Greek Hand Pies filled with Beef (Kalitsounia)

Print this recipe here: https://www.dimitrasdishes.com/cretan-kalitsounia-filled-with-beef/

Ingredients
For the Dough:

3 and 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup olive oil
1 and 1/2 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
The Filling:

2 pound ground beef
1/4 cup olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, grated
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
a handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped
Optional filling:
raisins
toasted pine nuts
Instructions
Make the Dough: In the bowl of a tabletop mixer add the oil, water, vinegar, and salt and whisk together. Add the flour and knead with the dough hook attachment for 5 minutes or until smooth. Add 1-2 tablespoons flour if the dough is still sticky and knead until smooth. Dust with flour and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Set aside to rest for 30-60 minutes at room temperature.

Make the Beef Filling: Add the olive oil and onion to a skillet. Cook over medium heat until golden and softened. Add the garlic and warm through for a few seconds until fragrant. Add the ground beef and season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium-heat until browned and fully cooked. Add some water if needed. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. Garnish with fresh parsley ad set aside to cool. Add the pine nuts and raisins if desired.

Assemble the Kalitsounia:

Divide the dough into 8 equal portions.

Lightly flour the work surface and roll out each piece of dough to around 17 by 7-inch strips.

Alternatively, do not divide the dough and just roll it out to 1/8-inch thick and using a round cookie cutter cut 4-inch rounds.

Place a tablespoon of filling either in each round or as I did in the video. (see here). 4 tablespoons of dough spaced out on the long strip.

Fold the bottom hald of the strip over the filling and cut out the shapes using a pastry cutter. Using a fork press the edes together to seal and place the pis on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and lightly dusted with flour.

Pierce the tops of the kalitsounia with a toothpick.

Freezer Instructions: Once the kalitsounia are assembled they can be frozen. Chill in the freezer until frozen solid and then transfer them to freezer-safe bags/containers. They will keep fresh in the freezer up to 3 months. Thaw and fry in oil until golden.

Fry the Kalitsounia: Add light olive oil to a skillet and heat over medium-high heat until the oil reaches 165 °F. Fry the kalitsounia in the oil for 3 minutes. Flip them over halfway through to evenly cook on both sides. Transfer them to a plate lined with paper towels. Serve with tzatziki. Kali Orexi!

Music Used:
Greek Sun Time (With Intro)
ITEM ID: 66582698
By: tonyanthony

Its All Greek
ITEM ID: 84456733
By: LowNotes

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Hi everyone yasas to another episode of dimitra’s dishes today we’re going to be making beef filled kitun kitun are little hand pies that we make on the island of CIT where my family is from in the country of beautiful Greece the pastry is homemade The Filling is

Homemade we’re going to be filling them like I said with a beef filling and they’re going to be so delicious they freeze well they’re perfect for feeding a crowd if you want to make something delicious for your holiday table or if you’re entertaining or if you have to

Bring something somewhere this recipe is it everyone’s going to love it let’s get started so we’re going to begin by making the dough and the dough is super simple these are just such basic ingredients in the bowl of a tabletop mixer that we’re going to add the hook

Attachment to in a little bit I’m going to add 1 and 1/2 cups of lukewarm water about 2 tbspoon of vinegar I’m using red wine vinegar but you could use white vinegar if you like I’m also going to add a half a teaspoon of salt 1/4 cup of

Olive oil and 3 and 1/2 cups of flour I might add some more flour later on if the dough is going to be sticky I’m going to add the dough hook attachment to my mixer and this is going to need for about 5 minutes or until the dough

Is nice and soft and tacky mine was a little bit on the sticky side so I did go in and I added another half cup of allpurpose flour and I let it knead until all of the flour was incorporated I’m also going to dust it with a little

Bit of flour on top toss the dough in there just so that way it’s nice and coated and I’m going to cover my bowl with a clean kitchen towel and this is going to sit aside at room temperature for about 30 minutes you can leave it

For 30 minutes or or an hour that’s just going to let the dough rest and it’s going to be very light and easy to roll out so while the dough is resting you can make your filling we’re making a beef filling now if you like samosas you’re going to love this because the

Filling is sort of similar except I gave it a little bit of a Mediterranean touch we’re going to begin with one onion so go ahead and finally chop the onion and add it to a skillet with about a/4 of a cup of olive oil and a little pinch of

Of salt and cook this over medium heat until it’s nice and soft and golden next I have four garlic cloves that are grated I’m going to add those and just warm them through until they’re fragrant that takes about 20 30 seconds or so you don’t want to cook this too much because

Then garlic can burn next I’m going to add 2 lounds of ground beef you can do half beef and half lamb that would really deepen the flavor and make it even more delicious but I had all I had was ground beef with 2 lbs of ground beef you’re going to have extra filling

Left over and you’re going to love that anyway cuz you could stir it in anything and put it over salad or in your stews or you could eat it with eggs in the morning it’s it it’s keeps well in the refrigerator but anyway go ahead and add

The meat at this point and season it with salt and pepper break it up and cook it for about 15 20 minutes or until it’s fully cooked mix everything all up then chop up some fresh parsley about a handful or so I don’t measure the more

The better if you ask me cuz the greens really make it nice and fresh and delicious so go ahead and add those in off of the heat give everything a mix taste the filling at this point and if it needs more seasoning you can definitely add it now I would have added

A little bit of cinnamon if if it was up to me maybe a qu to half a teaspoon of cinnamon the time that I added the meat in but some of my kids really don’t like cinnamon flavor in the meat sauce so I’m leaving it out but if you want it to be

