Food for Life

For a 30 cm pie you will need the following ingredients:

For the dough
Whole wheat flour – 200 gr
Liquid (water, water/milk 50/50%, buttermilk, whey) – 130 gr
Oil (any vegetable oil) – 20 gr
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Salt – ½ tsp
Sugar – 1 tsp
Some butter (about 1 tbsp) for lubricating the pie when it’s ready

For the filling
Farmer’s cheese (or mozzarella) 300 gr
Ricotta (or paneer) – 300 gr
Cream – 2 tbsp
Herbs (parsley or cilantro or sweet basil, or any other herb to your liking)
Salt – about ½ tsp

Instructions

1. Mix all the dry ingredients for the dough.

2. Pour in the oil and the liquid. Mix everything very well. The dough shouldn’t be tight. It should be soft, elastic, stick a little to fingers, but peel off easily. If it sticks to fingers and doesn’t peel off, mix in some more flour. If it’s too tight, add more liquid in small portions. After the dough is ready, let it rest for about 20 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Mix ricotta with farmer’s cheese (or paneer with mozzarella that has been finely grated – the idea is to combine two types of cheese: the one that melts with the one that doesn’t. As an alternative, you can use a cheese that has qualities of both alone, like Imeretian cheese – in this case use 600 gr of that), add the salt, chopped herbs and cream. Squash and mix everything well with your hands. The filling is perfect when it easily gets formed into a ball. If it’s too dry and it crumbles, add some more cream.

4. Sprinkle the cutting board with a little flour. Put the dough ball on it, and make it a flat cake. Place the ball of the filling in the center. Now wrap the dough around it “toe-to-toe”, meaning that the ends of the dough shouldn’t overlap, otherwise, when you stretch the pie, in this place the dough is going to be thicker than in other places.

5. Sprinkle some flour on top of the pie-ball. With your fingers start pressing, and at the same time, stretching the pie from the center to the sides, then turn the cake over (You can use another cutting board for flipping the pie over – just put it on top of the pie, and flip it over, so that the cutting board that was under the pie, lies on top of it). Continue stretching the pie. Be very careful not to tear up the dough – if the filling leaks out it might get burnt. Turn the pie over one more time and continue forming it, until it is as thin as possible without the danger of tearing up the dough. Make a hole in the center for the hot air to go out.

6. When you have the final form, you can put the pie in the oven and bake it at 180 degrees Celsius for about 25 minutes, until it is golden-brown. Or you can fry it in a dry frying pan (like a pancake), turning it over with the help of a cutting board or two spatulas. It takes about 5-10 minutes, depending on the heat, for one side to be ready.

7. After the pie is ready and is hot, you can lubricate it with some butter.

Offer to Krishna, and enjoy the prasadam. Bon appétit!

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