These delicious little Sephardic meat topped pastries can be made with your choice of ground meat. Each one will have a different flavor. Try beef, lamb, or spiced ground turkey)

• Meat filling
• 1 lb KOL Foods chopped meat (beef, lamb, plain ground turkey, or seasoned ground turkey)
• 1 finely diced onion
• 1 Tbs of tamarind paste
• 1 Tbs of date paste
• ¼ cup BBQ sauce (You can also use ketchup or tomato paste)
• ½ tsp of salt
• ½ tsp of granulated garlic
• dash of ground cinnamon
• dash of ground cardamom
• Dough
• 5 cups of flour
• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of oil
• 1 tsp salt
• I onion diced
• (Optional fresh herbs)

Filling:

In a food processor with the mince blade on, mince the onion. Add the tamarind paste, date paste, and BBQ sauce. Process until you have a thin paste and everything’s mixed well.

In a mixing bowl, combine the salt, granulated garlic, cinnamon, cardamom and the paste from your food processor. Gently mix in the meat by hand. Once mixed, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for about two hours.

Dough:

Combine the water, oil and salt in a pot and heat until tepid and the ingredients have mixed well. Add the flour and mix. You can then knead the dough using a stand mixer with a dough hook, or knead by hand for several minutes. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for approximately two hours.

To assemble:

Pinch golf ball sized balls of dough and flatten them into rounds. You can press them by hand for a rustic look or use a rolling pin and a round dough cutter to make them all uniform. Once formed, lay out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Scoop out enough of the meat mixture to almost cover a round of dough. Leave a little edge of exposed dough. Gently press the meat into the raw dough so that it adheres together. Then bake for about 15 minutes in a 400-degree oven until the meat is cooked and the edges of the dough are browned.

You can serve these with a little herbed tahini and a small piece of mango on top, or small lemon wedge along side to squeeze a touch of fresh lemon juice on top just before eating.

L’Chaim . . . Avi