Writer's Note: Filling filo dough with tasty cheeses and vegetables is a Turkish pastime. I know you think this is difficult, but it's not. You can do all the prep work in an hour to an hour and a half.The real issue is the amount of butter. You need to brush each sheet with butter or a butter mixture to get the right flavor for the dish. My parents, who as far as I am concerned have gone off the health kick deep end, have replaced the butter with a safflower oil and yogurt blend. They also wash the cottage cheese to remove the salt and soak their feta in water to make it less salty. At that level, the trade off between extra years on this Earth and my standard of living weighs heavily in favor of salt and butter.
But if you are health conscious you can make the dish healthier with those measures, it just won't taste as sinful. And sin tastes good.
This is a difficult dish to get wrong. It looks complicated but it's really not. You just need to conceptualize the dish as follows: layers of dough brushed with butter, a cheese and spinach filling, popped in the oven for 45 minutes. That's it. I will walk you through it.
Good with a drizzle of garlic yogurt or a small side salad. Once you get the hang of the dish you can start experimenting with the filling -- replacing the spinach and feta with a cheese combination, or ground beef with onions, or one of my all-time favorites, sauteed eggplant.
Ingredients:
1 frozen packet of filo dough, see note on defrosting*
9 oz. crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
2 large bunches of fresh spinach or 2 bags of frozen chopped spinach**
1 cup cottage cheese
8 oz. of unsalted butter***
1 cup full fat traditional thick yogurt
1 large yellow or white onions, diced small
2 tbsp. olive oil
fresh ground black pepper and salt to taste
2 eggs
1 tsp. Aleppo pepper or 1/2 tsp. cayenne, optional
Directions:
Put the oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Saute the onions in the olive oil over very low heat for 10 minutes until the onions taste sweet and have taken on the hue of the olive oil. Do not let them brown.
To make the filling: combine the cottage cheese, feta, dill, and onions in a bowl. Defrost the spinach and squeeze out the water from the spinach. This is really where you can take a wrong turn -- if the spinach is too watery it will ruin the dish. Add the spinach to the filling. At this point you should taste the filling and add salt and pepper and Aleppo pepper or cayenne to taste. Depending on the saltiness of the cheese you may need more or less salt. Once the filling is to your liking, add and incorporate two eggs. Now the filling is done.
To put together the pie: Melt the butter in a small saucepan or in the microwave on low heat. Put aside about 1 - 2 tbsp. for the top. The rest of the butter mix with the yogurt. This is what you will use between the layers of filo dough. Prepare your work station so that you have a pan that will fit the filo sheets in it. If they don't fit, you can cut them down to fit. Check the box and figure out how many sheets are in the box. If you have 20 sheets, you are going to work on a 8-4-8 system. That means 8 sheets of filo, then half the filling, then 4 more sheets of filo, and then the last 8 sheets of filo. If the box has a different number of sheets, figure out a system roughly similar and make sure you keep rough count of where you are in the pile of filo sheets as you go through.
All of this should be done before you open the plastic packaging. You want to keep the filo in the packaging until the last minute. Line the pan with aluminum foil. Using a pastry brush, brush the foil generously with the butter/yogurt mixture. Now open the filo packaging and cut it down if necessary. Place one sheet of filo in the pan and brush it sparingly with the yogurt butter -- this is really a issue of practice but you will get the hang of it by sheet 3 or 4. You want to be sparing as possible so the dish is not drowning in butter. Repeat with the next 7 sheets. Spoon half the filling on the sheets, keeping a 1/2 inch border of filo dough where you do not spread the filling (this helps to create an edge of filo dough so the filling does not leak out of the sides of the pie). Use the next 4 sheets and then add the other half of the filling. Finish with the last 8 sheets and for the top sheet brush it with the reserved butter that does not have the yogurt in it. This will help the top brown better.
Bake the pie for 45-55 minutes until it is browned. If it looks like it is going to burn you can cover it with foil for the last 15-20 minutes. Make sure the bottom is cooked by lifting it carefully by the foil and making sure the bottom sheets are cooked. Let the pie cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting it into squares or triangles. Serve with garlic butter or haydari.
*Filo/phylo dough can be difficult to work with if it is not properly defrosted. I use the Athens brand filo dough, and if I have planned ahead, defrost it in the fridge for about 5 hours, and then on the counter for up to an hour. Or you can defrost on the counter for about 2-3 hours, but
that may lead to the layers sticking to one another (sticky or dry layers are your nemesis for this recipe). You will need to work relatively quickly once you open the plastic sheathing because the layers have a penchant for drying out -- be purposeful, but don't rush! Some recommend laying a damp paper towel or towel on the layers as you work with them -- I have never found this necessary.**This is the one recipe where I would say frozen spinach may be easier to work with then fresh spinach, and the difference in flavor is undetectable. Which also means that you can keep the ingredients for this dish around for emergency rations in the fridge for weeks at a time.
***Do not use salted butter! It will make the filo pastry burn in the oven. All that work to waste . . .
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