Broken heart and cry

                                Syabhale (A  Nepali meat pie)

Like momos, syabhale are widely loved in the nepali community, and will be the first to go at any nepali people gathering. In Nepal, the most common meat would be buffalo meat or chicken and mutton meat. You can make this one with veg stuff also. You won’t be sorry when you went to the effort to make these!

Dough Ingredients

• 8 cups all-purpose flour (no self-rising flour, baking powder or yeast)
• 3 cups of cold water (Don’t use warm or hot water. Water out of the tap is fine.)

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground buffalo mince
• 1/3 cup minced ginger
• 1/4 cup minced garlic
• 1 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 stalks green onion (1/2 cup chopped)
• 1 and 1/4 cup chopped onion (We use red onion.)
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon of salt, or to your taste
• 2 tablespoons of cooking oil (mustard either sunflower)
• small pinch of szechaun pepper according to the taste
• 1 1/2 table spoon of species (mix of corriander,cummin and garam masala)

Dough Preparation

Start two hours before cooking

• Mix flour and water, forming a ball
• Knead at least 5 minutes until dough is smooth and flexible
• Place dough in a dish with a lid, or cover with plastic, or put in a plastic bag.
• Let rest for 2 or more hours so that the dough will be softer when shaping the shapale.
• Ultimately you want the dough to be soft enough to roll out and to stick together when you pinch together the edges of each syabhale, and hard enough to form a smooth ball and not to stick to the rolling surface. Don’t worry too much if your dough is too hard or too soft. If too soft you can add some more flour and/or put more flour on your rolling surface. If it’s too hard, you can add more water and reknead. You don’t have to let it sit another two hours in that case.

Making the dough circles.

Roll out Dough

• Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface with a rolling pin to about 1/8 inch thickness.
• Use an inverted glass or cut out circles (diameter of the circles is approximately 3.5 inches, or 8 centimeters.) Set the circles of dough aside.
• As you cut out the circles you will be left with the dough outside the circles. Pick it back up, form it into a ball and repeat rolling it out until you have nothing left.
• Note: Many Nepali make the circles one by one by making a small ball of dough and then rolling out each one, but we’re lazy and we’re not good at rolling them out one by one, so we use the cup. 

Pinching the edges of the syabhale together.

Crimping the edges of the syabhale.

Prepare the Filling

• Place the ground buffalo in a large mixing bowl.
• Mince the ginger and garlic and add to the buffalo in the bowl.
• Chop the green onion, and onion and place in the mixing bowl.
• Add the species per taste(species mix of corriander, cummin and garam masala)
• Mix everything well. We use our hands to mix it but that’s up to you 🙂

Fill and Shape the Syabhale

• Place a heaping tablespoon or so of filling on one circle of dough, then place a second circle of dough on top of the first one.
• Pinch the edges flat together very firmly — going all around the circle. This is important as you don’t want the juices to run out.
• Then, start anywhere on the circle, fold over a small piece of the edge, and pinch it down, repeating this all around the circle. This results in a crimped, pretty edge.
• Keep the syabhale you have finished on a lightly oiled flat dish or surface, to avoid the dough sticking on to the surface. If the syabhale are going to be sitting for a long time, you can place a damp cloth over them to keep them from drying out.

Cook

• Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large pan until the oil is very hot and then place one layer of syabhale in the pan and and lower heat to medium. You don’t want to burn the outsides before the inside is cooked.
• Cook until golden brown on both sides, turning frequently. Cook about 6-7 minutes for each side, for a total of 12-14 minutes. The meat must cook through.
• Be prepared to turn the fan on or to open the windows as the cooking process can be quite greasy and hot.

Serve

• Syabhale go well with something light, like tomotoes ketchup 
• Normally Nepali community serve the syabhale with momos achar(pickle )