I hope you’ve enjoyed my Greek adventures so far, and today we’re moving on to the tastiest one of all with a recipe for Cretan Kalitsouni, a cheese and/or veggie stuffed pastry.
One of my favorite things to on a trip is take a cooking class, and I love Intrepid because they make an effort to utilize local business owners to teach us their craft. For this one, we joined the owner of Soul Cooking Workshops in Chania in her home where she taught us to make these Cretan specialties (and if you’re ever in Chania, do yourself a favor and book a class for yourself!).
So, what are Kalitsouni? For our purposes, Kalitsouni are a cheese or cheese and veg stuffed pastry, almost like a ravioli. Washed with egg and baked to crispy perfection. These can be sweet or savory, and today I’m sharing a savory version.
For our adventure today, we rolled up our sleeves to make some homemade filo (though we didn’t stretch it anywhere as think as you’d find in your local freezer section) using both a pasta maker and our own elbow grease to get it just the right thickness. We filled it two ways, but both fillings contained a special cheese native to Crete called mizithra.
Mizithra is much like a very mild, less-tangy goat or farmer’s cheese that we can find here stateside and it was on everything we ate during our stay in Crete. Not mad about it, it was absolutely delicious and didn’t seem to make anything feel as heavy as an equivalent amount of our goat cheese would at home.
Ugh. I dream of it still.
Anyway, the fillings came other easily, no pre-cooking involved ,and after a team assembly effort, we waited for our little pastries to bake while we gabbed away the time over homemade wine and spirits. It may or may not have been before noon.
It’s five o’clock somewhere?
As you can see, the pastries were perfection. Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside and even I, the master of self control when it comes to food, couldn’t help but eat more than my fair share. Deliciousness all around.
These Cretan Kalitsouni are so easy to throw together, there is no reason why you can’t make them here at home.
The savory recipe below is from Soul Cooking workshops, slightly adapted to US ingredients.
Cheese and Herb Kalitsouni
Savory cheese and herb filled kalitsouni are traditional Cretan pastries
Ingredients
- For the dough:
- 1 kilo of all-purpose flour
- 200 ml water
- 150 ml vodka or other clear liquor
- 160 ml of olive oil
- 1 tsp of salt
- For the cheese and herb filling:
- 500 gr spinach
- 500 gr onions
- 6 fresh green onions
- 1 cup of fresh parsley
- 1 cup of fennel fronds
- 1 cup of fresh mint
- 2 leeks, white part only
- 500 gr mizythra cheese (or a farmer's cheese, or a combo of feta and ricotta)
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- For the topping:
- 1 large egg yolk
- Sesame seeds
Directions
- Step 1 First, make the dough. Mix the flour, water, booze, oil and salt together to make a soft dough. Set aside for thirty minutes.
- Step 2 Second, make the filling. Finely chop all the vegetables for the filling (a food processor would work well for this), mix well with the cheese, and set aside.
- Step 3 Using your hands, shape the filling into ping pong sized balls.
- Step 4 Using a rolling pin or a pasta maker, roll the dough into a thin layer (about 1/8”) and cut into circles, about 10 centimeters in diameter each.
- Step 5 Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350F.
- Step 6 Take a ball of filling and place it in the middle of each circle. Carefully fold the circle in half so the filling is surrounded by dough, and seal the edges by pressing them together with a fork. Place each formed pastry on the baking sheet, spaced evenly.
- Step 7 Once all the pastries are shaped, scramble one egg yolk with a tablespoon of water and brush it over each. Sprinkle each with sesame seeds.
- Step 8 Bake 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Enjoy!
