Savoury Pastries

In his Kanju’l Ishtiha (Treasure of the Appetite) the fifteenth-century Persian poet of food, Abu Ishaq of Shiraz, wrote: ‘We came into the kitchen for this purpose, that we might show the fried meat to the pastry.’

The Middle East has ‘shown to the pastry’ not only meat, but also chicken, brains, cheese, eggs, spinach, aubergines and all the nuts they have had available.

Savoury pastries are one of the most interesting features of Oriental food: sambusak, börek, pasteles, bstilla, fila, brik, spanakopitta, lahma bi ajeen – a vast family of glorious little pastries, half-moon shapes, triangles, fingers, small pots, little parcels of all types, as well as medium-sized pies and enormous ones. Various doughs are used, each country and community favouring a particular type; and to make it more confusing, different names are given to the same pastries by different countries and communities, while sometimes the same name can apply to two very different pastries.