More fragrant you can add the cinnamon if your family likes it you could add some more flavors to this if you want crushed red pepper flakes a little bit of coriander some cumin powder you can make this as flavorful as you want and if you have some leftover frozen green

Peas those would be really good in there some chopped up potatoes would be great too you can add whatever you want to this I’m keeping it simple except I’m going to take half of the mixture out and I’m going to put in a little bowl because I’m going to make some of these

With the flavors of my mom’s Thanksgiving stuffing when she makes Thanksgiving stuffing she makes it with a ground beef sauce that has pine nuts and raisins and it’s so comforting and there’s also rice in it we’re not not putting rice in these but I did take a

Little handful of pine nuts and I toasted them over medium heat for a few minutes until they became nice and golden and I’m going to add those to to the portion of meat sauce that I have on the side and a little handful of golden

Raisins as well and mix it all up and this is going to be for half of them and the plain is going to be for the other half because my kids don’t like raisins in their cunia now we’re going to put it all together but before we do we have to

Roll the dough out so divide the dough into eight equal portions and you could Roll It Out by hand like I’m doing with a rolling pin or if you have a pasta roller that attaches to your KitchenAid mixer that’s going to come in handy I just didn’t feel like cleaning one extra

Thing this dough rolls out really easily just lightly flour your work surface and take each portion of dough and roll it out about 17 to 18 in long and about 6 to 8 in wide and then you’re going to take a tablespoon of the filling of the

Meat filling and you’re going to put it on the top portion of the dough each strip can make four little pies so put four tablespoons spaced out evenly and then you’re going to take the bottom portion of the dough and fold it over that filling press it tightly so that

Way they stick together the edges stick together and then I have this little cutter I don’t even know what it’s called this a little cutter that has a decorative Edge and I’m going to use it to cut out the little kitun into this shape that we usually cut it in if you

Don’t have this cutter you don’t have to worry about it you can use a pizza cutter or even a 3 in in diameter cookie cutter whatever you use to C to cut these just make sure you cut them so that way they are these beautiful galuna

Shapes you’re going to want to put a piece of parchment paper on a baking pan or in Grease We like to do this on towels but I feel like parchment paper makes the clean up so much easier I dust a little bit of all-purpose flour on top

So that way the pastries don’t stick to the paper and then I just transfer them onto the pan as they’re made before I move on what I want to say is it is a good idea to roll the dough out as as long as possible because you’re going to

See that if once you get it to the 17 in in length when you start to assemble the pastries the dough kind of shrink so roll it out a little bit longer than you would think so that way you get it at the right size otherwise you won’t have

Enough space and then you’ll have to roll out scraps so many times and the more you roll out the scraps the harder it is they get kind of tough so that’s a little tip now once you’re done assembling the pies you’re going to see that they’re not all shaped as nicely as

They should be now if my mom would see some of these edges she she tells me don’t make the edges pointy so they don’t burn I don’t know I don’t know how to do it as perfect as she does if you follow me on Instagram anytime I’m

Visiting her in New York I’m usually helping her restock her freezer and we make these together so follow me and you’ll see it in my stories but anyway once they’re sitting here in the pan they are very easy to reshape so you can flatten them out a little bit and pull

Them to make them a little bit longer so that way they all have that beautiful kitun shape that we know and love and then you can take a fork and just pinch the edges together to give it that beautiful decorative Edge the important thing is to pierce some holes on top the

Fork doesn’t do a really good job so I like to take a toothpick then I just Pierce some holes on top so that way when they’re frying they don’t burst open the steam has a place to escape we’re going to fry these now so before I

Move on to how we’re going to fry them I’ll say that these freeze beautifully so at this point you can freeze them and once they’re solid and chilled you can transfer them into freezer safe bag or containers and they will keep fresh in the freezer for 1 to two months and then

You can take them out they throw out really quickly and you could just fry them or bake them I don’t recommend baking them or cooking these in the air fryer I mean if you’re really worried about frying things you can they just won’t be as delicious the the dough will

Be a little bit harder because there’s no fat in it there’s no oil in it so even if you brush oil on top they won’t taste as good as they taste fried so live a little every now and then this is not a main course this is an appetizer

Fry them and just have one right moderation is key but anyway I have some light olive oil heating in a cast iron skillet I like using cast iron because it regulates the temperature well and it’s over medium high heat I started off on medium high heat just to get the oil

Nice and hot you want it to be between 350 to 360° fah and then as you’re cooking them you’re going to want to reduce the heat to like a medium so that way they don’t burn because the longer the oil heats the hotter it’s going to

Get right and you don’t want to burn them these only take three minutes in the oil that’s it halfway through frying you can turn them over flip them over so that way they’re golden on both sides and then carefully take them out and drain the excess oil then transfer them

To a plate that’s lined with paper towels to absorb all of the excess oil and that’s it they’re ready to serve these taste delicious with zad ziki sauuce on the side maybe some Harissa or marinara sauce all three things go with them time for the taste test you see how

Crispy that pastry is and the filling is just Perfect so delicious perfectly cooked the the pastry is nice and light and Airy and crisp at the same time you can definitely reheat these in the air fryer if you want to reheat them let me know how you’re making them in the comment section down below you can head on over

To the website to print this recipe I also have the spinach version of these and the cheese version of these which I’ll post down below thank you so so much for spending time with me today I’ll see you all next time yes us