Sweet Treats

Sebadas

 

A crunchy flaky pastry puff, this Sardinian dessert was once eaten as a starter!! Desert before dinner cool.

Fillings range from fresh pecorino or ricotta, mixed with lemon or orange zest and different herbs. Sebadas were fried and served warm with honey or sugar on the top but now for the more diet-conscious traveller, the pastry is often baked or cooked in a dryer pan. Sweet, gooey in the middle and decadent, a sebada is everything a dessert should be...well so they say!

Makes: 12

4 cups flour
1 cup cold water, or QB
4 tablespoons lard or butter…lard is used in Sardinia a lot in pastries
1pinch salt
300 grams of a young Pecorino cheese, cut into cubes
Zest of 2 lemons
Olive oil for frying
3/4 cup honey
 
Make a dough by combining the flour and salt with some cold water bit by bit until you have a silky, elastic consistency. Add the lard (or butter) and knead until well incorporated. Let the dough rest about 30 minutes, covered.
  

Then prepare the cheese by melting it in a small saucepan over gentle heat. If you find that the cheese is separating when it melts, add a tablespoon of flour to bring it back together. When melted, stir in the lemon zest then pour it out onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper and gently spread out with a soft spatula to form an even layer of cheese, about a third of an inch thick. Let cool. Cut out 12 rounds with a cookie cutter about 3 inches wide.

Roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch thickness and cut out 24 rounds with a pastry cutter (you can follow the circumference of a small bowl, anything that is round and is roughly 4-5 inches wide).

Place one round of cheese in the centre of one round of dough, top with another round of dough and press the edges well with fingers or with the tines of a fork. If you go with fingers, you can also straighten the edges with a frilled pastry cutter for a traditional look.

Fill a wide pan with olive oil until it reaches a depth of one inch. When hot, fry the seadas until golden on both sides (some prefer not to flip them but to spoon the hot oil over the top). Remove from pan and place on kitchen paper until they are all ready (keep warm).

Gently warm the honey until liquid then pour over the seadas. This is best consumed freshly made and piping hot while the cheese is still oozing.