“I love good food; good products and rich flavors. These are obviously my roots, this is what I got from home. And if you want good food, you have to make an effort. This is how my passion for cooking developed. I enjoy making typical dishes, for example sarma or cevapi. Here in Amsterdam there is a Balkan store; Prijatelji. I sometimes buy groceries there. Turkish stores are also good, and some products from our region can even be bought at the larger AH stores. I make the dishes the way I learned them from my father, but I also like to use cookbooks like ‘The taste of a country that no longer exists’ or ‘Hrvatska na stolom’ for inspiration. The recipes are always in generous portions, so suitable for making a cozy evening of it with friends or family. Have fun cooking”!
Recipe
A savory piece of pie with filo pastry and soft cheese, that’s what gibanica is.Although the dish was first made in Serbia in 1818, it is eaten all over the Balkans and is made slightly differently everywhere.For example, you can also make the savory pastry with potato or spinazi.
It is an old recipe, created because people used to be poor and had to prepare a meal with few ingredients.Sprska gibanica, as the snack is officially called, can be eaten at any time of the day. My preference is the version with soft cheese.
Ingredients
*Filo dough
*White cheese (Sutdiyari, on sale at Turkish supermarket)
*4 eggs
*2 dl oil
*2 dl sparkling water
*1 tsp salt
Preparation
- blend the oil and sparkling water (this combination makes the filo pastry crisp)
- blend the eggs with the salt
- mix the cheese with the eggs
- grease a baking dish and place 2 sheets of filo pastry on the bottom
- sprinkle the sheets with the oil/water mixture
- lay another two sheets of filo pastry on top (I like to cut them into large pieces, the point is that the cheese and filo pastry mix well together)
- sprinkle again with oil/water and spoon cheese on top
- continue stacking like this until the cheese is finished, but keep two sheets for the last layer
- sprinkle the last layer with oil/water as well
- put the oven dish in a preheated oven at 200 degrees and bake the gibanica until nicely browned, (about 30 to 40 minutes).
Prijatno! (Bon appetite)
