{"id":18371,"date":"2016-02-21T17:57:14","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T16:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=18371"},"modified":"2016-10-25T22:20:40","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T20:20:40","slug":"filo-or-yufka-rolls-with-beetroot-and-feta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=18371","title":{"rendered":"Filo (or Yufka) Rolls with Beetroot and Feta"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"beet_filoyufka\"Beetroot is one of these widely available vegetables I – strangely – almost\u00a0never buy. I do not hate it, but it never provokes a craving\u00a0I often experience while seeing beautiful tomatoes, aubergines or recently even fennel. When I recently saw the fabulously elegant\u00a0Roasted Beets with Aromatised Feta Mousse\u00a0at Katerina’s Culinary Flavors<\/a>, I\u00a0found\u00a0the combination of the two ingredients highly\u00a0promising\u00a0and kept on thinking about it.\u00a0Whenever I think about Katerina, filo pastry\u00a0instantly comes to my mind and this is how I had this idea. If you hate beetroot, obviously\u00a0these rolls are not for you, but for me, who has nothing against it, they were the best thing I’ve ever had with this humble vegetable. Thank you so much, dear Katerina, for this wonderful idea and constant inspiration!<\/p>\n

Here are some other filo\/phyllo pastry ideas you might like (especially if you hate beetroot):<\/p>\n

\"Filo<\/a>
Filo Rolls with Black Pudding<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Feather-Light<\/a>
Feather-Light Filo Tart with Plums<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Filo<\/a>
Filo Rolls with Chanterelle and Goat Cheese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Filo<\/a>
Filo Rolls with Asparagus, Chorizo and Parmesan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Filo<\/a>
Filo Rolls with Feta and Leek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Filo<\/a>
Filo Triangles with Indian-Style Beef<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Spanakopita<\/a>
Spanakopita (Greek Feta and Spinach Pie)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mock<\/a>
Mock Spanakopita Rolls with Wild Garlic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Filo<\/a>
Filo Rolls with Bok Choy Leaves and Feta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Filo<\/a>
Filo Rolls with Roasted Green Chilli Pepper and Feta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

TIPS: \u00a0<\/strong>While adjusting the taste\u00a0I found the beetroots’ sweetness too overwhelming and decided to add first lots of garlic, then chilli powder and finally some tamarind pulp. For my tastebuds this\u00a0last magical touch that has made the filling perfect, but you might not like beetroot with strong flavours, so add all those gradually, according to your preferences.<\/p>\n

You might wonder what cracked wheat or semolina are doing here. This is a magical trick I learnt from Katerina too: if added in small amounts, cracked wheat will not change the taste or texture, but it will absorb the humidity from the filling (the rolls will not leak).<\/p>\n

I have recently had problems to buy\u00a0filo pastry (my two favourite\u00a0supermarkets stopped selling it), so I made an experiment with yufka, often described as “filo of the Balkans\/Turkey” (my package even had the word “filo” printed). Well, even though I find this new pastry good, it is definitely NOT filo. Yufka (at least the one I bought) is at least 3 or four times thicker than filo pastry and doesn’t have such a\u00a0light crumbly effect when baked (I find it also doesn’t brown quickly, hence the light colour at the photograph above). In short, it works as an emergency replacement, but is definitely different.<\/p>\n

Tamarind (apart from its raw form) is usually sold either in hard blocks or in ready-to-use pulp (usually in jars). I strongly encourage everyone to buy the blocks, which keep for years in the fridge and which yield a much more lively, tangy pulp than the jarred one (moreover, they don’t have strange additives). It’s very easy to prepare pulp from the block: tear a 2×2 cm square and put into a mug. Add about 100 ml boiling water and after 5 minutes start stirring until the block starts dissolving. Leave for about 15 minutes and than strain through a sieve, pushing the pulp out with a spoon. Such a freshly squeezed pulp will keep in the fridge for several days.<\/p>\n

Preparation:<\/strong> about 2 hours (or 1 hour if the beetroot is already cooked)<\/em><\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/strong> (serves 4 as a starter):<\/em><\/p>\n

8-10 filo sheets or 2 1\/2 yufka sheets<\/em><\/p>\n

2 big beetroots<\/em><\/p>\n

180-200 g feta<\/em><\/p>\n

4 big garlic cloves<\/em><\/p>\n

1 teaspoon ground cumin<\/em><\/p>\n

1\/3 teaspoon turmeric<\/em><\/p>\n

2 tablespoons tamarind pulp (if you make it on your own, or 3-4 tablespoons if you use the jarred pulp) or lime juice<\/em><\/p>\n

salt, pepper, chilli powder<\/em><\/p>\n

3 flat tablespoons cracked wheat or semolina<\/em><\/p>\n

melted butter or oil<\/em><\/p>\n

(fresh coriander leaves or dill)<\/em><\/p>\n

Cook or bake the beetroots until very soft.<\/p>\n

Put the cold beetroots and the garlic in a food processor and mix to a pulp.<\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 180\u00b0C.<\/p>\n

Place the beetroot pulp in a bowl and add the cumin, the turmeric, the tamarind pulp and crumbled feta.<\/p>\n

Season with chilli, salt, pepper and ground black pepper. Taste and adjust the flavours and add cracked wheat at the end. Give the pulp a good last stir.<\/p>\n

If you use yufka, cut the sheets into four pieces each. Divide the filling into as many equal parts as the yufka pieces you have obtained. \u00a0Then, proceed as if you had filo sheets\u00a0(which you don’t need to cut).<\/p>\n

Place horizontally, about 2,5 cm\/1 in. from the filo sheet\u2019s shorter edge closest to you, a portion of the filling.<\/p>\n

Roll tightly but delicately, starting from the edge which is closest to you, folding the two lateral edges into the roll, so that the filling doesn\u2019t leak during the baking process (I have folded here about 3 cm\/about 1,2 inch on each side).<\/p>\n

Proceed in the same way with the remaining rolls.<\/p>\n

Brush the rolls just before baking with some oil or melted butter.<\/p>\n

Bake until light\u00a0golden. Serve hot or slightly warm.<\/p>\n

You can sprinkle with coriander or dill before serving.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beetroot is one of these widely available vegetables I – strangely – almost\u00a0never buy. I do not hate it, but it never provokes a craving\u00a0I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[130,209,85,71,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18371"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18969,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18371\/revisions\/18969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}