The Fatayer is a delicious snack sized pastry that can be filled with a wide variety of ingredients from lentils to vegetables, cheese to meat. They are made with a soft yeast dough and often shaped into trademark shapes that help people recognise them at a glance. These shapes include the eye or boat shape that looks a bit like a croissant, the triangle which is more commonly associated with spinach fillings and the semi circle that is also used with cheese stuffing.
The dough for these fatayer is very easy to make from scratch using a simple recipe similar to pizza dough but with a little more oil to give it a crispier crust. Once the dough is mixed it needs to be weighed and divided into small equal portions that will make about 18 – 20 fatayer. It is best to weigh the dough rather than estimating as this will ensure that the fatayer are evenly sized and will bake evenly too.
Once the dough has bulk fermented (taken up some of the yeast’s energy) it can be shaped. To shape the dough you can either use your hands but it is easier to work with on a floured surface. It’s a good idea to shape each piece of dough before you add the filling as this will prevent the dough from becoming too wet and prone to leakage in the oven.
Once the dough is shaped it’s time to add the filling. The most common filling for these fatayer is spinach but you could just as easily make them with any other vegetable or even a few slices of cooked turkey or chicken. To make the spinach filling cook the onions in a skillet on medium heat for 5-7 minutes until they are soft and translucent. This will further evaporate any excess moisture from the onion and help the flavours to come together. اشكال فطاير