Bulgarian banitza with goat cheese, roses and rosemary

When we think of traditional Bulgarian food, one of our favorite classics is… ‘banitza’. Banitza is traditional pastry in Bulgaria made with rolled filo dough and filled with mixture of eggs, Bulgarian yogurt and white cheese. Similar pastry is found in other Balkan countries, too. As much as we love good old banitza, at the same time, we love modern cooking, where new and traditional meet, and our grandmas recipes start living a new life, with different ingredients and spices sneaking into traditional dishes.

And last Sunday we felf like eating ‘banitza’ at home. So I remembered a recipe I received as a thank you for a jar of rose jam that I brought to a Sicilian friend. I met her during my student years in Milan. Isn’t it weird for an Italian to make me a variation of traditional Balkan dish by adding our rose jam? Or as she called them, mini puff pastry pies because she had shaped them into small baskets. So we took Doriana’s recipe as a base and as a result you get an easy-to-prepare, surprising and truly delicious salty-sweet variation on mini banitzas that you just have to try.

MINI ‘BANITZA’ PIES WITH GOAT CHEESE, ROSE JAM AND ROSEMARY 

PRODUCTS:

puff pastry – 1 package
white goat cheese (Bulgarian or Greek style)
rosemary – dried or fresh
Rosey’s Mark rose jam
1 quail egg

PREPARATION METHOD:

1. Leave the puff pastry to unfreeze for 3-4 hours or move it from the freezer to the fridge from the night before.
2. Pound the rosemary and mix it in a bowl with the goat cheese crushed with the help of fork.
3. After the puff pastry is ready for work, spread it out on a cutting board sprinkled with flour and cut it in squares. In the center of each square put a tea spoon of rose jam and a tea spoon of the rosemary goat cheese mixture.
4. Fold the squares and seal by pressing with fingers. For a safe seal and to avoid leaks of the stuffing, wet the bords of the pastry with watered fingers.
5. Smear the folded pies with the quail egg on top for a nice golden crust. You can sprinkle some rosemary and dried rose petals on top as well.
6. Bake in preheated oven at 200˚C for 15 minutes or till you get that golden crust.
7. Serve the ‘banisza’ pies after cooled down, preferably together with a glass of ayran (traditional Bulgarian yogurt drink).