Purslane Fatayer

Greetings readers!

After being away for a while, I missed the  blog, I hope you missed it too. I don’t know if I can call my long time away a vacation, but I was not cooking anything spectacular or worth sharing. I was just going quick and convenient. I guess no matter how much you love cooking, when you have to do it every single day, it loses a bit of its luster. But with my return, I have a delicious recipe to share with you.

It is another vegetarian dish (if we can call it that) that is versatile and can be eaten any time of the day. Just like the Spinach Fatayer, it can be used in a party as an amuse-bouche, as an appetizer or even as a full meal.  This is how I prepared it: as a full meal.

These are fairly simple to make, you can use pizza dough to make them and they will be just fine. I used an oil based recipe that I found online, with the exception of replacing 1/3 of the flour with whole wheat flour. If you do that you might adjust the ratios of the water and oil, this is what I had to do.

I made a triple batch of the dough, which was enough to make four “Fatayer”, equal in size to an individual pizza.

You can omit the use of the pomegranate molasses, but try not to, this is what makes these babies! I found that they carry it in the Asian market.

You can play with the amounts to make the filling as sour as you want. And if you find lemon too acidic, just add an equal amount  of water to it.

The fun fact is that I discovered that Purslane is yet another vegetable that the Mexicans share the use of with the Lebanese. I found it at the produce stand under the name of Verdolaga.

I personally do not like it raw, but it is absolutely scrumptious in these Fatayer!

Purslane Fatayer

 
The Dough (I got the recipe here):
Ingredients:
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup water
Preparation:
  1. In a medium bowl, combine flour and salt.
  2. Add oil and begin to knead dough.
  3. Once oil is absorbed, add warm water.
  4. Knead into an elastic dough.
  5. Shape dough into 2 inch diameter balls. Cover and set aside.
The Filling:
Ingredients:
  • 2 bunches Purslane (Verdolaga)
  • 2 – 3 medium tomatoes
  • 1/2 small onion
  • 1 Tbsp Sumac
  • 1 Tbsp Pomegranate Molasses (optional)
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • Salt, Pepper
Preparation:
  1. Wash the purslane, dry it and take the leaves of the stalks.
  2. Chop the onion finely.
  3. Chop the tomatoes in small squares.
  4. Add the lemon (and water if using), the sumac, the pomegranate molasses, the salt and pepper.
  5. Toss and let the mixture rest overnight if possible. If not a couple of hours should be enough.
  6. When you want to assemble the Fatayer, drain the juice from the mixture, roll the dough and fill it with the drained “salad”. Depending on the size you are making the amount used to fill the Fatayer can vary. It should be about 2/3 of the dough.
  7. Form into triangles and make sure you seal them well, because they will just open if not firmly closed.
  8. Bake them at 425˚F (~218.5˚C) for 10 to 15 minutes or till lightly golden. (mine took exactly 12 minutes)