Indians call it samoussa, Greeks tiropitakia, our pies are completely different
ingredients for about 20 pieces (total cost about 6€)
- 150 g soft wheat flour
- 150 manitoba flour
- 110 ml water
- 5 ml vinegar
- 20 ml EV olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Maizena for dusting
- 1 confection of ricotta (250 g)
- 40 g grated parmesan
- a bunch of very fresh Mediterranean hartworth or chervil or fennel or papaver or other aromatic wild herb
- 20 g toasted pine nuts
- zest from half lemon
- salt
- black pepper
- EV sunflower oil for frying
Fried filo pies are very very tasty. But not all of them. Industrial filo is awful, it stinks, especially the frozen one. The only acceptable already made filo is the artisanal, but it is difficult or impossible to find in some countries. So, the solution is to prepare our own filo!!! It is not difficult especially if we have a pasta machine.
First of all in a mixer bowl we sieve the flours and we mix them with the 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. We add the water, the olive oil and the vinegar and we knead at low speed for about 8-10 minutes, till the dough becomes soft and elastic. We enclose the dough in cling film and we let it rest for an hour, better two.
We then cut the dough in 20 equal rectangular pieces. We pass each piece from the pasta machine, starting from dimension 0 and gradually finishing at dimension 9. When each piece tends to stick we dust it with maizena. When the procedure concludes we will have 20 long rectangular pieces of fine filo. That was all!!!!
I forgot to tell you (fuck, I always forget something) that if we want to prepare our pies immediately we must have put the ricotta in a sieve in order to strain it and make it less watery. Otherwise we can keep our filo sheets VERY VERY WELL dusted with maizena (corn starch) and hermetically sealed with cling film in the fridge for about 4-5 days.
In a bowl we mix the strained ricotta with the parmesan, salt and pepper, the pine nuts and the very well minced wild herbs. And the zest, I forgot something again. Attention: The wild herbs (which must be very fresh) must be cut the very last minute.
With a spoon we put a small ball of ricotta mixture (equivalent of 1/20 of the whole mixture ) on the edge of a rectangular filo pastry, as you can see above. We start fold the filos in envelopes, following the way you see on the photos below
Before the last folding we brush the filo with water in order to create a better sealing and a more well shaped filo pie. We continue the procedure with the other pieces of dough.
We preheat a skillet with EV sunflower oil at 180 Celsius degrees and we fry till golden the filo pies in batches of 5, turning them only when the lower part is almost fried. We put them on absorbent paper to completely remove the remaining oil.
We serve immediately.
