Eliopita are Cypriot olive pastries made either as a bread, as turnovers or a pie, to accompany a cup of coffee or tea.
Niki Louca from My Greek Kitchen shares her favourite recipe with The Greek Herald. You can follow her on Instagram @mygreekkitchen for more!
Note: The following recipe is vegan and makes seven logs.
Ingredients:
Dough:
- 3 cups plain flour.
- 2 cups self-raising flour.
- 2 cups orange juice (preferably freshly squeezed).
- 1 cup olive oil.
Filling:
- Approximately 1 ¼ kg pitted black olives.
- 5 large brown onions.
- 1 ½ heaped tbsp dried mint.
Method:
- Mix the dough ingredients all together and knead to a soft dough. I usually use a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. Let dough rest while preparing the filling.
- Using a food processor, chop all the onions till finely diced. Do the same with the olives but not as finely as the onions.
- Combine onions, olives and dried mint together and set aside.
- Divide your dough into seven equal portions. Roll each portion to approximately 40 x 30 centimetres rectangular shape. Doesn’t have to be perfectly rectangle and exact measurement – but that’s roughly the size we want.
5. Drain olive mixture over a sieve – we don’t want any liquid as this will make your dough soggy.
6. Divide olive mixture between the seven portions and make sure they are evenly spread out on each one. We want the olive mixture to cover the dough. Roll into a long sausage roll.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 160C- 170C fan force. Keep your oven temperature on the lower side as we want the olive bread to cook all the way through to the centre. Once they’re a deep golden-brown colour remove from oven and cool on racks. You can freeze them wrapped in foil once fully cooled up to 6 months.
