Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

Recipes, travel & adventure from the wild and remote Shetland Islands

Banitsa – Bulgarian Cheese Pie

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In collaboration with Expedia and their #WorldonaPlate Challenge.

Banitsa - Bulgarian Cheese Pie

It’s funny how our tastes change as we grow up. My childhood diet was quite limited – baked meat and mashed potatoes being the staple, supplemented with seasonal wild fruits harvested ourselves (one wild strawberry for the basket, three for me!). I was very reluctant to try new things. I remember my teacher serving honeydew melon slices in Home Economics class, and my being truly revolted at the taste and texture.

Now, I love trying new things! Experiencing new flavours is all part of the adventure of life, isn’t it? So just imagine my delight when a hamper (18 kilos in total) of Bulgarian produce arrived on my doorstep one day, with a challenge from Expedia – here Elizabeth, cook something Bulgarian with all this awesome stuff!

Bulgarian ingredients

The hamper contained a wide variety of dried meats such as cured game sudjuk and pastarma manastirska ‘nashe selo’, cheeses including buffalo’s milk yellow cheese, strained yogurt with cheese and a white sheep’s cheese, Bulgarian wine, pastas and jarred sauces, preserves such as rose hip jam and something that’s got figs in it, sweets and biscuits, tea, dried rose petals, 1 kg pickled cabbage leaves (a genius idea – looking forward to making cabbage rolls with these!), vine leaves stuffed with rice and a package of phyllo pastry.

I confess I have absolutely no experience of Bulgarian food whatsoever, except for the few meals I’ve shared with a dear Bulgarian friend of mine over the years we’ve known each other.

Banitsa - Bulgarian Cheese Pie

My friend tells me that banitsa, a popular white cheese, yoghurt and egg pie made with phyllo pastry, is made for any special occasion in Bulgaria: wedding, funerals, guests coming to visit, etc. Traditionally you must have bantica’s kusmeti/ good luck messages attached on budding twigs – small pieces of paper you write a wish on for Christmas. The dishes on Christmas Eve, which all Bulgarian’s celebrate, are vegetarian and banitsa is always present together with baklava (which she says is the best dessert ever!).

She says that Bulgarians can buy and eat banitsa for breakfast just like the French eat croissants.  She never follows a recipe when making it, preferring, like most Bulgarians, just to make it up as she goes along, so she couldn’t give me one, but I found two online here and here which I used.

Banitsa can also be stuffed with meat, rice, spinach or even with pumpkin and sugar for a sweet option.

Banitsa is a remarkably simple recipe to make. All you do is mix the ingredients, sprinkle it over some ready-made phyllo pastry, roll, arrange in a dish in a spiral shape and bake!

It also tastes fantastic! The sharp Bulgarian sheep’s cheese is just like feta cheese, with a fantastic flavour. The eggs soak into the phyllo pastry and it all puffs up gorgeously while baking to make a perfectly slice-able pie which will keep for a few days in an airtight container.

Banitsa - Bulgarian Cheese Pie

I also made another popular Bulgarian recipe with the ingredients I was sent – a biskvitena torta – a Bulgarian biscuit cake. Trying to source a recipe online was proving to be rather difficult, so again, like my Bulgarian friend said, I just sort of made it up as I went along combining this recipe and this recipe using the Torta cake biscuits which were included in my hamper.

These biscuits, not unlike ladyfingers, were soaked in milk and layered along with 300 ml double cream whipped with 2 tbsp icing sugar, and 250 grams of mascarpone cheese. The creamy layer was sprinkled with cocoa powder before topping with more soaked biscuits and left overnight to chill in the fridge (in a bread tin lined with cling film to ease removal). The next day I tipped the cake out, topped it with the remaining cream mixture and ground some dark chocolate over the top.

Biskvitena Torta - Bulgarian Biscuit Cake

The recipe I made wasn’t terribly sweet, but it was rather unusual and delicious. I think if I was to make this again I’d use more icing sugar. Also – this photo was taken at 11:30 am on the 16th of December. See how dark it is in the middle of the day here! Impossible for food photography!

My Bulgarian friend remembers that her aunt used to be a superb torta maker and when she and her siblings were children they were eager to visit her. Her torta/cake took quite a bit of effort to make though. When my friend was a teenager every Friday afternoon she would meet with friends and bring a cake of biscuit and custard layers or sweet salami.

They would eat this later on during their Friday music party or kupon in Bulgarian. They would gather up listen to cool music such as Pink Floyd, Cream, The Beatles, or The Band and eat cake and sometimes pass around a bottle of white or red wine to share amongst all. They would also sing and play guitar and have long philosophical or political discussions. It was a special time of change for Eastern Europe 1989-1991, she recalls.

Have you visited Bulgaria? Do you have any interesting food stories to share? Let me know in the comments!

