Flia

Ingredients

• Flour600 g
• Water900 ml
• Soured cream400 ml
• Butter150 g
• Yoghurt — to serve300 ml
• Honey — to serve100 g
• Salt2 tsp

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

   Whisk the flour with the water and salt into a smooth thin batter — thicker than for pancakes, but pourable.

   10 min

2. 2

   Let the soured cream down with cold water to the consistency of thin cream and salt it.

   5 min

3. 3

   Butter a round tin and pour the batter in stripes from the centre outwards, like the spokes of a wheel.

   8 min

4. 4

   Put it under the top grill for four minutes, until the layer sets and spots appear.

   6 min

5. 5

   Sprinkle with the thinned cream and pour the next layer into the gaps between the previous stripes.

   5 min

6. 6

   Repeat, alternating the direction of the stripes, until the batter runs out — usually twenty to twenty-five layers.

   60 min

7. 7

   Pour over melted butter, rest it ten minutes and serve with yoghurt or honey.

   14 min

About the dish

The batter here is thin, like pancake batter, and it is never rolled. The layers are poured in radial stripes and each is baked separately — twenty of them or more.

Each layer bakes from above under a heated iron lid buried in embers. In an oven the principle is reproduced with the top grill: each layer goes under it for three or four minutes.

Between the layers goes soured cream thinned with water. It separates the batter and keeps the pie open rather than dense; without it flia fuses into one thick slab.

Worth knowing

• — Flia takes a long time and needs you at the oven for an hour and a half. It is not weekday food; in Kosovo it is made for holidays and for guests.
• — The layers should set but not dry out. A dried layer will not bond with the next, and the pie separates as it is cut.
• — It is served both savoury, with yoghurt and white cheese, and sweet, with honey. Neither version is secondary.

Nutrition

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

Calories

480 kcal

Protein

10 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

52 g

More from Kosovo

• Tavë Elbasani — Lamb with rice under a yoghurt sauce, baked in an earthenware dish to a browned crust.