Traditional pasties are known as butter-fried meat patties. However, such a simple dish actually has many cooking options, depending on the different fillings, consistency and composition of the dough.
Where to begin?
Karaite pasties with fresh tomatoes and cheese are very popular and easy to prepare. But this recipe can be simplified by excluding vegetables, and you get a traditional Abkhaz dish - cheese pasties. To bake them correctly, you should prepare the dough in advance. Be sure to knead it by hand, let it rest, soften for an hour. Then the edge of the pasties will be easier to close up, and they will not tear.
You also need to choose the right cheese for the filling. Ideal would be a combination of hard and soft cheeses, which will make the taste bright enough, but soft. Therefore, cooks need to pay attention to rennet cheeses (Kostroma, Dutch) or maasdam and the usual Adyghe cheese, feta cheese or mozzarella. In no case should you add salt to the filling, there is enough of it, otherwise the pasties will taste bitter.
Ingredients
The simplest and most real, really correct pasties are made from unleavened dough. Of course, now it can be replaced with a ready-made puff or even yeast.
They say that pasties were first prepared in the mountains by shepherds who used spoiled cheese in them. The dough included flour, water and grape chacha - the usual products taken with you.
To prepare pasties, you need to take:
For filling:
- 150 g soft cheese (for example, maasdam);
- 150 g of hard cheese (you can have a little more so that it "holds" the filling).
For the test:
- 4 glasses of flour, 200 g each (if it turns out too soft, then add);
- 1 egg;
- 1 tsp salt;
- 1 tsp Sahara;
- 250 ml of carbonated unsweetened mineral water.
Preparation
First, you need to mix the ingredients for the dough, knead it by hand and let the dough "rest" for at least half an hour. Then roll it out to about the diameter of a plate. Put the filling in the middle of the rolled sheet. In this particular case, it is a mixture of hard cheese grated on a coarse grater and soft cheese cut into slices.
Ready-made pasties are served with fresh herbs and vegetables for proper effect.
Fold the sheet of dough rolled out in a circle in half and pinch the edges, pressing down with a fork. The result is up to 15 medium pasties. Fry them in a well-heated skillet with a lot of oil until they are browned and bubbles appear.
If the pasties break during the frying process, you can make punctures with a fork, but where there is less filling, otherwise the melted cheese may leak out.
When using such a simple dough, the composition of the filling can be changed to your liking by adding tomatoes, onions, meat and herbs.
