Name: Sfiha or Lahm Bi’ajeen
Yield: Makes about 14 pastries each a small snack size
Cuisine: Israel
Ingredients: 3 tbsp light tahini paste; 25 g flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 230 g strong white flour; 1 tbsp lemon juice; 1 tsp ground allspice; 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper; 2 lemons, divided into wedges; 25 g pine nuts; ½ tbsp salt; 1 tbsp sumac; 1½ tsp fast-action dried yeast; 1 medium free-range egg; 1 tbsp sugar; 125 ml sunflower oil; 2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped (250 g in total); 1 tsp ground cinnamon; 110 ml lukewarm water; 1¼ tsp salt; ½ tsp baking powder; 1 large onion, finely chopped (180 g in total); olive oil, for brushing; 1½ tbsp milk powder; 250 g minced lamb; 1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

Preparation info

Makes about
14
pastries each a small snack size

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Jerusalem

By Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

Published 2012

About

Only a few decades ago, when many Palestinian families didn’t have ovens at home, housewives used to bring a risen dough and lamb topping to their nearby bakery. The baker would deftly shape the dough for them, scatter over the minced lamb and bake in his wood-fired oven. His payment came in the form of a little gastronomic return: a couple of sfiha pastries.

Sfiha or Lahm Bi’ajeen, a Levantine lamb-topped dough, is a bit like a pizza and is as popular as its Italian cousin. The lam