Flaounes (Traditional Cypriot Cheese Pastry)

It's Easter eve (Holy Saturday) and after seeing everyone post beautiful food on Facebook, I decided that I should make something. But what? Sweets are covered, lamb on the spit is out main course. Why not go back to my heritage and make flaounes? Flaounes are traditionally made on Holy Thursday before Good Friday. In Cyprus, the women of the village gather together and make huge batches of these time consuming pastries. Well worth it, but some recipes I've seen call for around 18 eggs. This the cheat's way, but they are still amazing!

Ingredients

• Yeast dough
  • 750g strong plain flour (bread flour will do)
  • 1 sachet dry yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil, water to mix
  
  
• Cheese filling
  • 250g cheese: you can use any Greek cheese, but my local Coles is small and didn't have any Greek cheeses so I used cheddar
  • 100g Haloumi,
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon crushed dried mint
  • 4 eggs, lightly beaten
  
  
• To finish
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • sesame seeds

Sift flour into a large bowl. Stir in the yeast, salt and sugar. Add the oil and enough water to make a firm dough. Knead for at least 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. Put the dough in a plastic bag and leave in a warm place for an hour to rise.

For the filling, coarsely grate the cheeses, add the flour and baking powder then gradually stir in the beaten egg and seasonings until you have a stiffish paste (keep some of the beaten egg back if the mixture becomes too runny).
 

Divide the dough into egg sized pieces and roll these into 10cm discs.

Place a generous tablespoon of filling in the centre of each pastry disc, spreading it slightly. Pull dough up at 3 points to make a triangle, or 4 points to make a square. You should still be able to see the filling in the middle.

Press corners together to seal and leave to rise. Just before baking, brush with beaten egg and sprinkle some sesame seeds over the finished flaounes.

Bake in a hot oven at 230'C for 12-15 minutes until cheese filling is puffed and flaounes are golden.

Serve warm or cold.

Makes 12, but I easily made 16.

Kopiaste and Kali Anastasi!

Celebrating Greek Orthodox Easter

So seeing as it's the Holy Week, I thought I would take a minute to explain why we Greeks (Orthodox) celebrate differently to the rest of the world. Some people think that Orthodox Easter is about lamb on the spit and a different Easter date. But why do we do things "differently"?

While Easter is a 40 day event (Sarakosti), it all comes down to Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. This is the week leading up to and celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even though I don't attend church that often, I find that the ceremonies I attend are beautiful.

We also fast either for 40 days, or Holy Week. This means once you have fish as your only protein on Palm Sunday, the rest of the week we abstain from meat, dairy, alcohol and sex. With so many yummy Greek recipes, and vegan, too, there's no end to options. Lenten fasting is over after the Paschal Divine Liturgy on Saturday. To break the fast, a dish of Magiritsa is served, followed by the cracking of red eggs. The red eggs symbolise the blood of Christ and rebirth. The eggs are cracked together with another person's egg, the cracker says "Christos Anesti" (Christ Has Risen) and the other person responds "Alithos Anesti" (Truly He Has Risen). This greeting is also used for the 40 days following Easter. One thing that people do that is annoying is replying "Alithos, mate". To me, that takes away the meaning behind it.

Right, so after midnight, you've gone to sleep with a tummy full of gut soup and eggs, what do you get for lunch? That's right, lamb on the spit! The day is filled with family, friends and most importantly FOOD!

So why do we celebrate on a different date? The Eastern Orthodox Church follows the Gregorian calendar, in most years Western Christian churches and Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on different dates. In 2013, for example, Easter will be celebrated on March 31 by Western churches and May 5 by Orthodox churches. But in 2011, the two celebrations occurred on the same date, April 24. The formula for Easter- the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox" - is identical for both Western and Orthodox Easters, but the churches base the dates on different calendars: Western churches use the Gregorian calendar, the standard calendar for much of the world, and Orthodox churches use the older, Julian calendar.

I wanted to write more but I couldn't think of anything else. Maybe this should be a small Paschal series?

It's beginning to look a lot like Easter...

Buns in every store,
Take a look in Aisle 5
There's Easter eggs galore
Coles has them 3 for $5!