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Nettle pie the Vlachs’ way

Nettle is a favourite green of greek traditional cooking. Both the Vlachs (pite di urgets) and the Pontians (pita me kinteata) still make it to this day with the tender spring tops of nettles. A tasty and nutritional green that does not need any herbs or dressing, because its special taste and aroma are so subtle that they will be covered and lost. The truth is that to make the hillbilly version we present here, one needs a special phyllo-opening seminar. It's worth the effort! (video sound: GREEK)

 

ΧΡΟΝΟΣ 2 ώρες

ΥΛΙΚΑ

For the dough:

4 cups of all-purpose flour
2 glasses of water
2 tbsp of olive oil
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp of olive oil
2 cups of sunflower oil for the leaves and the pan

For the filling:

400g nettles
4 tbsp cornflour
4 tbsp olive oil
200 g of mizithra or feta cheese
Salt – pepper

ΕΚΤΕΛΕΣΗ

Make the filling first. Wear gloves to wash the nettles well. Boil them in boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain the excess water, add the rest of the filling ingredients and mix. If using feta cheese, taste before salting. Allow the filling to come to room temperature, as you don’t want it to get hot on the pastry.

Grease your baking pan with sunflower oil.

Make the dough by mixing the 2 cups of water, olive oil, vinegar, salt and flour in a large bowl. Knead until the dough forms. Let it rest for half an hour covered with a towel at room temperature. Roll out the dough into the shape of a stick and cut into 16 equal pieces. Knead each piece into a ball.

Roll out each ball with a rolling pin into a leaflet about 20 cm in diameter. Make 4 stacks of the leaves by putting sunflower oil and a little flour between them: 1 stack of 5 leaves, 2 stacks of 2 leaves each and one stack of 7 leaves.

For the bottom phyllo, take the stack of 5 leaves. Press lightly with a rolling pin or your fingers along the entire length of the stack so that the phyllos come together. Use the long rolling pin to roll out into a thin phyllo. Grease it and spread it on the bottom of the baking pan. Gently pull the edges so that they overlap the rim of the pan.

Pour some of the filling onto the first phyllo, just enough to keep it moist.

In the same way, roll out the middle phyllo (it’s the stack of two phyllos) and place it in the pan, covering the first layer of the little bit of filling. Spread half of the filling on top, as evenly as possible. Cover with the second intermediate layer (the second stack with the two phyllos). Spread the remaining filling on top.

Roll out the last phyllo of pastry to cover the pie. This is made up of the most phyllos, 7 in our case, so it will be the thickest. Spread the top phyllo by moving the rolling pin right and left to create ruffles. We join the bottom sheet to the top sheet to make the kothoro, as the wrapped-around dumpling is called. Oil the whole sheet and the kothoro well.

Bake the pie in a preheated oven at 180C (356F)  for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.