This recipe is perfect for mezza, finger food, picnic, sides and lunch boxes. You can have it as a snack even, hot or cold at any time of the day/ night. Yes I did sneak a few as a midnight snack when the kids where fast asleep once!  It is versatile, healthy and delicious.  Say hello to Spinach Fatayer 

Fatayer is another name for pie in Arabic. They can be stuffed with cheese, meat or vegetables. The dough making varies and there are lots of recipe out there for pie like dough. However I am take a shortcut, I am a busy mum and I want cooking to be simple, so I am buying readymade pastry ! I am using short crust pastry which in French is called pâte brisée. 

NOTE: 

-Fatayer can be stored for few days in a tight air container in the fridge, so you can bake them in advance. You can freeze them and heat them again.

-You can prepare the stuffing and freeze it for later use, if you are like me and always do more stuffing than needed. Making sure once defrosted all water is squeezed out before cooking with it.

-Spinach is full of water (around 90%) and we know moisture doesn’t make a good crusty pastry. So you must squeeze the spinach so much till they are absolutely dry before adding other ingredients it.

-Size does not matter ! you can make the fatayer as small and as large as you like

– A round biscuit cutter is what I use, you can use a small teacup plate, back of a plastic glass or anything round and small.  This makes it much easier and faster than shaping round pastries by hand.

Ingredients

1 kg fresh spinach (or 500 g frozen spinach with the water squeezed out)

1 medium red onion finely chopped

1 green onion finely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

seasoning

2 tablespoon sumac

squeeze of lemon juice

Method

Step 1- Defrost the spinach if using frozen and place in a colander and squeeze out all the juice out. If using fresh, chop and place in a pot to wilt over low heat for few minutes. Once cooled squeeze all the juice out.  The spinach must be dry.

Step 2- Chop red and green onion finely. Add them to the dry spinach. Add the seasoning, sumac and olive oil. Mix well.

Step 3- Roll out the pastry (must be cool) With a round biscuit cutter cut as many round shapes as possible.

Step 4- Place a small heap (depending on your pastry size) of stuffing in the middle of each pastry. Pinch with your fingers two end together  meeting in the middle and then bring the third making a pyramid. Making sure it is sealed well.

Step 5- Place all fatayer on a greased oven try and place in a preheated oven 180C for 20 min or until bottom of fattier are golden.   Serve hot or cool on a rack then serve.