Banitsa – Bulgarian cheese pie
Before we begin, I would like to state for the record that I have never been to Bulgaria. A good friend who divides her time between Sofia and Burgas shared this recipe during her visit few years ago. Banitsa is a traditional Bulgarian cheese pie. It’s made with sheets of filo dough, white cheese and eggs. And, as is typical with any traditional national dish, everyone has their own recipe for banitsa. Or a preferred bakery visited early in the morning before work. Apparently banitsa is so popular that it is sold out daily in good bakeries. This recipe is very basic and has a lot of room for improvisation. Normally banitsa is made only with cheese but it can easily include a variety of herbs, vegetables and even meat.
There are also different ways of folding or rolling the dough. So keep all that in mind and do what feels right. People have been known to add multiple types of cheese: assortment of staple sirene or Bulgarian cheese (cow’s or sheep’s; I prefer cow’s), mozzarella and kashkaval. Steamed or boiled crumbled potato mixed in with the cheese also works great. And I hear that pumpkin tastes wonderful too.
All measurements are very rough and depend entirely on personal preference.
Banitsa ingredients:
- 400g Bulgarian cheese
- 250g filo dough
- 2-3 eggs (I ended up using 3)
- 50g butter
- 200ml kefir (or yogurt diluted with milk)
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 200C (390F). Coarsely grate around 400g cheese.
- Melt about 50g butter and add 2-3 eggs to it, whisk well. (Remember that Bulgarian cheese can be quite salty so if you are adding salt to the eggs, make sure to taste the cheese first.)
- Grease a pie dish (or even a square pan) and line it with a single sheet of filo dough.
- Using a pastry brush, spread a bit of the egg mixture over the top sheet of filo.
- Sprinkle a bit of the filling all over the brushed filo sheet and roll it up.
- Arrange the rolled up dough with filling at the bottom of your baking dish, over the plain filo sheet.
- Repeat this process until all the dough and filling is used up. If you run out of space at the bottom of your baking dish, keep adding the rolled dough in the second layer. Don’t squeeze the rolls too tightly together or it might not bake through and end up dry. Fold in the overhanging sheet of filo.
- Add about 200ml of kefir into the leftover egg mixture and stir well.
- Pour the liquid over the entire banitsa.
- Bake for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
Leave to rest for a bit before slicing and serving.
