Cheese Rolls

When I was growing up, we never went to restaurants. In our house, it was always declared that home food is superior to restaurant food, for the following reasons:

1. We never know what's really in restaurant foods.
2. We know exactly what's in homemade foods.
3. Homemade food tasted way much better than restaurant food (it didn't matter that we never tried restaurant food).
4. Restaurants didn't have the perfect olive oil that we had at home (it didn't matter whether the meal we were discussing contained olive oil or not).
5. Any food that was not prepared in our house was not tasty at all.
6. Restaurants are very expensive.
7. My father hates sitting in a restaurant chair.

 I was in my late teens the first time I went to a restaurant, and in my early twenties the first time I went to a Lebanese restaurant. 

 In any Lebanese restaurant, the 'mezza' (a huge collection of small starters plates) is more important than the main course. Most of the time, people get full from the mezza before the main course arrives. 

 In my first restaurant experience, I was familiar with most of the starter plates in the mezza. But the cheese rolls were the ones I'd never tried before. Until now, I always wonder how I could've missed Cheese Rolls for twenty years of my life. They're incredibly simple but one can never have enough of them. 

  

Recipe: Cheese Rolls

• phyllo dough pastry (20 medium sized sheets), thawed if frozen.
• 3 cups Akawi cheese, shredded (can be found in any Mediterranean Market- can be substituted by Fetta cheese, but Fetta is more sour and salty- can also be substituted by any fresh white mild cheese).
• 3/4 cup chopped parsley. 
• vegetable oil
• 1 egg, beaten by a fork

1) Mix the cheese with the parsley.
2) Spread one sheet on a flat plate. 

3) Put some of the cheese-parsley mix along the diagonal (the dough should be square. If it's triangular, line the cheese-parsley mix along the bottom of the triangle). The thickness of the cheese-parsely line should be about 1 inch (or according to your taste). 

4) Brush a little bit of the egg mix on the corner of the sheet that is not close to you. Fold the sheet around the cheese line, starting with the sides, then the corner that is close to you. Roll over to the corner with the eggs (so the eggs are the glue that will hold the roll together).

5) Heat vegetable oil in a flat wide pan (about 1.5 inches thickness).

6) Drop the rolls in the oil, fry for about 2 minutes (or until they get golden color).