Banitsa

Ingredients

• Filo pastry500 g
• Bulgarian white cheese — crumbled500 g
• Eggs5
• Yoghurt250 g
• Bicarbonate of soda½ tsp
• Butter — melted120 g
• Sunflower oil60 ml

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Crush the cheese with a fork and work in four of the eggs: the filling should stay crumbly rather than becoming a paste.

   6 min

2. 2

   Mix the melted butter with the sunflower oil: that lets the sheets crisp without burning.

   3 min

3. 3

   Lay two overlapping filo sheets, brush with the fat, scatter the filling in a crumbly line along the long edge and roll it loosely.

   12 min

4. 4

   Coil the roll into a round tin from the centre outwards, leaving a couple of millimetres between the turns.

   10 min

5. 5

   Whisk the yoghurt with the last egg and the bicarbonate and pour it over, aiming into the gaps between the coils.

   4 min

6. 6

   Bake at 180 °C for forty-five minutes, to a deep gold. Cover with a cloth for ten minutes out of the oven.

   50 min

About the dish

Yoghurt with bicarbonate poured over the assembled banitsa is what makes it a banitsa rather than a cheese pie. The soda reacts with the acid and the pastry inside turns soft while the top stays crisp.

The filling is scattered as a crumb rather than spread in an even layer. A dense layer glues the sheets together and the flakiness disappears.

The spiral is laid loosely, not pulled tight. The pastry expands in the oven and a tightly coiled banitsa splits along its seams.

Worth knowing

• — The cloth over the top after baking is a required step: the steam softens the surface just enough for the banitsa to slice rather than shatter.
• — Keep the filo under a damp cloth the whole time. Exposed sheets dry out within three minutes.
• — The filling can take spinach or pumpkin, but the classical one is cheese and egg only.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

520 kcal

Protein

20 g

Fat

32 g

Carbs

38 g

Useful for this recipe

• Oven Temperature Converter

More from Bulgaria

• Shopska salad — Tomato, cucumber and pepper under a cap of grated white cheese. The vegetables are cut large, the cheese grated fine.