
- Flip; cook 2-3 more minutes; press gently with a spatula.
- The internal egg should be just set.
- Lift onto a board.
Stage 6 - Cut and serve
- Cut each parcel into 4 squares.
- Plate with lime wedges and pickled chilli.
- Eat hot.
Notes
- Paper-thin stretch is the technique: A 35 cm translucent square from a tennis-ball of dough is the goal. The high oil content of the dough makes this possible without tearing - if it tears, patch with a small piece of stretched dough.
- Raw egg in the filling cooks inside: The beaten egg gets folded in just before stretching; it cooks during griddling and binds the filling. Don't pre-cook the egg.
- Hot pan, small amount of oil: The crust crisps from contact with hot pan + a small slick of oil. Too much oil and the crust becomes greasy; too little and it sticks.
Storage
- Best fresh.
- Cool and refrigerate 2 days; re-crisp in a dry pan 1 minute per side.
- The filling alone (cooked, without eggs) keeps refrigerated 3 days.
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