Fatayer bi Sabanekh

Levantine spinach triangles sharpened with sumac and lemon and sealed to open at the seams

Origin: Damascus, Syria & the Levant

From the journey of Spinach.

Arabic sabānikh is the word from which the Spanish, and through it the whole of Europe, took its name for the plant, and the Levant is where the Arab world's spinach cooking is densest. Fatayer are the small filled pastries of the region, and the spinach ones are the most common. What distinguishes them from every other spinach pastry on this map is the souring. Where Greece binds spinach with feta and Anatolia rolls it in yufka with white cheese, the Levantine filling has no cheese at all: raw spinach is salted, wrung out, and dressed with sumac, lemon juice, olive oil, onion, and often pomegranate molasses, so the filling is sharp and dark rather than rich. Sumac is what makes it Levantine. The dried, crushed berry of Rhus coriaria gives an astringent, fruity sourness quite unlike lemon, and it was the region's main souring agent for centuries before the lemon arrived. The shape is the second signature and it is more than decoration. The dough is cut in rounds, filled, and folded into a three-cornered pyramid with the seams pinched from the centre outwards, and a properly sealed fatayer opens slightly at the seams as it bakes, showing a little of the dark filling. Bakers judge one another on whether the corners hold. They are Lenten food in the Christian communities of Syria and Lebanon, since the filling is entirely free of animal products, and they belong equally to the iftar table in Ramadan. Every bakery in Damascus, Beirut, and Amman sells them by the tray.

Ingredients

Dough

500 g plain flour
7 g fast-action dried yeast
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt
80 ml olive oil
280 ml warm water

Filling

800 g spinach, washed and very finely chopped
1.5 tsp salt, for drawing
2 whole onions, very finely chopped
3 tbsp sumac
4 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
80 ml extra virgin olive oil
0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp pine nuts, optional

To Finish

2 tbsp olive oil, for brushing

Method

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt, then work in the olive oil and warm water and knead for eight to ten minutes to a soft, smooth dough. Cover and prove for an hour until doubled.
Chop the spinach very finely, toss it with the 1.5 tsp of salt, and leave in a colander for 30 minutes.
Squeeze the spinach hard in handfuls until no more liquid comes out, then squeeze once more in a cloth.
Rub the chopped onion with a pinch of salt between your fingers until it softens and loses its raw edge.
Mix the squeezed spinach with the onion, sumac, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, olive oil, pepper, and pine nuts if using. Taste; it should be aggressively sour.
Roll the dough thin, about 3 mm, and cut rounds of 10 to 12 cm.
Place a heaped tablespoon of filling in the centre of each round, draining off any liquid that has gathered in the bowl.
Lift three sides of the round up over the filling and pinch them together firmly from the centre outwards to form a three-cornered pyramid.
Arrange on lined trays, brush with olive oil, and bake at 200°C for 18 to 22 minutes until golden.
Serve warm or at room temperature with a wedge of lemon.

Notes

Eight hundred grams of raw spinach reduces to roughly enough filling for twenty-four pastries. It always looks like far too much. Sumac is essential and not substitutable; lemon alone gives a flat, one-dimensional sourness. It is sold by any Middle Eastern grocer. Pomegranate molasses is common in Syrian versions and optional in Lebanese ones. Both are correct. They freeze very well unbaked: freeze on a tray, bag once solid, and bake from frozen with five extra minutes. The same dough and method with a filling of minced lamb, onion, and yoghurt gives sfiha, and with white cheese and nigella seed gives the cheese fatayer.

The Gastrographer

Name: Fatayer bi Sabanekh
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 24
Cuisine: Syria & the Levant
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour; 7 g fast-action dried yeast; 1 tsp caster sugar; 1 tsp salt; 80 ml olive oil; 280 ml warm water; 800 g spinach, washed and very finely chopped; 1.5 tsp salt, for drawing; 2 whole onions, very finely chopped; 3 tbsp sumac; 4 tbsp lemon juice; 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses; 80 ml extra virgin olive oil; 0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper; 3 tbsp pine nuts, optional; 2 tbsp olive oil, for brushing

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