Sebadas — Fried Cheese Pastry with Honey

Ingredients

• For the dough
• 300 g fine semolina
• 80 g lard, cold, cut into small pieces
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 100 ml warm water, approximately, added gradually
• For the filling
• 400 g fresh sheep's milk cheese, slightly fermented 24–48 hours, mildly sour and lightly salted — not ricotta
• To finish
• 150 g corbezzolo honey, strawberry tree honey; or a good dark bitter honey such as buckwheat or chestnut if unavailable
• For frying
• 500 g lard, for deep-frying
• 1 tsp water, for sealing the pastry edges

Method

1. 1
   Prepare the cheese 24–48 hours ahead. The fresh sheep's milk cheese must carry a perceptible lactic sourness and sufficient salt before it is used. Sweet fresh ricotta is not a substitute — it lacks the acidity and salt that the honey demands. The cheese is ready when it is firm enough to be sliced into a disc yet yields a clean sour note on tasting.
2. 2
   Make the dough. Combine the semolina and salt. Rub in the cold lard until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add warm water gradually, working the dough until it is stiff, cohesive, and smooth — closer in character to short pastry than to pasta dough. Wrap and rest for 20 minutes at room temperature. The dough is ready when it holds together without cracking but does not stick.
3. 3
   Roll the dough to 2 mm on a lightly floured surface. Cut sixteen rounds approximately 12 cm in diameter. Slice the sour sheep's milk cheese into eight discs slightly smaller than the pastry rounds. Place one cheese disc at the centre of eight pastry rounds. Brush the exposed border of each round with a film of water, lay the second round over, and press the edges firmly to a complete seal — no gap. Trim any excess with a pastry wheel to give a neat, tight border. The seal is the structural condition of the dish: any opening will release the molten cheese into the frying oil.
4. 4
   Heat the lard for frying to 180 °C in a wide, deep pan. Lower the sebadas in carefully, in batches of two or three so the temperature does not drop. Fry for 3–4 minutes, turning once, until both faces are uniformly deep golden and the pastry is visibly crisp. The cheese within will have melted entirely and the pastry disc will have begun to bulge slightly from the steam pressure inside — this is the sign of completion.
5. 5
   Lift the sebadas from the fat and drain for no more than thirty seconds on a rack. Transfer immediately to warm plates. Drizzle the corbezzolo honey over generously while the pastry is still hot from the oil. Serve at once — sebadas do not hold. When cut, the sour sheep's milk cheese should run freely, and the opposition of hot, crisp, savoury pastry, molten sour cheese, and bitter honey should be simultaneous on the palate.