Serbian Dessert
GIBANICA
(Cheese Pie)
INGREDIENTS
6 eggs
2 cups cottage cheese
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup sour cream
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter
1 pound filo (phyllo) dough
SPECIAL UTENSILS
9″-x-13″ baking pan or casserole dish
Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Separate eggs. Beat egg whites until fluffy. Add egg yolks, cottage cheese, feta cheese, and sour cream to mixing bowl. Blend thoroughly with whisk or fork. Fold in egg whites. Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Melt butter using low heat. Brush pan with 2 tablespoons melted butter.
Place 2 sheets filo dough in pan. Drizzle 2 tablespoons melted butter over filo. Spread ¼ cup egg/cheese mix on top. Gently crinkle 2 filo sheets into accordion-like balls. Dip accordion balls into cheese/egg mix from bowl until lightly coated. Place coated accordion-like filo balls over flat filo sheets in pan. Repeat until you have 2 filo sheets remaining. Top with remaining 2 filo sheets. Brush top filo sheets with remaining butter and cheese/egg mix. Bake in over at 360 degrees for 50 minutes or until top is reddish, golden brown. Serve warm or let cool.
TIDBITS
1) This recipe use eggs. When cooking, you really want eggs that stay put. It’s so hard to hold onto eggs that move around. Dancing eggs are the bane of chefs. Cooks everywhere drop thousands of dancing eggs every day. But how do you know if the eggs in the carton are motionless or prone to dance? After all, they can’t move in the carton. Study carefully the photos below for signs.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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