If you like the idea of ‘party food’ as food that involves making the food rather than just eating it, this is the dish to go for! Last year, I had the privilege to watch two experts making filo pastry for the classic Bosnian Sirnica, and what started out as harmless fun has become a proper obsession of mine: dough pulling and rolling. It takes two people, really, to make this work best and Bosnian women will often gather to make these delicious snacks, pinching, pulling and stretching the dough across a large table whilst sharing the latest gossip. That’s what we three did, too: over a cup of coffee, we prepared this beauty:
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Filo pastry is so easy to make, the secret lies in the thorough kneading: a sturdy food processor will take care of this! If you are unsure and worried, simply keep a pack or two of ready-made filo handy: check out my Spanakopita recipe to see how to use ready-made filo with a vegetable filling – it’s just as delicious but much more straightforward to make!
Spanakopita or Zeljanica
The filling here is one of my favourite Turkish recipes, a simple vegetable bake or börek: filled with various Mediterranean vegetables, yoghurt and feta cheese, it makes for an amazingly hearty vegetarian dish. Feel free to play around with the filling to adapt it to suit your tastes!
For the pastry:
- 600g 00-flour
- 2 tbs vegetable oil
- 2 tbs salt
- ca. 400ml water
- vegetable oil for brushing
For the filling:
- 400g vegetables, such as aubergines, courgettes, carrots and peppers, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves, finely diced
- 400g meaty tomatoes, finely diced and drained
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- a pinch of chili flakes, to taste
- 2 eggs
- 200g Greek yoghurt
- some sprigs of dill and flat-leaf parsley
- 200g feta, diced
Making the dough: Mix the ingredients in a bowl, adding water as necessary. Once the dough comes together, place it on your work surface and knead it vigorously, beating it occasionally, until smooth. This will take at least ten minutes. Keep kneading it between your two hands, using one to shape the ball against the other hand, which keeps it in place, Rotate and repeat until the surface of the ball is completely smooth. 
Place the dough ball into the bowl, cover it with cling film and leave it to rest for about an hour. Use the time to prepare your fillings – more of that later. After the resting period, cut the ball into two. Roll out one half to a circle the size of a small plate; place it on a sheet of oiled cling film and brush it with some more oil. Roll out the second half and place it on top of the first, oiling it and covering it with cling film and a kitchen towel, to keep it warm. Leave to rest for a further 30 minutes.
Once you have your vegetable diced and ready, preheat the oven to 180C/360F (no fan). Place the diced tomatoes in a colander or sieve and leave them to drain. In a medium pan, sauté the other vegetables with the garlic in a little olive oil. Leave to cool, then add the cumin, dill and parsley. In a small bowl, mix the eggs with the yogurt. Oil a large round baking tin (for the perfect spiral you’ll need one of around 40cm/16 in diameter) or an oven tray, using vegetable oil.
Now place a large cotton table cloth or a flat sheet on the table and sprinkle plain flour over it to make sure the pastry is not going to stick to it.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Place the dough onto the cloth and roll it out, using a rolling pin. Once it has the size of a baking sheet you can lift it up and allow it to be pulled down by its own weight, rotating it carefully to ensure it is spread evenly across the whole surface – you want to avoid a thin patch that will tear.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
When you’re ready, place the pastry on the cloth and begin pulling it carefully, walking around the table as you do so. Keep pulling it and walking, holding the thick rim between your fingers and pulling it out from there.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
As you keep going, the sheet will become thinner and cover more and more of the table. Keep going, always trying to reduce the thick rim. Should the sheet tear avoid aggravating the area but keep pulling the remaining dough.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
You can glue it back together afterwards with a little water.In an ideal world, you’ll end up with a sheet so thin that you’ll be able to read a newspaper placed underneath it.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Cut off the remaining thick rim with a pair of scissors and get ready to fill your pie.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Filling the Pie: Lightly sprinkle oil over the surface of the pastry.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
To achieve the beautiful shape of the Bosnian pies, spread the filling in two lines along the length of the pastry sheet. Start with the vegetables and tomatoes, then add the feta,
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Finish with the egg and yoghurt mix.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Holding the seam of the cloth, lift it up in a quick movement to fold the edge of the pastry over the filling. Repeat on all sides.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Brush the surface of the pastry with oil (this is to keep the sheets of pastry apart, resulting in the separate layers). By gently lifting the seam of cloth you can now roll up the two sides until they form two parallel rolls along the centre of the table.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Trim the ends if necessary. Place your prepared tin beside one end and carefully lift the rolls into the tin, rotating the tin to achieve the spiral pattern. As we only had two 25cm tins we cut the rolls along the length and put them into the two separate tins.
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Photography: Heulwen Jones
Brush with a little oil and bake for 40-45 minutes. Leave it to cool a little before you cut it into slices – just look at those amazing patterns of the filo sheets!
Photography: Heulwen Jones
I’m bringing this dish along to this week’s Fiesta Friday party over at Angie’s – I can’t wait to see who’s coming along!
Ginger&Bread 
Wow, Wow, Wow, Double Wow!!! Ginger this is amazing, I love seeing this made, just amazing thank you for sharing!!! 🙂
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It is so much fun, I have to say! Thanks for the lovely comments, Amy 🙂
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A masterpiece Ginger! This should be on YouTube! I love the see through newspaper proof of your dough’s thinness. I think I will still buy my phyllo in a package though.
