greek breakfast-recipe

Passport & Plate - Bughatsa with sweet cream from Thessaloniki

Greece | Tuesday, March 11, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
for the cream: 500ml of fresh whole milk,100gr of granulated suga
4 tablespoon of corn flour,1 vanilla,2 egg yolks.
1 sheet of flakey pastry
to serve: powdered sugar,cinnamon.

 

How to prepare this recipe
First of all, prepare the cream, as it must be cold, when you will use it. Dissolve the corn flour in a cup of milk. In a bowl, stir the egg yolks. Put the remaining milk in a saucepan and put it over medium heat. Add the sugar, vanilla and the dissolved corn flour whisking constantly. Once the cream begins to thickens, remove from heat and add slowly the stirred egg yolks whisking constantly to prevent curdling. Pour to the heath again and let it cook whisking constantly, until becomes thick. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming. Roll the dough of flakey pastry into a square sheet of 60x60 approximately. Pour the cream in the middle of the sheet and close it over if in the way on an envelope, forming a square of 35x35cm. Carefully, turn the square upside down and put it in a greased baking pan. Greased its surface and spread over some water. Preheat the oven to 250°C. Insert the baking pan in the oven and decrease the temperature to 230°C. Let it cook for 15 minutes and then decrease again the temperature to 200°C. Let it cook till became light brown (for about 20 minutes). Remove it from the oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes. With a sharp knife, cut the bughatsa to square pieces. Spread over powdered sugar and some cinnamon. Serve it still hot.

 

The story behind this recipe
Bughatsa or boghatsa, is a pie, with a puff pastry, with a sweet (crème) or salty (minced meat, cheese or spinach) filling. Its name, but also the recipe, derived from the Turkish bogaça. It comes to Greece, along with the refugees from Asia Minor in the 1922, and became very popular in Northern Greece, and especially in Thessaloniki and Serres. Well, in Thessaloniki, my hometown, bughatsa is the traditional breakfast pie. There are many little shops that work primary in the morning, and serve delicious, freshly backed bughatsa.When we are going home after a night out we make a stop at a bughatsa shop for some breakfast.It's like a tradition for the young volk of Thessaloniki.We usually eat it accompanied with cold chocolate milk.