Turkey pastilla

Serves: 6
Course: Main Course
Cooking Time: 0 hr 40 mins
Ingredients
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 3 onions, peeled and finely sliced 
  • 1 stick cinnamon
  • ½ tsp dried red chilli flakes 
  • 2 tbsp ras-el-hanout (or similar North African spice mix) 
  • 350g cooked turkey, shredded 
  • 6 pitted dates
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1½ tsp sea salt 
  • 1 packet filo pastry 
  • 250ml water
  • ¼ cup melted butter (or oil/other fat if avoiding dairy) 

1 Heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Saute the onion in a pan with a tablespoon of butter. Lower the heat and place on the lid, leave it to caramelise for 10-15 minutes till the onions become golden.

2 Stir through the salt, pepper,  spice mix, chilli flakes and cinnamon stick. Add the shredded turkey and dates, stirring well to combine. Pour over the water and simmer everything until it becomes rich and thick. Set aside and remove the cinnamon stick. Taste for seasoning.

3 Brush a springform tin with melted butter and lay on two sheets of filo pastry. Brush with butter and add an extra sheet of pastry on top. Lay the sheets so that they criss cross over one another. Use up all the sheets in this way, brushing with butter and layering. Keep one sheet for the top.

4 Add all of the turkey mix to the tin. Lay the final pastry sheet over, brush with butter then gather all of the corners and fold them over on top of one another.

5 Bake for 20-25 minutes till golden.

Lilly Higgins

Lilly Higgins

Lilly Higgins, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a food writer