Cheesepie from Sfakia, Crete

INGREDIENTS

PREPARATION

Put the warm water, olive oil and carbonated water in a bowl and mix with a whisk. Then gradually add the flour to the bowl while mixing. We continue to add the flour, mixing with our hands. We knead our dough well for about 5 minutes, until we have a soft dough that does not stick to our hands. Form the dough into a ball and place it back in the bowl, cover and let it rest for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour. While the dough is resting, drain the feta cheese and place it in a bowl. Break the feta with a fork, crumble it very well and then form the crumbled feta into balls by pressing them in your hand. Leave the feta balls on a plate and lets start prepare the dough.

EXECUTION

We flour the surface on which we will work. After the dough has rested, knead it again for 1-2 minutes, creating a stick. Cut the dough into equal pieces and create a dough ball with each piece (we want each dough ball to be equal to the feta balls). For each pie, roll out a piece of dough into a disk and place the feta ball in the center. With our fingers, lift the dough from all around, placing it on the top of the slice. In this way we will cover the feta with the dough creating a pouch. We seal the top of our "pouch" well to cover the slice well and not to open. We hug our pouch with our palms, giving them the shape of a ball again with 2 gentle movements. We continue with all the pieces. Flour the counter again and open our pies one by one. First we press the filled bag with our fingers to spread it and then with a rolling pin we open our pie as thin as we want it. (15-18 cm diameter) We place the pies as we open them between non-stick paper or towels to prevent them from sticking. Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat and brush it with a little olive oil. Put the pie in a heated pan and bake for 1-2 minutes or until it turns brown. Turn the pie with a spatula and bake for another minute. For each new pie, grease the pan with oil. Serve warm with honey, grated walnut and pomegranate or the ingredients of your choice.

Tips

The recipe gives us about 8-10 Sfakia pies.
We make sure to create as many feta balls as there are pieces of dough that we will cut.
We want the size of each piece of dough to be equal to the feta ball. It may seem improbable to us, but the dough will completely cover the slice, but it will also open into a large thin pie.
If we like thicker pies, we can open them according to our tastes.
The dough can be prepared and kneaded in the mixer bowl with the hook if we don't want to do it with our hands. However, know that the process is easy, psychotherapeutic and you will definitely find your little hands willing to help.
It is important to close well the pouch we will make with the dough, enclosing the feta inside. The dough is elastic and you will see that it opens easily.
Flour the surface where you will open your Sfakia pies with feta so that they do not stick, while sprinkle with a little flour the upper side that you will open with the rolling pin.

Storage

After opening with the rolling pin, we can store the Sfacian pies with feta in the freezer, between pieces of non-stick paper. So, we can have them whenever we want without any trouble, just by baking them in the pan, straight from the freezer.