Discover the delicious Kalitsounia, traditional Greek pies filled with creamy ricotta and feta. Perfect for a savory snack or appetizer!
Deliciously Savory Greek Pastries Filled with Creamy Cheeses
Kalitsounia are delicious ricotta and feta pies that provide a delightful gluten-free option for those who are coeliac or gluten intolerant. The recipe features a simple olive oil pastry made from gluten-free flour, baking powder, sea salt, and eggs, ensuring a flaky and flavorful crust that perfectly complements the creamy filling. This pastry is both easy to prepare and incredibly versatile, making it a great choice for anyone looking to enjoy their favorite foods without gluten.
The filling for these savory pies includes full-fat ricotta, smooth and creamy feta, and fresh mint, which adds a refreshing touch to the rich flavors. With the addition of an egg and a sprinkle of sea salt, the filling becomes a delectable mixture that is sure to satisfy any palate. These Kalitsounia can be enjoyed as a snack, appetizer, or main dish, making them a fantastic addition to any meal plan.
Delightful Pastries of the Aegean: A Savory Symphony of Ricotta and Fetta
Gunia are delicious little Ricotta and feta pies from my mother’s beautiful island of CIT now each Creet and family has their own way of preparing them some people like to fry them and drizzle them with honey but personally I love them bake with some fresh mint in the middle now I’ve given my mom’s recipe a gluten-free makeover I’ve replaced her.
Regular pastry with my gluten-free olive oil pastry from my latest book gluten-free Mediterranean it’s a great allpurpose pastry you can use it sweet or savory I’d say it tastes much better than anything you’d find in store so let’s get started we add our gluten-free flour now this is an allpurpose flour so it already has some xantham gum mixed.
Into it you don’t need to add anything I’m going to add a little bit of baking powder to give our pastry some lightness and a pinch of sea salt flakes we’re just going to blend those dry ingredients first now for our wedding greent it’s extra virgin olive oil the only olive.
Oil my mom cooked with that go straight in we are going to add two eggs now eggs are a great binder so when you’re working minus gluten you want something to help bind your dough together and eggs will do that for you in with the second one and I’m just going to add a little bit of water to bring our dough together.
And we’re going to blend this until we form a dough okay our dough is ready so it’s really soft and pliable almost like Play-Doh okay it’s got great elasticity in it from those two eggs that we added and the beauty of this is because we made it with olive oil it’s also dairy free so.
This is a really good allpurpose gluten and dairyfree dough so I’m just going to flatten it into a disc I’m going to wrap my in cing up for an hour now the reason we do this is it needs to rest in the fridge so that the flour absorbs all the moisture in the dough it makes it much more pliable and easy to work.
With so in the fridge it goes on to our cheese filling to start 500 G of full fat rotter it’s a nice light fluffy neutral cheese and then our second sharp cheese some feta I’m using a smooth and creamy variety here it’s fantastic when you’re making a pie mix cuz it’s really soft.
And easy to mix into the other cheese so that just goes straight in I’ll crumble it with my hands now to bind our mixture one egg for some seasoning some sea salt Flakes and for a fresh Hood I love to use mint because I just love the freshness of mint if you’re not a mint.
Fan you can easily replace this with some fresh thyme or even some dried oregano I want that really fine so I’m just going to run my knife through it okay in goes our herbs I’m just going to mix this until it’s well combined okay our cheese filling is.
Nicely mixed it’s time to assemble our pies set that over there grab our dough which has been resting for an hour now the easiest way to do this is to divide the dough into four portions so that we’re working with one ball at a time now as you know glutenfree dough is much more fragile than regular dough so I’m going to share a few tips and tricks.
With you here now the easiest way to roll gluten-free dough is to grab two sheets of baking paper place one on the bottom place your dough ball on top and another sheet on top this allows us to roll our fragile pastry much more thinly so we get a nice thin light flaky finish just press down I want to get this as thin as I can.
Without breaking it I want to show you how thin this is I use my round to cut the pastry and leave that off so we’ve got a beautiful pastry thin there now to this I’m going to add our filling you can add one to two tablespoons here and we’ll just spread.
It nice and thinly so using my hands I’m going to pinch up the Border I just lift it up and create little creases all the way around and there we have it all we need to do now is sprinkle on some sesame seeds and spray our pie with a little bit of olive oil for a golden finish place it on our baking train and.
Keep going now these are ready to go into a hot oven 200° for 20 minutes oh my mother Sofia would be so proud these look just like hers and this is what you find in every Greek Bakery.
All over Greece let’s have a taste these taste just like the ones I ate growing up and that creamy feta is just delicious especially when paired with that mint galit just delicious there’s a little taste of grease in every single bite
