Egyptian meat pie - Roqaq

This is a very popular feast sociality as well, remember that feast with all the meat? we had to come with few dishes to use it in, this is one of them.
now, Roqaq is some sort of round shaped pastry, made of flour, water and salt. when baked it becomes brittle and is usually used for porridges and pies, could be substituted with filo pastry and the result would be pretty close.
but if you are feeling adventurous, i am including the recipe for it here.

first the pastry
ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup warm water
2 tsp fine salt
2 tsp sugar.

preparation:
sift the flour and add the salt and sugar, add the water and mix well to form soft dough. cover with a towel and let it rest for half an hour, then section into small balls (golf ball size).
sprinkle some flour on a clean counter top, and with a rolling pin, flatten each section into a thin circle , sprinkling it with flour as you work. once you are done, bake the roqaq flats in a hot oven, bake for 2 minutes on each side then remove carefully to avoid breaking. repeat until the whole patch is done.

now on for the main recipe:

ingredients:

from 4 to 8 pieces of roqaq pastry, depends on how thick you want it to be, half of which should go at the top and the other half should go at the bottom of the pie.
hot chicken stock
butter/ghee for greasing
1/2 kg ground beef
2 medium sized onions
S&P to taste
a dash of nutmeg
1 tsp crushed pine nuts (optional)
2 tbsp olive oil/sunflower oil or 1 tbsp butter

preparation
saute onions in oil/ butter until tender and golden, add the ground beef , S&P, nutmeg and pine nuts, saute until meat no longer pink, then remove from heat.

grease a deep oven dish then place the first roqaq pastry, add some of the chicken stock, enough to make the pastry soft but not soggy, turn over and do the other side then place in the dish.
brush the pastry with melted butter/ghee to keep it from sticking to the next layer.
repeat with the next piece of pastry, you can stop at two for the lower part or you can add more if you want it thicker, don't brush the top one with grease though, as the filling will be added to the top of it.
once you are done layering the lower half, spread the saute beef on top of the pastry, evening it out. once all filling is in and distributed, start layering the top half the same way you did the bottom.
once you are done layering, brush the surface with butter so it would brown in the oven. add three ladles of the hot chicken stock to the pie - or enough to make it moist - then bake in a 190 C oven until the stock is absorbed and the surface has turned golden.
... and enjoy !!

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