The Breads of Egypt: Feteer Meshaltet - فطيرمشلتت

The countryside of the Nile delta region has always been revered for its green landscapes and abundance of food. People from the Nile delta who move to the bigger cities would always speak of the food of the countryside with a mixture of pride and nostalgia. Several food items seem to have legendary status due to the high quality of ingredients and the rich tradition behind them, but when it comes to bread and breakfast in general, nothing is a bigger deal than feteer meshaltet (فطير مشلتت).

It’s a laminated dough, which consists of several layers of dough separated by fat. Laminated doughs are found all over the world, like Moroccan msemmen, French croissant, Chinese scallion pancake, South Asian paratha and Portuguese pastel de nata. Feteer meshaltet is the Egyptian interpretation of this idea. As with so many things in Egypt, there’s always someone claiming that we invented this or that. Bread is an ancient thing and ideas travel across the world all the time, and therefore I don’t see the gain from arguing the origin of something like laminated baked goods.

Regarding the name however, the word feteer (فطير) is the plural of feteera (فطيرة) which generally means pie in many Arabic countries. More specifically though, the word refers to bread that has been cooked without being fermented, i.e. un-yeasted dough. The other half of the name, meshaltet, comes from the Arabic word shalta (شلتة), meaning pillow and is a reference to the soft texture of the finished feteer.

Layers of dough separated by butter

As for the method, the dough is rolled out thin to create a large surface area which is then covered in fat, traditionally clarified butter (called samna in Arabic) is used but regular butter is an acceptable substitute. In my testing, I’ve found that clarified butter gave a richer flavour but both clarified and regular butter work the same in terms of lamination and separating the layers of dough.

Feteer meshaltet comes in many sizes but it’s always round. The amounts given in the recipe below make one feteera that can serve two to four people, hopefully without leftovers. That is intentional to make the process a bit simpler. However, the amounts can be doubled to make a thicker one with the same size but it would need a longer cooking time, possibly around 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

250 grams all-purpose flour

125 grams water

4 grams (1 teaspoon) salt

10 grams (2 teaspoons) sugar

90 grams clarified butter or regular butter (at room temperature, soft and not melted)

Steps:

1- In a large bowl, combine the flour, water, salt and sugar and mix until a smooth dough is formed. Knead for five to ten minutes until the dough becomes elastic and doesn’t tear easily when stretched. Cover and leave to rest for at least one hour.

2- Lightly dust your counter with flour and turn the dough out onto the counter. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a rectangle, about 30 cm x 40 cm. If the dough snaps back and doesn’t stretch when rolled, leave it to rest for five to ten minutes then try again.

Dough rolled

3- Spread the softened clarified butter/regular butter evenly all over the surface of the dough.

Butter spread on the dough

4- Start rolling the dough by hand away from you into a cylinder shape. Keep this roll as tight as you can but don’t stress about it too much.

5- Once you have a long cylinder, about 30 cm long, form it into a spiral until you have a thick disc. Press the end of the dough underneath the disc to seal it shut. Leave the dough to rest for five minutes.

Cylinder formed into a spiral to make a disc

6- Pre-heat your oven to 230C as the dough rests and place a baking sheet to heat up as well.

7- Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough until it is about 35 cm in diameter. Place the rolled out dough on parchment paper.

Disc rolled out and placed on parchment paper

8- When the oven is ready, transfer the parchment paper directly onto the hot tray in the oven and bake for 7-10 minutes or until the feteer is lightly golden brown on top. Remove from the oven, cover with a damp towel and allow to cool.

Finished feteer