Chicken Pastilla (or Something Like It)

 

I have had filo dough in my freezer FOR EVER. Sometime back in August, our fridge died, so we took everything we had to a neighbor's, bought a smallish temporary replacement fridge, moved everything back into it, then had a week long power outage so moved everything back to the neighbor's, then moved everything back to the smallish fridge, then FINALLY got our new fridge and the filo dough made every one of those journeys. 

It took months, but I finally found a recipe worthy of it. Chicken pastilla can be Moroccan, but I sort of mixed up a few recipes and that was that. I'm an absolute mess working with filo but as I kept telling the kids, it's going to taste delicious, who care how it looks.

CHICKEN PASTILLA (more or less)

inspired by:  the Zahav cookbook, The Delicious Crescent and From the Grapevine both of whom have much more authentic recipes but I made do with what I had on hand, definitely look at Delicious Crescent for a proper how-to with the filo.

INGREDIENTS:

1lb ground turkey
1 onion sliced
.5 t turmeric

1 t cumin

1 t coriander

.5 t ground black pepper

1 t cinnamon

1.5 t grated fresh ginger

1 T brown sugar

.25 C almonds, roasted, roughly chopped

.25 C dates, chopped finely

3 eggs (at least? I might try 4 next time) whisked well

1 package filo dough (approximately 20 sheets)

6 + T olive oil (for the filo!)

confectioner's sugar for dusting

DIRECTIONS:

Thaw the filo dough on the counter, but don't let it go too far, if you take it from the plastic and leave it out too long it will dry out.

Preheat your oven to 350F. In a large pan, heat a small amount of olive oil (1T) and cook the onions until just soft and translucent (5-10min).  Add the ground turkey and brown it. Once all the pink is gone, add all the spices and the brown sugar. Cook until done, adding a T or two of chicken stock or water if it appears dry. When the turkey is fully cooked, remove from heat to a separate bowl and mix in the almonds, dates and eggs.  I made the turkey ahead and added the eggs right before I was ready to assemble the pie.

Grab a cast iron pan or large ovenproof skillet. Paint the bottom and sides with olive oil. Begin assembling the pie. You'll use 9 sheets on this first section. Paint your first sheet of filo with olive oil and then place it in the pan, so that one edge is pulled to the bottom inside of the pan and the other hangs over the side of the pan. Continue placing the sheets like this, after basting with oil, overlapping so they go all the way around. It may be a complete mess, mine certainly once. Dump half the chicken mixture in and fold all of those outside sections back over the pie like you're tucking it in. Start again and repeat the process with the next 9 sheets of filo. Really please go to Delicious Crescent and see how she does it. Dump the rest of the chicken mixture in. Fold the filo over again and add the final two sheets to the top. Make sure it's all nice and olive oily. 

Pop it in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the filo is golden brown and crispy. Remove from oven and very carefully cover the pan with a plate and flip the whole thing onto the plate. Dust the top with confectioner's sugar. Slice and serve!