Plăcintă cu Telemea si Marar | Romanian Feta Pie with Dill & Handmade or Store Bought Phyllo
Sharp and creamy sheep's milk feta cheese speckled with fragrant dill layered between waves of phyllo dough. Serve with a side of cool balkan yogurt and sliced tomatoes or eat as it is.
Servings 25 servings
Ingredients
- 500 gram 1 lb store bought or homemade phyllo dough
- 650 grams 23oz feta
- 4 eggs
- ½ cup yogurt Balkan or Greek
- 1 cup fresh dill +/- to your preference or omit altogether
- 1 cup spinach optional
- ½ cup maybe more of oil or melted butter
- Topping optional
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup yogurt Balkan or Greek
Instructions
- Preheat oven: 175 C (350 F)
- Prepare baking sheet: oil or butter your baking try.
- Mix the filling: Combine the feta, eggs, yogurt and dill. Break down any very large chunks of feta.
- Oil the dough: Brush each sheet of phyllo liberally with oil or melted butter before filling. See recipe for more details.
- Fill the dough: After oiling/buttering each sheet, scoop 3-4 heaping spoonfuls of filling into 1 sheet of homemade dough or 3-4 sheets of store bought dough. Gather into a parcel or roll into a carpet and place into baking tray.
- Bake: 160 C for 35-40 minutes or until golden and crispy.
- Optional topping: Whisk the egg and yogurt mixture together and pour it over the pie after it's started browning (at about the 30 minute mark) then bake another 10 minutes or until set.
Notes
The dough: If making homemade prepare the dough and allow it to rest while you make the filling. If using store bought don't open the package until ready to fill or it can dry out.
Salt: The filling doesn't contain any salt because feta is salty enough on its own. If you use an unsalted variety of feta you can add extra salt but I've personally never added salt to a feta pie and it's always been salty enough.
Extra filling or dough: When I made this I only ended up with a little bit of extra dough which I put aside to use for another pastry another day. If you end up with extra dough you can do the same (make a mini pie and fill it with anything in your fridge: meat, kimchi, cheese, fruit, nutella - go wild.) If you end up with extra filling you can add it to an omelet or hollow out a tomato, fill it with the filling and bake for 20 minutes at 200 C / 400 F.