I have always been fond of baked goodies, especially my grandma's pies. However, while watching her how she prepares them, I had decided that I will never make one with my two hands.
The reason?
It is tedious and ungrateful task to throw the dough sheets in the air in order to make them thin, and most importantly, not breaking them.
No way Jose, that's not my style! (Have I mentioned that I lack patience in certain areas?)
On the other hand, I have grown up in a household where the rule was: "If you can't do it right, don't bother doing it at all".
However... a dear childhood friend posted a recipe which looked and 'sounded' like my grandma's pies and I decided to try it out.
Fortunately, there was no flipping dough in the air and stretching wafer thin sheets.
My friend's pie can be found here, and mine is translation only, as I didn't add or subtracted anything.
So, here we go.
You will need:
1 cup of 200 ml capacity which will be used as measure.
Ingredients for the dough:
2 cups lukewarm water
6 cups flour '00' type
1 teaspoon dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
250 grams butter
Filling:
4 leeks, washed and chopped
pinch of salt
about 300 grams cheese (Feta style)
little oil for frying the leeks
Method:
First, the filling is done by frying the leeks on a little oil with pinch of salt. The leeks are fried until soft, taking care not to change the color.
After the leeks have cooled down, mix the crumbled cheese into them.
In a deep mixing bowl, mix all of the dough ingredients except the butter.
When you have obtained elastic and smooth dough (not sticking to your hands and mixing bowl), divide the dough in 2 balls, one slightly larger than the other one.
Take the smaller ball and roll out 1/2 centimeter thick sheet. Grate some butter over it and flip the ends toward the center, forming a rectangle.
Grate some butter over the folded pieces and fold the lower end up to the middle of the rectangle, grate again some butter and fold the upper corner to cover. Now you should have small rectangle.
Repeat the procedure with the larger dough ball.
Line baking dish with greaseproof paper.
After you have done all of this, sprinkle some flour on the working surface and start working with the smaller rectangle, taking care that the end you folded last should be on the bottom.
Roll out shape slightly larger than the baking dish and put the obtained sheet into the baking dish. Spoon the filling over it and even out with a back of a spoon.
Repeat the rolling procedure with the larger rectangle and put over the filling, forming 'waves' with your hands into the dough.
Seal edges and bake into preheated oven (200 degrees Celsius) until golden.
Take out of the oven and let the pie comes to room temperature before cutting.
Enjoy with some yogurt or kefir. I sure did :)