Banitsa - Bulgarian Cheese Pie
Banitsa - Bulgarian Cheese Pie
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A staple dish in Bulgaria which can be eaten hot, warm or cold.
Banitsa - Bulgarian Cheese Pie
Print Recipe
A staple dish in Bulgaria which can be eaten hot, warm or cold.
Servings Prep Time Cook Time Passive Time
12people 15minutes 45minutes 20minutes
Servings Prep Time
12people 15minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
45minutes 20minutes
Ingredients
Servings: people
Units:
Ingredients
Servings: people
Units:
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 190 C/ 170 C fan. Lightly grease a 9 inch pie plate and a 9 x 13 casserole dish with a little oil.
  2. Crack the eggs into a medium sized bowl and lightly beat them.
  3. Crumble the white cheese onto the top and stir in. Add the yogurt, oil and water and combine well.
  4. Unroll the phyllo pastry, and working with one sheet at a time lightly drizzle three or four dessert spoons of the egg/cheese mixture over the top. You don't want to saturate the pastry, just sprinkle it. I then used my hands to distribute the mixture evenly across the pastry dough.
  5. Loosely roll the sheet of phyllo pastry up like a log and place into your prepared baking tin in a spiral shape.
  6. Repeat with the remaining layers of pastry.
  7. If there is any mixture left, drizzle it over the top of the rolls of phyllo. Dot with butter and bake for 45 minutes, until golden.
  8. Leave to cool for 20 minutes before slicing. Serve with extra yogurt.
  9. Leftovers can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 to 3 days. Do not refrigerate as this will cause the pastry to go soggy.

OTHER RECIPES USING PHYLLO YOU MIGHT LIKE

Leftover turkey & ham pies with a filo crunch by Fuss Free Flavours
Broccoli, spinach & wild rice phyllo pie by Kellie’s Food to Glow
Chocolate Baklava by Tin & Thyme
Mushroom Nut Filo Parcels by Casa Costello
Chicken & Leek Filo Pie by Lovely Appetite

Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary received a hamper of Bulgarian food and a supermarket voucher to help with the cost of ingredients for this recipe post. This post is in collaboration with Expedia and their #WorldonaPlate Challenge.

 

Comments

  2. My husband and I spent over a month in Bulgaria while adopting our son and wanted to keep his culture alive so we made a “traditional” Christmas Eve dinner which of course, include the stable, banista! This recipe is excellent and the closest I have come to what we had while in Bulgaria. First, the yogurt is absolutely crucial. Banista is not made with milk so if you see a recipe calling for it, it’s the wrong recipe. I made a few modifications to the recipe: I used 5 phyllo sheets per roll (I don’t think this was noted in the recipe). I would take the oil down by 1/4 of what it calls for. I used a spring pan and it was perfect and allowed for perfect presentation. I prepped ahead of time and cover with parchment paper, then two moist paper towels, cling wrap and stored in the fridge for 5 hours. I let stand for about 1/2 hour before cooking. Covering for the 20 mins afterwards is crucial and was perfect. I wish this allowed for pictures to be uploaded. It came out beautifully and all of us loved it. Definitely a keeper recipe! Will be adding spinach the next go round. Happy trying!

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  3. How funny that I have come across your post. I have been reminiscing of my time spent living in Bulgaria and how I am hankering for some banitsa. I did not learn how to make it while I lived there, but the photos of how your came out look quite close to what I remember eating. And yes… we would eat cirene and tikvenik (pumpkin) banitsa for snacks, breakfast and dessert… 🙂 Thanks for trying out the recipe and I will have to try it out myself!

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  7. This looks interesting and different! I’ll have to show my wife and try to adapt some of the ingredients!

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  8. It looks and sounds delicious but I will have to try this with Feta as my local Sainsbury’s don’t stock Bulgarian sheep’s cheese !

    Reply

  12. Just a little bit jealous of that huge hamper. 18 kilos is an insane amount of food 🙂 I also don’t know a lot about Bulgarian food but you’ve done the hamper justice. This pie sounds divine – definitely something I would like to try myself. I’d love to find out more about Bulgaria and it’s cuisine now!
    Emma @ Supper in the Suburbs recently posted…10 Must Visit Restaurants in 2016 (the London edition)My Profile

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  19. You are opening my food world! I’m so incredibly impressed with this recipe. The pie looks inviting. I just want to sit and visit with you and eat a slice! Might be a bit of a journey, but I’m quite curious about your life on those
    shetland Islands!
    Diane recently posted…Maple Date Bars RecipeMy Profile

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  32. How fun! I love trying new things like this. My Grandma used to make something like this using, what she called, Farmer’s Cheese. I would love to try this! pinning to make later. Thanks!

    Reply

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