Veneto Taste, Wine & Life

These cheese pies are very popular in Crete. Their name derives from a remote area of Crete (Sfakia) where they were originally made.

Ingredients (for 15 pies)

• 1 egg
• a cup of water
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• some salt
• 1 kilo of flour for the dough.
• 1 kilo of mizythra for the filling

Procedure

Mix well the egg, water, oil and salt together, and then we add the flour, kneading it in well, until we have a soft dough that can be easily spread.

We need almost a kilo’s worth, depending on the temperature, humidity, and the size of the cup we used to measure the liquids. We put the dough aside for 1/2 hour to let it become more elastic. This dough is softer than filo pastry
We take a knob of dough the size of a small apple. We open it up into the shape of a small saucer. We place a knob of dry mizythra (soft white goat cheese) the size of a golf ball into the centre of the dough, and we roll it up around the cheese so that it is hidden inside the dough. We take a rolling pin and lightly, we knead the cheesy dough into a bigger round on a floured workspace. Every time we roll the dough, we turn the pie round, so that it turns round like a clock hand as we roll it out. We stack the pies one on top of one another, separated by greaseproof paper. If we aren’t going to cook them immediately, we should cover them with a cloth, and put them in the fridge. They freeze well, but we must freeze them individually on a flat surface, otherwise, they are difficult to stack, and they lose their shape.

We heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan the size of the pie. We slide one in the pan, and we cook on a medium to high heat till brown bubbles have formed on the side it is being cooked. Then we flip it over and we cook the other side. When both sides are done, we place the pie on a plate, and we pour a tablespoon of honey over it.
These pies make a spectacular desert at the end of a traditional Cretan meal.

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