Hawawshi ”Burger”

Hawawshi

An Egyptian street food that has all the ingredients of a “burger”. This is a traditional dish with untraditional additions I love.
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Course: Lunch
Cuisine: Egyptian
Keyword: burger
Servings: 6
Calories: 492kcal
Author: Patty

Equipment

  • Baking sheet Parchment paper lined
  • 1 Small bowl Contain and mix spices
  • Bowl For mixing meat, veggies, herbs and spices
  • Knife To halve the pita bread
  • Toaster To open the pita bread pockets
  • 1 Pastry brush To brush oil on pita prior to cooking

Ingredients

Spices

  • 2 t Coriander
  • 2 t Allspice
  • 2 t Sweet Paprika
  • 2 t Ground Pepper
  • 2 t Ground Cardamon
  • 1 t Ground Cinnamon
  • 1 t Dried Red Pepper Flakes
  • 1 t Ground Cumin

Veggies + Herbs

  • 1 Yellow onion
  • 2 Garlic cloves
  • 1 Green bell pepper deseeded
  • 1 Jalapeño deseeded
  • 1/2 C Parsley leaves and some stems
  • 11 Mint leaves [My add, not authentic to dish]

Meat

  • 1/2 # Ground Lamb
  • 1/2 # Ground Chuck Any ground beef okay to use
  • 3 T Tomato Paste
  • 1/2 C Panko (gluten or gluten-free ok) [My add, not authentic to dish]
  • 1.5 t Kosher salt
  • 1 C Crumbled Feta Cheese [My add, not authentic to dish]

Serving

  • 6 Pita bread Slice in half
  • 1/3 C Olive oil to brush on bread
  • 3 t Sprinkle Za’Atar spice on hot pita before serving [My add, not authentic to dish]

Instructions

Spices

  • Preheat oven to 400F.
  • Mix all the spices in a small bowl: 2t each of coriander, allspice, sweet or nutral paprika (not smoked), ground black pepper, and ground cardamon; and 1t each of ground cinnamon, dried red pepper flakes, and cumin; mix well and set aside.

Veggies + Herbs

  • Via Food processer combine veggies and herbs and blend into a paste, drain any liquid. OR via knife finely dice the veggies and herbs.
    1 yellow onion, 2 garlic, 1 deseeded grilled green bell pepper, 1 deseeded grilled jalapeño and ~1/2C chopped parsley leaves and some stems, and 10 diced mince leaves.

Meat

  • Then add 1/2# ground beef and 1/2# ground lamb with 1/2C Panko, 1.5t salt, feta cheese, and 3T tomato paste into a large bowl, and mix well by hand without compacting the meat or it will be hard chewing. The aim is to mix up the two meats.
  • Then add the veggies/herbs mix, and spices and combine

Bread

  • Cut ~6 pita breads in half, warm up on a hot cast iron skillet to help open them.
    For my pita this did not open anything, So I cut them in half and popped them in the toaster which did help. I however, wound up having to slice many of them open, carefully so as not to cut myself and to make the pocket.
  • Then stuff ~1/3C meat into the halved pita bread (I used a dry measuring cup), and flattened the “ball” of meat while in the pita, so the meat spreads through the pita bread evenly.
    I left ~1/2” from the pita top empty, so if people wanted to add some other things to the ”burger” there was space to do so (veggies, spices, sauces, salads, etc).
  • Place the filled bread on a parchment lined baking sheet, and brush olive oil (or avocado oil) on both sides and put the baking sheet into the hot oven for ~10 minutes.
  • Removed the sheet, flip the bread and put back in for another ~10 minutes. Important is that the bread is crusty and the meat is cooked (check with a thermometer for 160F*).

Serve

  • Serve by brushing just a bit of additional oil on the top side, and sprinkling ~1/2t of za’atar spice on the top. Place on a plate with a side dish and serve.

Notes

* Cooked lamb is 145F and beef is 160F, since the meat is mixed I defaulted to the higher number for the cooking temp listed above.
Serving Size: The first day I could only eat 1/2 of a filled pita, next day I could eat a whole pita (2 halves). So if you have a good side, half a serving would probably do but if all you are eating is the Hawawshi you might serve two.
Storage: You can freeze these sandwiches, just let them cool down to room temp, wrap in parchment paper, then place in a freezer bag and freeze. To warm back up, preheat oven to 350F and bake for ~15 minutes, flip and cook for another ~5 minutes.

Nutrition

Calories: 492kcal | Carbohydrates: 44g | Protein: 17g | Fat: 28g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 14g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 50mg | Sodium: 1302mg | Potassium: 435mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 1268IU | Vitamin C: 30mg | Calcium: 240mg | Iron: 4mg