Greek Recipes, Pites with home-made fillo
Melpomeni’s Kreatopita – Greek Meat Fillo Pie Recipe
Melpomeni's Kreatopita - Greek Meat Pie Recipe
Ingredients
For the dough you will need…
- 300 ml lukewarm water
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 pinch salt
- Plain flour
- ¼ cup melted butter (to be used to assemble the pie)
For the filling you will need…
- 2 kg leg lamb diced into 1cm cubes (fat and sinew removed)
- 1 cup red wine
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 large carrot, diced
- 2 medium onions, diced
- 3 medium potatoes, diced
- 1 cup pumpkin, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, finely diced
- 1 whole red chilli (optional)
- 500 ml tomato passata
- 1 small bunch parsley, finely chopped
- 1 cup medium grain rice
- 1 cup stock (preferably stock made using the lamb leg bone, optional)
- 1 cup EVOO
- 2 eggs, beaten
- Salt and pepper to season
Instructions
Preparing the dough
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Prepare your fillo dough by beginning with the wet ingredients. Stir and slowly add enough flour until you have a soft, pliable dough, knead for 10 minutes and set aside to rest at room temperature around 30 minutes
Preparing the filling
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If you have time to prepare your own stock, use the lamb bones removed from the lamb leg with a chopped onion, a carrot and the stalks from a bunch of parsley. Season with salt and pepper and simmer for a couple of hours.
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Trim off any lamb fat and remove any sinew, dice the lamb into 1-2cm cubes. In a large bowl add the lamb, wine and ¼ cup of EVOO, mix and set aside
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Prepare your vegetables and add them to the lamb
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Add passata, parsley, rice, oil, eggs and stock
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Season the mixture well with salt and pepper and mix to combine
Preparing the kreatopita
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Baste a large, deep, round, metal baking pan with EVOO
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Roll out 2/3 of the dough so that it is bigger than the base of the pan; the fillo should overhang the pan and it must not have any holes
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Prepare you pie top by rolling out the remaining dough into a thin round fillo, the thinner the better
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Brush the entire piece with melted butter
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Using a knife cute fillo sheet to resemble a sun; beginning with a circle in the centre and then straight lines from this circle to the outer edge of your fillo.
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Fold over the “sunrays” onto the centre circle, to create the fillo layers, then set aside
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Carefully place the pie filling into the pan
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Roll out your top-fillo again into a circle big enough to just overhang over the pan
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Place it on top of the pan
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Trim both the upper and lower fillo sheets, leaving enough to press the two fillo layers together and twist them to form a braid
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Brush with any remaining butter
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Bake at 180°C for at least an hour or until the upper crust is crisp and well coloured
Serving the kreatopita
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Allow the kreatopita to coolfor 20-30 minutes before serving with a nice garden salad
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Kali Orexi!
Key Points
• Use one large rectangular pan – approximately 34L x 38W x 7.5D – or divide all the quantities and processes and make two round pites in baking pans 25cm in diameter and 5cm in depth
• You can freeze the pites uncooked and then defrost them overnight in the fridge before popping them in the oven to bake