Albania (week 2, 1-Mar-13)

Albanian Vegetable Pie and Mixed Vegetables

Rectangular tin for the pie accompanied with delicious mixed veggies.

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Recipe – Spinach Pie (Albanian Name: Byrek me spinaq) Servings: 4-6.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup oil, preferably olive oil
• 1 1/2 packets (or about 30) pastry leaves (Filo Dough)
• 1 1/2 pounds 700 grams spinach, chopped
• 1 cup diced feta cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions shallots
• 2 eggs
• salt, half teaspoon
• (NOTE: A medium-sized, round baking pan is recommended because it’s more authentic but any medium-sized baking pan will do).

Cooking Instructions:

Brush the baking pan with some of the oil, and start laying the pastry leaves inside. First, lay two leaves, sprinkle or brush with oil, then lay two other leaves, and repeat the procedure until half of the leaves are laid. Make sure that they cover the pan by hanging them about one inch over the edges of the pan.

Sprinkle spinach with salt, then mix well by hand. Add the feta cheese, oil, onions, eggs and salt, and spread this mixture over the already laid pastry leaves. Finish by covering the spinach with the rest of the pastry leaves repeating the first-half procedure and then roll the hanging edges of the bottom leaves over the pie (think of a pizza crust), sprinkle top with oil and bake moderately at 3501_F for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve hot, accompanied with buttermilk, or beaten yogurt, thinned down in cold water or with chilled stewed prunes. Enjoy it.

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Recipe – Main dish of mixed vegetables – Turli perish Servings: 4

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs 1 kilogram various vegetables (peppers, eggplant, okra, zucchini, potatoes, etc)
• 1/2 cup oil, divided
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup peeled chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• Salt
• Pepper

Cooking Instructions:

After cutting off inedible tips of vegetables, wash and slice them into 1-inch squares. Sauté vegetables in half of the oil and remove them from the frying pan. Sauté onion and tomatoes in the remaining oil, and season with parsley, salt, and pepper. Put everything in a stock pot with a cup of water, cover tightly, and simmer until almost all moisture has cooked away. Serve hot, accompanied by steak, meatballs, or any other main dish.

Recipe with thanks from www.albaniantranslators.com/recipes.html plus our variations.

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Comments by the clan

Score average overall

Ooops, we forgot to get comments and rating on this. I will try retrofit this by asking all, whom I think attended.

Adam Polish taxi dude, and ship builder

Dindy Writer, educator and composer

Jim Rock biter (Geologist), database analyst and programmer at HSD

Peter Programmer at HSD

Robin Retired public serpent engineer

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Left overs

All veggies gone, had the remainder of the pie on saturday night.

Extra photos