Gibanica, Guzvara: a flaky, savory cheese pie

This is a classic dish among Serbians. Gibanitsa (pronounced GEE-ba-nee-tsa), or guzvara (GUZH-va-ra), as near as I can figure, belongs to a class of savory cheese-and-sheet-pastry dishes known as pita. Others include burek, zavijaca, uvijena pita zeljanica and just pita.

It's made with pastry leaves, stuffed with a creamy, savory, feta-based filling and baked into a golden-brown, flaky pie. Like other custard-based dishes, it's best served at room temperature, and is tastier the day after making. I don't know what it is about baked egg-and-dairy things -- quiche, cheesecake, pumpkin pie -- but they are oddly tasteless when you pull them from the oven. Its got to be something about the protein coils of the egg and milk being tightly wound in the heat, and then relaxing so that the flavor can be released on the tongue, or something like that. If anyone knows, I would love to find out.

For the pastry dough, filo is used in America. That's the paper-thin dough used in baklava. These days, it's not hard to find in the freezer section of supermarkets, as well as European ethnic groceries. But some say a thicker-leaved product called "kore" should be used. The dish is originally more rustic than the delicate sheets of filo make it.

The name "guzvara" is a form of a verb meaning "to crumple together something that's drenched." This refers to the practice of dunking the dough sheets into the filling, and placing them, soggy and loosely crumpled, into the pan, The pan is first lined with flat sheets of pastry. The creation is covered with flat sheets cut to fit the pan. The overhang from the bottom sheets is folded over the top. Then it's baked. Traditionally, it's round in shape and served upside-down.

Years ago, I found a gibanica recipe on the Internet and made it several times. This year, I was distressed to discover that I'd never printed out or saved a copy, and it took me hours to find it again. (Thanks, Donald for suggesting dejanews.com) Here it is. A man named Vojin Janjic in Chattanooga, Tenn., posted it on soc.culture.yugoslavia in 1996! Is the Internet amazing, or what? Vojin's post includes a lot of background detail that's missing in the other recipes I found on the Net. The recipe itself also has cool features that the others lacked.

No other recipe that I found made any mention of the dunking and squashing. All were layered dishes, like baklava. I suspect that "gibanica" can be either layered or else dunked and stuffed, and that "guzvara" is the variation that's specifically dunked and stuffed.

Many used a combination of regular and low-fat cottage cheese (the latter of which is, of course, a fabricated, additive-filled abomination). What's up with that? Some didn't even use feta, or the flavorful Serbian "white cheese" that authentically belongs in the dish. Well then, why even bother?

Another difference in this recipe: sparkling mineral water. I'm not sure what that's for. Since mineral-laden water is base, and leavening agents work by pitting acid against base to form explosively foamy chemical reactions, I speculate it's for puffing up the giba. (Buttermilk + baking soda works like this. Baking powder does, too: it's a combo of acid and base powders that react in the presence of water or heat. (Double-acting baking powder has two combos: a liquid activated and one heat activated.)) But what's the acid? Maybe the tangy feta.

Vojin has you separate the eggs and beat the whites stiff. You fold it into the cheese-egg mix for added puff. Easy enough. He says you can substitute baking powder, but he doesn't recommend it.

For all this attention to leavening, the giba is not especially airy. It's dense and moist. Maybe the idea is that without these steps, it would be leaden. As is, it's just right.

What follows is based on Vojin's post. Some of his instructions were incomplete or admitted guesses. I've written here the specifics that I've found to work, and some clarifications of method. The words below are my own. (Don't you hate when people copy and paste into their Web pages with no attribution?)

3/4 package filo (phyllo) dough
[11/15/2009: This post originally specified a full, one-pound package. But in 2008 I discovered that with less dough you get a prettier, puffier, much cheesier pie. And with 25% less starchy carbs!]

2 cups (2/3 pound) feta cheese, crumbled
1 cup sour cream
1 cup ricotta
3 tablespoons of sparkling mineral water
2 eggs, separated

olive oil for greasing pan

First, prep the baking pan. A clear, deep, round casserole is ideal.

Generously grease the pan with olive oil. Gently press a sheet of filo into the dish, letting the rest hang over the edges. Repeat with another sheet, placed crossways from the first. Repeat for a total of four sheets. Use scissors to trim the overhang all around to a length of about 2".

Take a stack of four filo leaves. Use scissors to trim them into a circle that just fits inside the top of the casserole dish. This will become a lid a little later on. (You do it now so that you don't run short of filo at the end.) Put it aside.

Stir together yolks, feta, sour cream and ricotta. If mixture is stiff, thin with a little milk. Stir in mineral water.

Beat egg whites stiff. Gently fold into cheese mixture.

Dunk a sheet of filo into the mixture. Gently crumple it and place it into the pastry shell you've created. Repeat until all the filling is used. You'll want to keep one hand clean for picking up the filo sheets, or have a friend pass you the sheets.

Place the filo "lid" on top. Fold the overhanging rim of filo over top. Cover with foil.

Bake at 400F. Bottom should appear crunchy and golden brown (this is why a clear dish is handy). The top should also be browned. You can remove the foil to help along the top browning. Don't worry about overcooking, as long as nothing's burning.

After it's cooled a bit, turn upside-down onto a platter. Serve when completely cooled. Also great chilled.

Enjoy! Or, as the Serbs say, "Prijatno!" (PREE-jat-no)