Fatayers, or Lebanese meat pies, are one of my favorite recipes from back then. I have been determined to make them at least once per year now that I have caught the cooking bug. I recently had several neighbors and friends over for a Fatayer feast and the accolades were endless. They are truly delicious.
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef (or lamb if you prefer)
1 green pepper
2 medium sized white onions
1 tomato
3 celery sticks
1 small can tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste
ketchup
3 packages butter crescent rolls (you can look online for homemade meat pie bread options but crescent rolls taste great and saves A LOT of time).
Grind vegetables together (or chop by hand into small pieces).
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. While oven is heating up, mix meat, tomato paste, a few squirts of ketchup, salt and pepper. Add ground vegetables. Meat should be nicely coated with tomato paste and ketchup but not too soggy.
3. Take two rolls of dough from first package. Flatten each strip of dough delicately with your hands. Then, overlap one side of one strip of dough onto the other to make a rectangle.
4. Put a scoop of mixture into center of the dough (about 3 tbsp). Form a triangle, pulling up edges of the dough (moisten your fingers with water first and line the edges of the dough so that they stay together when you form the meat pie).
5. Coat baking pan/sheet with olive oil. Cook for 15 minutes.
