Cheese filled pastries with "kourou" dough

These little pastries are made with an easy olive oil based soft dough and filled with various savoury fillings.  Here we made them in heart shapes for Valentine's Day but they can be enjoyed in simple half moon shapes any time of the year.  The dough is made to a traditional Greek recipe called "kourou".

INGREDIENTS

For the "kourou" dough

250 gr plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

pinch of sugar

100 g plain yoghurt

75 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

50 ml Opus Oléa extra virgin olive oil

For the filling

50 g grated cheese such as gruyere or cheddar

150 g feta cheese

1 egg

mint leaves

grated nutmeg

pepper to taste

To finish

1 egg beaten with a tbsp of milk for eggwash

white and black sesame seeds for decoration

METHOD

Place all the ingredients for the "kourou" dough in a bowl, mix well and knead through to form a soft dough that is not sticky.  Depending on the type of your flour and what yoghurt you are using you may need to add a little bit of dough at a time in the end to get to the right consistency.  Allow the dough to rest in the fridge for about half an hour.

In another bowl mash the feta cheese with a fork and mix with your grated cheese, egg, shredded mint leaves, nutmeg and pepper to a paste-like consistency.

Take the dough out of the fridge and thinly roll out with a rolling pin. The thickness should be about 2mm as the dough will slightly rise while baking.  Cut out rounds of dough with either a cutter or a glass, fill in the middle with about a tsp of the filling, turn over and close up edges by pressing them together.  You can also use other cutter shapes like we did here with heart shaped cutters for Valentine's Day.  Place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.  Use a brush to brush with eggwash and sprinkle some sesame seeds on the top.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius fan assisted or at 200 degrees conventional for 20 to 25 minutes. 

These little pastries are great to have with drinks, as a snack throughout the day or even for breakfast.  They are great little go-everywhere, versatile all-rounders.