Dough Bites Filled with Turkish Pastrami and Cheese

(Pastirmali-Kasarli Hamur Lokmasi)

Pizza dough
Sun flower oil to fry

Filling:
Turkish pastrami (Pastirma), sliced, break in bite size
Turkish kashar cheese or mozzarella, grated

Cut the dough into a little bit smaller than egg sized pieces. Flat in 1 cm thick with your hand. Then place some filling inside, close it up. When the oil heats up, fry the doughs on both sides until golden brown. Afterwards, place on a paper towel to soak up any extra oil.

Serve the Dough Bites Filled with Turkish Pastrami and Cheese with freshly brewed Turkish Tea as a breakfast or light lunch. I've served it with Roasted Eggplant Salad, parsley and cucumber slices:)

History of Pastirma
(Source: TurkishCulture.org)

The Turkish horsemen of Central Asia used to preserve meat by placing slabs of it in pockets on the sides of their saddles, where it would be pressed by their legs as they rode. This pressed meat was the forerunner of today's pastirma, a term which literally means 'being pressed' in Turkish, and is the origin of the Italian pastrami. Pastirma is a kind of cured beef, the most famous being that made in the town of Kayseri in central Turkey.

The 17th century Turkish writer Evliya Çelebi praised the spiced beef pastirma of Kayseri in his Book of Travels, and Kayseri pastirma is still regarded as the finest of all. Good quality pastirma is a delicacy with a wonderful flavour, which may be served in slices as a cold hors d'oeuvre or cooked with eggs, tomatoes and so on. Although pastirma may also be made with mutton or goat's meat, beef is preferred.