In her fourth Ramadan recipe, Farah Sawaf goes for an exotic and fruity touch using pomegranate to not only add a burst of flavour but also to increase the nutritional content of the dish – the red fruit helps fight cell damage and lowers the risk of heart disease and cholesterol.
“I tend to make two batches of these as they fly off the table, my husband alone can have 10 by himself,” says Farah. “The crunchy pastry combined with the tangy but sweet beef and cheese just melts in your mouth.”
POMEGRANATE BEEF PASTRY WITH SWEET YOGHURT
Serves 6 | preparation time 35 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 puff pastry sheet, rolled out and dusted with flour not to stick
400g ground beef
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 ½ tbsp sumac
1 tbsp Arabic 7 spice mix (found in most stores)
1 ½ tbsp pomegranate syrup
½ cup kashkawan cheese, shredded
¼ cup plain yoghurt
For topping/sprinkling over each pastry
1/3 cup plain yoghurt
¼ cup honey
Pomegranate seeds
Pine nuts
PREPARATION
- Preheat oven to 170°C.
- Sauté ground beef and onions until cooked over medium heat. Blend in sumac, Arabic 7 spice mix, syrup and cheese. Take off heat and allow to cool.
- Roll out the puff pastry sheet. Using a medium-sized glass cup, make circle shapes in the pastry. Lay pastry flat on a cookie sheet or, as I like to do, lay softly on top of a mini-sized cupcake pan so your pastry has shape.
- Spoon the ¼ cup plain yoghurt into the cooled meat mixture. Spoon a generous amount of meat filling over each pastry circle.
- Bake until golden, approximately 10 minutes.
- While baking, mix the 1/3 plain yoghurt with honey.
- Allow the pastries to cool. Dollop a bit of sweet yoghurt topping over each. Top with pomegranate seeds and pine nuts.
All the ingredients for this dish are available from Lafayette Gourmet.
For more recipes from Farah, here
