Lebanese Meat Pies Recipe

Ingredients

Meat Topping Ingredients (5 servings)
1 lbs lean ground beef (no fat)
1 large red onion finely chopped
1 large ripe tomato, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice (optional)
½ cup of finely chopped Parsley leaves
2 teaspoons of 7-spices
1-2 teaspoons of salt
a dash of cayenne pepper (or to taste)

Dough Ingredients
6 cups of multi purpose flour
½ teaspoon of yeast melted
2 and ¼th cups of warm water
1 and ¼th teaspoon of salt

Instructions

Dough Preparation Method

1. To save time, you could substitute with fresh thin-crust pizza dough. But if you’re more adventurous, here’s how to make this simple dough from scratch.

2. Melt the yeast in ½ cup of warm water along with a tiny bit of sugar (1/8th of a teaspoon)

3. Add all dough ingredients to your food processor, and let it knead for a few minutes until you get a dough. Alternatively, you could also knead by hand by mixing all ingredients in a bowl.

4. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes as you now prepare the meat fillings.

Baking the Pies

1. Preheat oven to 500-520 degrees F

2. Once dough is ready, make it into rounds of 8 inches in diameter and ⅓ inch thick

3. Place dough on baking tray that has had some flour sprinkled on

4. Spread 3-4 tablespoons of meat topping evenly on every dough

5. Bake for about 10 minutes or until dough turns a bit golden. You could also end it with a 2-minute broil on High.

Notes
I was told the traditional way of eating this was by adding some fresh lemon juice after baking and folding it in half. You don’t want to add too much lemon juice but enough to taste the flavoring.