FOLDING THE DUMPLINGS
The dough for shishbarak and chuchvara is rolled out very thin (like the thickness of two dimes) and then cut into circular disks. A teaspoon of meat is placed in the center of each and the sides of the dough are folded up around it and pinched to form what some recipes call “a hat”. In Medieval Arab Cookery, Rodinson and Perry explain that joshparag “is a square of dough folded over a filling to make a triangle with two arms” (255). However, it seems that there are various ways to fold shishbarak. Some use one fold to make a half moon shape. Other recipes call for two folds: the first creates the half moon shape and the second folds it again so that the two ends of the half moon come together. The chuchvara is almost always folded twice
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