Chicken and Feta Manakish/Arabic Pizza

Eid for me was great but hectic too.Hubby was extremely busy,that meant late night outings and late,lazy mornings.Routines were gone haywire and kids were falling asleep or up and about on all the odd times.I had a couple of snacks and dessert ideas to be worked on and none materialized till now,after somewhat establishing the routine again…Phew…

This is one of my favorite Arabic dishes.Although it’s the same as pizza I love the beauty of it being so simple.That means no making pizza sauce from scratch,not a load of veggies or toppings to chop and no dumping of the whole mozzarella packet on top.
For some reason,I can’t bring myself to buy the pre-made pizza sauce or pasta sauces,toppings mix.Maybe,it’s the way I was brought up.We hardly ate from outside unless my mom or aunt is really,really sick.There were not much of packaged goods anyways.

But I really let myself go,when I started working.I started restaurant hopping with my hubby(then boyfriend 😉 and got sick of it soon.Now I try to minimize those mishaps and incorporate healthy options for my kids.

• Add yeast,sugar to the warm water and let it stand for about 10 minutes.If it froths you can proceed else discard and use a new batch of yeast.
• Mix the flour with baking powder and salt.
• In a separate bowl,add the yeast mixture with the olive oil.Whisk a bit combining the two.
• Now,add the flour mix to the yeast mixture little by little,forming the dough.You end up with a soft,sticky,pliable dough.You may not have to use all the flour.
• Pour a tsp of oil and knead the dough.
• Do not add in all the flour at once and make it a hard dough as in a normal pizza.
• Cover the dough with damp cloth and let it rise for about 1 hour.
• Roll out the dough,place it on a wax paper,brush with olive oil(specially the edges),place the toppings and bake it in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for about 12 to 15 minutes.