🥟 Cheese sambousek
Cheese sambousek are small half-moon pastries filled with salty akkawi and feta mixed with chopped parsley, then fried or baked until golden. The dough is tender and slightly crisp, and the cheese melts into a soft, tangy centre. They are served warm as part of a Lebanese mezze spread or as a snack with tea.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 300 g ready bread dough or sambousek dough
- 150 g akkawi cheese, soaked to remove salt and grated
- 100 g feta, crumbled
- A large handful of chopped parsley
- Oil for frying or brushing
Method
- Mix the akkawi, feta and parsley.
- Roll the dough thin and cut 8 cm circles.
- Put a teaspoon of filling on each circle, fold into a half-moon and crimp the edge with a fork.
- Fry in hot oil until golden, or brush with oil and bake at 200 °C for 15–18 minutes. Serve warm.
How to make it lighter
- Bake rather than fry — brushing with oil uses a fraction of the fat a deep fryer adds.
- Soak the akkawi well and use a little less cheese with more parsley for a lighter filling.
- Pair two or three pieces with a fattoush or a plate of raw vegetables instead of a full plate of pastries.
History
Sambousek is the Levantine member of the large family of filled pastries known across the Middle East and South Asia, whose name traces back to the Persian sanbosag. In Lebanon and Syria it is a fixture of the mezze table and of bakeries, made in half-moon shapes with a crimped edge.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →