The Root Cause

Vegetarian Filo Parcels

I had some sad looking Silverbeet in the fridge and I hate wasting food, so I decided to make these vegetarian filo parcels. They were given the two thumbs up by the whole family and Israel even asked what sort of meat was in them. #WINNINGWITHVEG!

Note, these parcels were supposed to be triangles but I just couldn’t get the wrapping to work but they tasted delicious none the less. However, I did find a You Tube video that shows how to fold them to form triangles. In hindsight, I probably should have googled 'how to' before setting out to make them.  

This recipe was inspired by this recipe on the Olive website. 

Ingredients

  • 1 garlic clove
  • ½ brown onion
  • 1 stick celery
  • ½ small sweet potato
  • 1 small zucchini
  • 3-4 good sized mushrooms
  • Bunch of silverbeet (even if it’s half dead), shredded messily
  • 2 tbspns pine nuts
  • 100g Feta crumbled (or use a good sprinkle of Nutritional Yeast flakes if you prefer) 
  • Juice from half a lemon
  • 8 sheets of filo pastry
  • Melted Butter and olive oil (if you wish to use dairy free, replace butter with olive oil)
  • Sesame seeds (optional but they look fancy)

Method

  1. Defrost Filo naturally (ie. leave on the bench wrapped until defrosted)
  2. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees
  3. Blitz the garlic, onion, celery, sweet potato and zucchini in a food processor until diced really small
  4. Warm a good glug of olive oil over medium heat in a frying pan
  5. Sautee blitzed vegetables
  6. Blitz the mushrooms and add them to the sautéed vegetables, cook and stir over medium heat for 1-2 minutes
  7. Add in the silverbeet and cook until it wilts. You may need to add a little extra olive oil or you could even add a good splash of bone broth instead
  8. When the silverbeet is wilted, push the mixture right over to the side of the pan, then add the pine nuts. Sitr them over the heat until they start to brown
  9. Remove the pan from heat and mix the pine nuts through the vegetable mixture
  10. Crumble Feta over the vegetable mix and then squeeze the lemon juice all over
  11. Mix well but not so much that the Feta disintegrates. You still want little chunks of Feta
  12. Melt about a tbspn of butter over medium heat, then remove
  13. Gently lay out 1 sheet of filo and brush it with melted butter
  14. Lay another gently over the top
  15. Slice the filo into 3 strips
  16. Place a heaped tbspn of the mixture on the top of one of the filo strips, then fold It over into a triangle, then fold it again the other way until the whole strip is used
  17. Place on a lined baking tray
  18. Repeat for the remaining mixture 
  19. Brush each one with melted butter and sprinkle with sesame seeds if using
  20. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes or until golden
  21. Allow to cool slightly on tray

Another 2 ways

  1. Add some savoury mince to the mix
  2. Use the mixture and make into a big family sized pie.