Meat Bourekas

Meat bourekas

You can make these in advance and freeze raw baking directly from oven. This is another wonderful double up and freeze for another day idea.

Ingredients

2 rolls ORIT's puff pastry

½ kg lean mince meat

3 potatoes boiled and mashed

1 onion grated fine

½ tsp crushed garlic

½ tsp turmeric

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp ground coriander

1 tsp parsley ( fresh is always best but if you don’t have dry is also fine)

2tsp paprika

Method

1.       In a frying pan saute the onions until golden

2.       Remove and fry the mince till almost cooked through

3.       Add the onions again and all the spices.

4.       Add the mashed potatoes and mix together until well combined.

5.       Roll out puff pastry and cut out squares about 10x10 cm or to your preference.

6.       Spoon the filling into the puff pastry and fold over.  At this point you can freeze for baking another day.

7.       Place on baking dish

8.       Brush with some lightly beaten egg and decorate with sesame seeds if you would like.

9.       Bake in oven preheated to 180C for 30 minutes.  Make sure It’s baked through by checking the bottom of the bourekas.  They should be dry on the bottom and flaky.  If not then lower the temperature to 160 and bake for another 15 minutes.

Shakshouka

Shakshouka

In order to make Shakshouka, you need to start off by making a Matboucha.

Matboucha

I use this matboucha as my base for many recipes that require a tomato based sauce.  My kids love making it without the chillies as a pasta sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg Roma tomatoes-chopped or Rosa tomatoes-halved   (if you can’t find these any other tomato is fine just make sure they are fully ripe)
• 1 onion diced
• 1 sweet pepper diced
• Chilli- use to taste- I like to put about 5-6 chillies in but if you prefer less heat use less- or none at all! (I prefer using the medium sized chillies that have a lot of flesh on them and don’t have too much heat.  I fry them, peel the skin off and slice the chilli.  I usually use different colour chilli to pepper so my kids don’t mix them up and bite into the chilli thinking it’s a pepper)
• 2 tbls (heaped) paprika
• 1 tsp chopped parsley- fresh is best but if not available use dry
• ½ tsp garlic (powder or freshly crushed- sometimes I just crush 2 fresh cloves with the flat side of a knife and add that to the pot
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Oil to cover bottom of pan

 Method

1.       Saute onion until starting to brown

2.       Add peppers and chillies.  Keep stirring for 5 minutes.

3.       Now add the spices stir continuously- you don’t want to burn the paprika but you do want it to fry a little bit

4.       Add the tomatoes and stir

5.       Reduce heat to medium heat and let it simmer until all the waters from the tomatoes evaporate, stirring every once in a while making sure the bottom doesn’t stick.

For the shakshouka, cover the bottom of a frying pan with the matboucha you made.  Break eggs and drop them on top.  Cover pot and cook on high for 5 minutes.  When serving, make sure to serve both the egg and matboucha with a LOT of bread- or what we love is with Challa.