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I always have one ready in the freezer, just in case … 😉
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Wow, that’s amazing. I’m never going to make philo but wow, you rock.. I agree a YouTube video is in order. I will use the veggie stuffing with yogurt though. Thanks Wow, did I already say that?
🙂
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It’s not that difficult, seriously! The stuffing is delicious, I hope you’ll enjoy it!
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I have wanted to make phyllo dough for awhile. It seems so intimidating, but your post made it more possible–thank you for sharing!! It looks delicious, and there is something to be said for baking with others. 🙂
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To be honest, if I hadn’t seen it for myself how easy it is, I would never have tried it. But it is fun – I hope you’ll get round to do it!
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A couple years ago when I was in London (in Ontario that is…a sort of strange place to be) there was a place in the market that made boreks right there, stretching out the dough, filling, baking and immediately selling. It was the first time I had seen phyllo being made and I was amazed how the whole table could compress down into just a few pastries!
This is such a lovely colourful and flavourful filling! I’m definitely amazed by the phyllo, and I’m not sure if I’m courageous enough to try it myself. And if I can echo everyone above without sounding too repetitive–wow!
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Go for it – it’s amazing how it will all come together in the end! London, Ontario sounds fun, Personally I’ve always been intrigued by Stuttgart, Arkansas. Just wondering about the American take on my hometown. 😉
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That is fabulous Ginger! Beautiful! It would take me a lot of practice and wasted dough to get it right if ever!
I had not realized that filo dough is made without dairy.
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It surprised me, too – I always assumed eggs gave it its elasticity! The leftover bits are thoroughly kneaded and left to rest under the oiled clingfilm, that way you can pull off another one!
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Balkan food is just so under-rated, I absolutely love it!
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What about the wines, though? I dimly remember hints of resin, but that was a long time ago …
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Ginger this is absolutely amazing. You outdid yourself. looks like lot of hard work..
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We were sponsored by Prosecco, which made us forget about the effort 😉
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Wow! That’s impressive, Ginger! Such a huge and thin pastry! 🙂 I’ve been to Serbia and tried borek there too, but it was a small version of your pie, but with cheese filling.
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I love the one with cheese – we made it before, Sirnica, and it makes for such an wonderful snack!
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Gasp, this is too much to take!! I feel my heart racing looking at the progression of the dough becoming thinner and thinner!! I want you and everybody to know that you are my FIRST pick! I hope the other participants agree and will vote for your link. It’d be a travesty to not have this as a FiestaFriday feature!
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Thank you, Angie – it looks much more dramatic than it really is! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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OH MY GOD!! I am in ABSOLUTE AND UTTER AWE! Like, my mouth is hanging, and I just have NO words!!
I have always been intrigued with making filo but it seems like such a daunting thing to do, but I am SO pumped after seeing this post! The weird thing is I need to go by myself a good table (Out house doesn’t have a proper table! gasp!) but I wish I could just come over to your house instead?
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Any time, Dini – out table folds out for filo, usually it’s just a small square affair 😉
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I’m very impressed that you made this and love all the photos of the steps – makes it almost seem possible (although I doubt I’ll be attempting it for a while at least!). Sounds delicious, too.
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Oh, don’t be impressed – it’s really not very difficult! And well worth it!
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I am so happy this was featured on FF. I was terrible this week, posting and then dashing, so I nearly missed this post. My wife is Croatian, and when we visit there, we fill up on tons of Burek, and then miss it once we’re back home. I’ll be honest, I’m terrible working with dough, so spreading it that thin intimidates me…but it was so interesting seeing the process to make it. I’ll have to try it now, but using her favourite cheese filling instead.
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I did a post with a cheese filling before, watching friends from Bosnia making the filo. I was blown away, I have to say! Looking forward to you post now – no pressure! 😉
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I have a lot of patience in the kitchen, but that dough-rolling process looked maybe beyond my skill at the moment. Plus, if I learn to make it myself, it won’t be special when I’m vacationing in Croatia… 😉 We’ll see…if I do end up making it, I’ll definitely be checking back over your post for help.
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Absolutely amazing!!! You make it look so easy! And a wonderful final outcome, I love it 🙂
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Thanks, Elaine! I know the dough isn’t your thing, so I appreciate your comment even more! 🙂
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Whether I would eat it or not is neither here nor there, the skill it takes to make it I fully appreciate!
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Sadly I don’t think my pastry making skills are up to this, but how I wish they were! I had the best Borek ever in Sarajevo where you order it by the half metre! Delicious! 🙂
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How wonderful! I’d love to have a metre of it right now – no need to wrap it up, thank you 😉
It doesn’t require skills as much as patience. And a little practice. But it’s well worth it!
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what a great photo step-by-step post. That pastry – wow! Would love some of this yummy borek.
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I hope I have not put you off trying it someday!
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Wow… that is a LOT of hardwork! a true masterpiece Ginger! Going through your posts now, I vaguely remember visiting your blog a while back (remember reading the blog post about food photography). I am glad I found it again… Immediately followed the blog, so I won’t miss any posts in future! 🙂
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Thanks, Ranjana! I’ll need to remember all the wonderful blogs I have been visiting this Friday … thanks for your vote of confidence 😉
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Oh yes… I seem to have memory loss Tuesday through Thursday.. Once the FF mail arrives, I head over to the linkup site and see familiar blogs and go ‘ohhh…I have visited this site before!’… Lol.. It is so overwhelming, but fun nonetheless! 😀
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