I Phyllo Good

Yesterday, Lynn made a delicious cherry strudel enveloped in the flaky, light delight that is phyllo pastry. While happily noshing on it, I suddenly realized that I never posted the phyllo pie dish that I made last month. There was a moment of panic this morning when I couldn't locate the photos right away, but here it is.

The inspiration for it was Kibbeh pie, which is a spiced meat dish in Levantine cuisine. You'll find different versions of Kibbeh per region, e.g. Syrian Kibbeh is quite different from Lebanese Kibbeh.

One Saturday, as I was preparing a grocery list for my weekly shopping run, I had the TV on PBS and saw a Ground Beef Pie recipe on Martha Stewart's "Everyday Food". In the space of mere minutes, I saw one of the chefs prepare a phyllo-wrapped beef pie reminiscent of Kibbeh. I didn't take notes but had a rough idea of what the ingredients were as I stepped out of the house.

However, I decided to give it my own spin by incorporating everything that I wanted to taste in a beef pie:

• a few tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 medium-sized onion, finely diced
  
• garlic, minced (I used a lot, but that's not necessary if it's not to your liking)
• 1/2 cup of sliced almonds
  
• 500-600g of ground beef (I prefer medium ground; lean/extra lean lacks fat, hence is too dry)
• 1 796ml can of whole tomatoes, well-drained and diced (if you can find San Marzano tomatoes, even better)
• 1 200ml can of sliced black olives
• 1 796ml can of red kidney beans, rinsed and drained thoroughly
• 2 cups of sliced baby eggplants, salted for about 10 min to draw out moisture then rinsed and drained thoroughly (any eggplant would do, but I prefer these sweeter-tasting babies)
• around 1 Tbsp of ground cinnamon
• 1 heaping tsp of allspice
• a handful of chopped, fresh cilantro
  
• salt and pepper, to taste

Very simply, I heated the first 4 ingredients in a large pot until the onions became translucent, but not browned. Then I heated the beef through until the redness was gone. After that, I added one ingredient at a time and stirred until well-incorporated. I covered the pot and let it cook until the eggplant softened. The mixture was drained and removed from heat to cool down.

While the filling cooled off, I prepared the phyllo. It was a very fast and simple process of layering phyllo sheets in a haphazard manner -- not neatly stacked -- in order to create a rough, circular shape with a wide circumference. Each sheet was brushed with olive oil before setting down the next sheet. Working quickly to prevent the pastry from drying out, I layered 8 sheets. The pastry was gently eased into a greased springform pan with parchment cut to fit the bottom (also greased). The excess pastry was allowed to hang over the edge of the pan. Phyllo is very forgiving, so it didn't matter that there were a few tears here and there. I had the option to use a pie plate, but I like a deep-dish pie to have straight, vertical sides.

To the cooled filling, I added one egg as a binding agent. The "Everyday Food" recipe calls for 5 eggs, but I didn't want my pie to be too custardy. Besides, I wanted to save my few remaining eggs for other recipes -- yes, I'm cheap that way. Then the filling was spooned into the pastry. The hanging edges of the phyllo sheets were folded over the filling in a rough manner so that the top of the pie was completely covered by pastry. I personally like the look of messy, twisted, wrinkled phyllo, but you can make it as neat as you want.

After brushing the top crust with olive oil, the pie was baked at 400°F for 20-30 min until the crust was golden, dry and crisp.

The beauty of phyllo is that, once baked, it doesn't turn soggy very easily. The pie crust stayed crunchy even after spending a week in the fridge and facing multiple turns in the microwave. Its endurance as a leftover food makes phyllo, and this recipe, a good candidate for the cookbook. You'll be seeing more phyllo recipes in the coming weeks, I'm sure.