Leek Pita by Ella Mittas

Words, recipe and photos by Ella Mittas and her Yiayia

This homestyle pita recipe comes straight from my Yiayia - I watched as she made it, taking comprehensive notes, since she never uses a recipe. We have this on the table for every big event, especially Greek Easter, when it's served abundantly, alongside spit-roasted meat, tzatziki, and Greek salad. It’s made all the more delicious by how time-consuming it is to make. This recipe is for a filling we have most often-leek. 

Ingredients 

For the pastry:

4 cups plain flour
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
240 ml warm water
250 g salted butter, melted 
1 tsp flake salt

For the filling:

4 leeks, sliced finely  
200 g Greek feta 
2 cups mixed mint, dill, parsley and spring onions, chopped
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 
flake salt and pepper to taste 

Method

1. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the olive oil and rub it into the flour. Slowly add one cup of warm water and completely combine it with the flour mixture, so that it forms a soft, workable dough that doesn’t stick to your hands or the bowl. You may need to add extra water to make the dough soft; it should be very pliable. 
2. Turn the dough onto a kitchen bench and knead it for one to two minutes, flouring the bench a little if needed, until the dough is soft and smooth. Divide the dough into eight balls, cover with a damp towel and leave to rest at room temperature for half an hour. 
3. While the dough is resting, prepare your filling. If your leeks are large, cut in half lengthwise, and then into one-centimetre slices. If the leeks are small and tender, just cut them into slices. Wash them well by submerging them in water. 
4. Next, blanch the leeks. Fill a medium-sized pot with enough water to cover the leeks, salt the water as you would for pasta, and bring to the boil. If they all won’t fit at once, do them in batches. Cook the leeks until just cooked through and tender; this will only take a minute or so. Drain the leeks well. 
5. Mix the feta, herbs and oil through the leeks and season with lemon, salt and pepper. 
6. Start to roll out your dough. Yiayia uses a round 34-centimetre tepsi pan to make her pita, but you can make yours in a large baking tray or even an oven tray lined with baking paper. She also uses a traditional long, rounded stick as her rolling pin, which makes this a lot easier to roll, if you can get your hands on one. But if not, any rolling pin is fine too. 
7. Using a rolling pin, roll each ball of dough out to about 15 centimetres across. Next, you’re going to sandwich the rounds into twos, brushing the inside surfaces generously with melted butter before you do it so that it makes a generous layer in between the sandwich. 
8. Now start to roll out these sandwiched rounds. Yiayia does this by wrapping the layers around her rolling stick and pressing gently, and she rolls out the dough. With a handled rolling pin, you can start from the centre on the round and press out gently to begin stretching the dough. It will feel awkward at first, but soon enough the layers will come together, and it will roll easily. 
9. Roll out until the dough is paper-thin, or as thin as you can get it without tearing it. 
10. If you’re not using baking paper, grease the pan you’re using well with butter before placing your first layer over it. 
    
    
    
11. Brush the layer generously with butter before placing another one on top of it. 
12. Again, butter generously before adding in your mixture, spreading the mix evenly over the entire tray. 

13. Top the mix with the next two layers, brushing both with butter again, before scoring the top. I find this helps with cooking. I score the top layer into serving-sized squares.
    
    
    

14. Bake at 180°C for 45 minutes to one hour until golden brown; check that the bottom is nice and brown too.