Kreopitakia

Thank you to my greek cooking instructors Jim and Barbara Pappas for the original recipe, you should really go check out one of their classes if you live in Winnipeg.

Kreopita(kia) are greek phyllo wrapped beef pastries that make for a quick and easy appetizer. While they're a bit fiddly, they aren't something you see too often at a party. Similar to most greek beef dishes in flavouring, they are quite nice in bite sized portions. These are of course closely related to other "pitas" such as spanakopita/spanakopitakia Tiropita/Tiropitakia and Psaropita/Psaropitakia.

Image Note: Images are from tiropitakia folding session but the same ideas apply.

Note: Please excuse the deplorable kitchen, this is what I've been stuck in for 8 months and I'm finally leaving in two weeks.

Yield

Yield depends on how you fold them, one recipe produces 3-4 dozen party sized ones for me usually.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs of reg. Ground Beef
• 1/2 cup white onion (chopped)
• pinch or oregano/parsley
• X cloves of garlic (to taste)
• Salt to taste
• Freshly ground Pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp of tomato paste mixed with 3 tbsp of water
• Phyllo pastry (try to get a box that looks fairly new, this box was incredibly dry and a pain in the ass to work with. Let it thaw in the fridge a few hours before trying to work with it.)
• Some melted butter and a pastry brush.

Method

• Note that the folding method is the same for all these greek triangles and only the filling differs. I'll be putting up recipes for the other 4 fillings I've have soon.

Filling

• Saute onion until just about translucent then add the garlic and sizzle for a bit. Toss in your oregano and parsley.

• Brown the meat, adding tomato paste mixture and salt and pepper.

• Spoon off the fat.

Folding

• Preheat oven to 325F

• Give yourself lots of room to work with on a pastry sheet or the like. I just sold my kitchen table yesterday so I'm stuck on the counter for these, god I hate this kitchen.

• While working with phyllo, take one sheet to work with long side facing you and gently lay a slightly moistened cloth over the rest of the pastry to keep it from drying out.

• Using a knife slice your phyllo sheet into equal sections. For appetizer/snack sized tiros 6 equal sections work best. If you want to make meal sized ones, I suggest placing down a double or triple layer of phyllo depending on thickness and just halving the sheets.(that much filling will leak otherwise)

• Taking your strip of phyllo, brush a little bit of melted butter over the edges then place a dollop of filling (not too much) and begin the folding process.

• Taking one bottom corner, fold it to create a triangle like so.

• Then fold upwards to square off the end again, before taking the other bottom corner and folding it to create a triangle again.

• Keep folding until you've used the whole strip then put aside.

• Repeat until filling or phyllo runs out.

• Gently brush all finished triangles with a bit of butter.

• Bake at 325 for 20 minutes until golden brown. (watch carefully as they burn and dry out easily)

Serving

These can be served straight from the oven or made the night before and reheated later.

Serve as a party snack or as an appetizer before a feast of Moussaka or Souvlaki and Greek Lemon Potatoes