Quick and Easy Greek Cheese and Herb Pie – Patsavouropita

These type of pies are called patsavouro-pites. Patsavoura means rag in Greek. Doesn’t sound too appetizing, I know, which is the reason I had never made this before. The other day though, I saw someone making this, and it was so good and nothing like I imagined. So, I went ahead and made my own version using only olive oil (no butter), yogurt (lighter), combining feta with fresh mint for the filling and less eggs.

So instead of placing each phyllo on top of each other, you just scrunch up the phyllo on the bottom of a pan, basically throwing the phyllo sheets on the baking dish like rags and thus the name. For added easiness, I used my olive oil spray bottle instead of brushing the phyllo sheets. So once you put the sheets on the bottom of your baking dish, you pour the cheese mixture on top, put in the oven and bake, and that’s it! I was done putting this together in less than 10 minutes.

Yield: 8 pieces

Ingredients

5-6 sheets of phyllo
Olive oil for brushing or spraying plus 1 tablespoon for cheese mixture
7 ounces (200 grams) crumbled feta cheese
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
2 eggs
2 tablespoons Greek yogurt
½ cup chopped mint
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven at 350 Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).
2. Spread phyllo dough sheet on your work surface and brush or spray with olive oil.
3. Scrunch like a curtain and place it in the base of 12 x 8 inch pan or baking dish. Continue this with 4-5 more sheets until the base of the pan is covered.
4. Pre-bake in the oven for about 5 minutes.
5. In a large bowl mix the feta, parmesan, eggs, yogurt, pepper, nutmeg, mint and 1 tablespoon olive oil.
6. Remove the pan from the oven and pour the mixture over the scrunched phyllo.
7. You can sprinkle some additional crumbs of feta on the surface and drizzle with a touch of olive oil.
8. Bake for about 30 minutes until top is golden.
9. Cut in pieces while warm.