Chicken Fatayer

Fatayer is an Arabic Pie stuffed with spinach, cheese, chicken, lamb or za'atar and like Shawarma it is a commonly available street food across the Arab world. Here at a walking distance from our flat there is an Arabic restaurant from where we regularly buy fatayer and shawarma. Chicken and cheese fatayer are our favorite filling. I actually do not know what paste they mix with the boiled and shredded chicken, if it is feta cheese or labneh or white sauce….. I usually use white sauce but mixing the chicken with lebneh is equally good. My little one loves fatayer so I sometimes make these at home. Here’s how...

Chicken Fatayer

(Recipe Source ~ Arabic Bites)
Ingredients:
2 1/3 cups flour, unbleached, whole wheat, or a mixture of the two
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup warm milk
3 Tablespoons oat flour

Method:

• Place all ingredients in the bowl of mixer ,beat 10 minutes to make a soft dough.
• Cover and let rise for 10 minutes.
• Divide dough into 32 pieces. Roll each to a 9 cm round.
• Fill each with 1-2 Tablespoons of chicken filling (or with the filling of your choice).
• Place Fatayer onto oven trays.
• Bake at 375 F / 190 C about 20 minutes or until browned.

For the Chicken Filling:

(My own recipe)

(This filling is enough for about 15 fatayer or half amount of Fatayer recipe given above)

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts cubed
2 garlic cloves, sliced
Ginger-1”piece
Salt and pepper powder to taste

For the white sauce:
Butter -2 tbsp
All purpose flour/ Maida -2 tbsp
Milk -1 cup
Salt - to taste

Method:

• Cook chicken breasts with garlic, ginger, pepper powder and enough salt, and when cool run in a food processor and keep aside.
• Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in flour and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Whisk in milk and cook, stirring, over medium heat for 4-5 minutes or until mixture thickens.
• Lower the flame and add chicken and adjust the seasoning. Turn off the flame.
• The filling should be of a spreadable consistency.

This easy chicken filling has many uses which I am sure kids will love. If you get more ideas please let me know J….

•  As a filing in fatayer.
• To make sandwiches or burgers, kids love these in their tiffin box.

• You can easily convert the filling into chicken rolls or chicken nuggets; make the mixture into desired shapes, dip each in to beaten egg white and then coat with bread crumbs and fry.

•  Spread some inside chapathi, roll it and serve with ketchup.
• On top of dosa as chicken dosa…

Sending this Chicken Fatayer to Susan for YeastSpotting!
Also to Food palette series brown event by Torview.