kurkubini

The art of filo making is a tradition well kept by my grandmother’s generation. Unfortunately in recent years it has started to die out as it is considered a time consuming hassle by modern working Greek women. Since the popularity of pies hasn’t died in Greece the gap in the availability of good filo is being covered by many food companies. It is easy in that sense to find good filo pastry in the market. Despite the fact that the ones available at the market are crunchy they miss the unique crispness of the homemade ones. I have tried a few filo recipes that I found online but none could compare with the one made by my mum’s aunt. She is one of the best cooks and bakers I have met as she went to a school that amongst other things taught her cooking and baking. For the past three years I kept saying that next time I visit her in Greece I would ask her for the recipe but every time I kept postponing it. I finally asked her last Christmas. I was surprised and at the same time happy about how easy it was to make it!
She also gave me the permission to post her trademark recipe online! Such a big honor and privilege!

Ingredients:
1 kg all purpose flour
330 ml soda water
330 ml corn oil
330 ml water
1 tsp salt

We put all the ingredients in a bowl and we work the dough with our hands until we get an elastic and non sticky dough. We add flour if necessary. We form a lodge and we cut the dough in 20 equal pieces. We rework each piece to form small balls. We press each ball and slowly start to open with a rolling pin to the size of a small plate. We brush with corn oil and set aside. We repeat for every ball.
We open the file further with our fingers slowly slowly starting from the centre. Our filo is ready to use!

My favourite pie is cheese pie. So for this one’s I used plain feta cheese. We place some feta at the edge of our filo and then we roll it. Once we have rolled it into a long cylinder we create a spiral. Repeat for each of the 20 filos. Bake at a preheated oven at 180°C for about 20 mins or until golden.

Use any type of filling sweet or savoury according to your mood!