dill and Cheese pastry (mayali pogaca)

Ingredients:

2 eggs (one egg yolk speared brushing on top)
1 C and 1/8 Tbsp. (200 ml) warm milk
1 C and 1/8 Tbsp warm water
1 C olive oil or avocado oil (I mixed 1/2 olive oil and 1/2 C butter)
10 gm dry yeast
4 Tbsp. sugar
5 1/2 C Flour (6 cups if necessary)
Optional : you may add 1/2 C chopped fresh dill in the dough for a better taste.

 For cheese filling
1 Lb. fatty feta cheese (Bulgarian cheese) crumbled
1/2 C chopped parsley
1 egg
Mix all filing ingredients
Set aside
OR

For meat filling
1 Tbsp. olive oil
300 gm ground round
1 small onion
1 small tomato
A few sweet green chili pepper
Salt, pepper
Chop onion small dices
Heat the oil in a flat pan
Sauté the onions
Add small chopped tomato
Add small chopped chili peppers
Add salt and pepper
Sauté altogether a few more minutes on low heat
Take off the heat
Set aside.

Making:
In a large deep bowl, bring together following ingredients
Egg whites and 1 yolk, all liquids, yeast and sugar
Mix well until yeast dissolve
Add salt into the flour in advance. Mix well
Add the flour gradually and mix all by spatula gently
When the dough starts forming leave the spatula aside and knead the dough for a few minutes until all sticky parts leave the side of the bowl.
Cover the bowl with saran wrap and place the bowl in a dark place with no air circulation.
Rest about an hour. With a good fresh yeast dough may rise twice in size.
Transfer the dough on to baking block -without getting rid of the puffiness-
And gently knead with a help of little amount of four.
You must have soft but not sticky dough.
Divide the dough in to 25 pieces. And shape in a small ball.
Just with your finger roll one small dough ball into a 3–4-inch diameter circle.
And place a Tbsp. or little more desired filling.
Repeat this process until all 25 pieces filled and shaped a ball like pastry.
And place the pastries on to baking sheet.
Mix an egg yolk (that you speared at the beginning) with a Tbsp. olive oil and brush on each pastry,
Sprinkle on pastries either Nigel seeds or sesame seeds.
Cover the sheet with another tray and rest the pastries for another 15-20 minutes.
Bake in 350 F (180 C) for 20minutes.
Note: these pastries may be frozen after they cool off, if you will not consume right away.
I put them in a Ziplock and whenever I need I defrost them in room temperature and keep in 120F oven.
It will be like just fresh out of the oven.

3/17/2025

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