With the arrival of November and heavy rains, after a long workday, I carve for heartwarming dishes more than ever. A bowl of mushroom cream soup, my mom’s triple cheese grilled sandwich or a feta and beetroot quiche. However, after a while, even my favourite recipes become boring. This is when I start searching on the Internet for new ideas, open up all the cookbooks I have on my kitchen shelf, or take a look at my notebook, where I scribbled a few words about every culinary experience I have had lately. The other day, when my sister and I went for a dinner, the classic Hungarian filo pastry dessert called rétes (or strudel in the German-speaking countries) gave me the idea of this savoury filo pastry recipe.
Traditionally, Hungarian rétes, as its name indicates, consists of a dessert built on several layers of paper thin doughs similar to filo pastry sheets. The variety of fillings is unlimited, although the most famous ones are apple, cottage cheese or sour cherry. The preparation of the dough requires lots of practice and even more patience so it won’t break while pulling. (The Hungarian saying of “they are pulling it like the rétes dough” refers to a speech prolonged unnecessarily long.)
Turning to the lazy way after a long workday, we can simply buy the filo pastry dough in a grocery shop, and, giving space to our creativity and imagination, fill it with any ingredients we like. Some filling options are feta and spinach, salmon and leek or leftover shredded rotisserie chicken. Here you have a vegetarian version with beautiful seasonal autumn vegetables like red cabbage or yellow and purple carrots. Feel free to come up with your own flavour combination and enjoy this filo pastry as the main dish or with a beautiful fish or beef steak.
Filo pastry with grilled vegetables
Ingredients
- 1 pack filo pastry
- half red cabbage sliced thinly
- 1 small leek sliced thinly
- 5 medium-sized orange, yellow and purple carrots peeled and sliced
- 1 bell pepper sliced thinly
- 1 can corn kernels
- 1 handful fresh herbs: thyme, rosemary, chives, curly parsley finely chopped
- 1 egg
- 4 tbsp breadcrumbs
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Slice the vegetables thinly (as if you were preparing a WOK). Saute them in olive oil (we want them crunchy). In the last 2 minutes, add the finely chopped fresh herbs and season with salt and pepper if necessary.
- Preheat the oven based on the instructions on the filo pastry package (usually 210°C).
- In the filo pastry pack, you can find several sheets; we need 4-5 sheets for one big roll. Put baking paper over a large baking sheet, place one filo pastry sheet on it, then gently brush it with olive oil. Place the next sheet over and repeat the process until the last one.
- At the top, 2-3 cm from the longitudinal edge, sprinkle it with breadcrumbs to a width of about 5 cm. This is important so the vegetables eventually won't soak the pastry.
- Place the vegetables over the breadcrumbs about 1,5 cm high. We don't want to overfill it, so it doesn't break, but the dish's essence is the delicious filling, so don't skimp on it. When ready, roll it up carefully. It's okay if it's not too tight. Brush it with an egg; this will give it a beautiful golden colour.
- Following the instructions on the package, bake it until it's crispy and golden brown (aprox. 10 mins).
- Carefully cut it into small rolls; don't worry, the filo dough breaks easily, but that makes it so amazingly crispy.
- You can serve it as a side dish with a steak or fish, it can be a main course with, for example, mashed sweet potato, or it can be divine on its own.
- Enjoy!
