Chicken-Feta Phyllo Pie
Feta's no-melt texture holds up to all kinds of baking in casseroles, in savory pies, and atop pizzas. For best results use dark-meat chicken in this recipe, which will stay moist during the pie baking.
Ingredients
- 1 fennel bulb
- 1 medium sweet onion
- 1 large red pepper
- 2 garlic cloves
- ½ cup fresh basil leaves
- 3 cups cooked chicken
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ cup chicken broth
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 10 sheets 17 inches x 12 inches phyllo, thawed if frozen
- ½ cup plain dry bread crumbs
- 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
Instructions
- Trim, halve, and thinly slice fennel. Dice onion, chop red pepper, and mince garlic. Coarsely chop basil. Shred chicken into bite-size pieces.
- Heat oven to 400°F. In a large skillet heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, and cook 2 minutes, or until slightly softened. Add fennel and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are lightly golden. Stir in pepper and garlic; cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Transfer vegetable mixture to a large bowl. Add chicken, basil, and chicken broth. Stir to combine.
- To assemble pie, first melt butter. Lightly butter bottom and sides of a round 9-inch springform pan. Place 2 sheets of phyllo in bottom of pan, allowing sheets to overhang on one side. Brush phyllo inside pan generously with butter. Layer remaining sheets in pan, 2 at a time, with sheets overhanging sides, in a spoke-wheel fashion, buttering between the doubled sheets of phyllo.
- Sprinkle bread crumbs in bottom of phyllo-lined pan. Crumble half the feta cheese over bread crumbs. Spoon chicken-vegetable mixture into pan; crumble remaining feta cheese on top. Working quickly so phyllo won’t dry, fold in each layer of overhanging dough to cover pie filling, buttering between doubled sheets. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Let rest 5 minutes in pan before serving.
Notes
For best results use dark-meat chicken in this recipe, which will stay moist during the pie baking.
Tenaya Darlington
Tenaya Darlington teaches food writing at Saint Joseph’s University. She blogs at www.madamefromageblog.com and co-hosts tours with Cheese Journeys. While writing this post, she nursed a gin martini and nibbled a hunk of Pecorino Ginepro.
Jacqueline Plant
Jackie Plant freelances as a recipe developer and editor/food writer for magazines and websites such as Weight Watchers, Family Circle and Culture magazines, while contributing to the development of cookbooks. She has spent much of the past 20 years developing recipes and writing about food for national magazines, such as Parents, Country Living and Woman’s Day Magazine.
