Homemade cheese olives stuffed Ziva pastry

בס"ד

This homemade ziva pastry recipe is wonderful and easy to make. It's basically burekas shaped in a horseshoe form that is considered a Yemenite delight.

The recipe is based on the recipe of pastry chef Carine Goren with changes I made, especially to the cheese quantity in the recipe. I decided to make the horseshoe a bit smaller, and so from 600-gram pack of filas pastry, I got 6 ziva pastries.

Don't confuse the filas with phyllo dough. Filas is the Turkish version of puff pastry. It has a higher fat content, and the dough is a bit thinner. You can use puff pastry if you can't find filas in your area. No matter what you do, it will surely come out so tasty.

Homemade ziva cheese pastry/recipe: con delight based on Carine Goren's recipe with changes

I measured using universal cups and spoons

Ingredients for 6 ziva pastries:

200 gram/7 oz. low fat Bulgarian cheese

100 gram/3.5 oz. grated cheese

250 gram/8.8 oz. 5% quark creamy soft cheese like Tnuva

1 cup olives, sliced

600 gram/21 oz. filas pastry or puff pastry (not phyllo), thawed

1 egg

sesame seeds, for decoration

For serving:

grated tomatoes

hard-boiled eggs

Preparation:

1.Preheat oven to 200C/392F, turbo.

2.Mix the cheese filling ingredients in a bowl: Bulgarian cheese, grated cheese, quark cheese, and olives and set aside.

3.Take the filas pastry, spread it on the counter, and cut it into 3 equal squares.

4.Fill a strip of cheese filling close to the edge of the dough. Roll to the middle of the dough (see the video to understand more).

5.Fold the dough into a horseshoe and close the edges.

6.Transfer to a baking tray with baking paper, brush with egg, and sprinkles sesame.

7.Bake for 25 minutes, then 5 more minutes on 220C/428F.