Pastizzi's

[Tea]

This recipe uses the maltese cheese.

1lb cheese approx,  4 cheese rounds.
basil, or herbs of choice.
1 egg
puff pastry

Combine cheese egg and herbs well.  Roll out pastry thinly, even the sheets of pastry should be rolled thinner.
Cut a pastry sheet into 9 sections, and place a tsp of cheese mixture squeezing out any residual whey, in the middle of each piece.  Fold over two opposite corners to cover the cheese, and then twist the remaining two corners like a lolly wrapper.  Cut off excess pastry from twist.
Cook in a hot oven or as per pastry instruction, until golden brown.  Serve with your favourite dipping sauce. 
This quantity makes about 60+ pastizzi's.
These can be made ahead of time and frozen, to be thawed when needed.
Yummy

[Cheese Head]

Thanks Tea, they do look, especially as it's breakfast time here in Dallas. Will try when we get back from holiday.

[reg]

very nice Tea, very nice. bet they taste as good as they look. your a champ !

reg

[Tea]

For breakfast??  well I suppose you could.  Here I serve them as an appetizer before a meal.  It doesn't matter how many of these I make, they are always wanting more.
Reg I don't know about being a champ, but I hope you enjoy them none the less.

[DeejayDebi]

Gosh I missed both these recipes - looks grea Tea! I will try this for sure!

[jymbrittain]

My Nana came from Malta to the States. She would spend HOURS making the dough for pastizzi. Sadly, she passe before sharing her recipe. I've tried using phyllo dough and puff pastry in the past with lousy results. However, I didnt try rolling out the puff pastry. Your photo looks a LOT like what Nana made. I'll have to give it a shot! THANKS!!!

[tinysar]

I too had just about given up on ever making anything like the real pastizzi dough - interesting tip about rolling out puff pastry. My favourite savoury pastizi filling is ricotta-and-spinach (there's also one that's made from spiced green split-peas, but I've never figured out a recipe). Ricotta and sour-cherry makes an amazing semi-savoury filling, or you can add a little sugar to the filling (and/or dust the pastries with icing sugar) to make a sweet dessert.

[gabanit]

Visited Malta and Gozo last week, what a graet small island, fascinating country and charming people. The cheese is great and I went to watch it prepared (exactly as explained here) at  Gozo. I love the dry version with black pepper and olive oil' or sun-dry tomatoes.
The Pasizzi is exactly like what we call "Bureka" - I guess it is the same all over the Mediterranean.
I'm going to prepare this cheese from a mixture of goat-sheep milk.