Recipe Review - Bouikos by Honey & Co.

Today we bring you a review of one of Wife of the Vegan Man’s favourite recipes (Mr Vegan Man is not keen on these due to the high cheese content…). The original recipe can be found in the Honey & Co. - Food From the Middle East cook book by Sarit Packer & Itamar Srulovich. There are so many tasty treats to make in this book, but so far bouikos have been the thing we keep making again and again because they are so simple but also so, so good! Even if you are not a baking guru we're confident you’ll still get great results. They are similar to a cheese scone, but more flavoursome and crunchy, and, in our opinion are better eaten on their own as a snack or appetiser, rather than split and

spread with butter like a scone.

Ingredients:

50g cold butter
40g mature Cheddar cheese
40g feta cheese
100g plain flour
a pinch of salt
50ml sour cream (I sometimes use natural yoghurt instead and it works just as well)
1/2 tsp nigella seeds (often I use a little more as I love the flavour of nigella seeds)
2 spring onions, chopped (or 2 tbsp chopped chives)
milk to glaze (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 220°C/200°C fan

As is mentioned in the recipe book, it is very important to use cold ingredients when making the bouikos, similar to if you were making a shortcrust or puff pastry. In order to do this we measure out all of our dry ingredients in advance and leave the butter, cheeses and sour cream in the fridge while doing so to ensure they stay chilled. We're making two batches here, one with nigella seeds and chive (as detailed in the ingredients above), the other with the alternative flavour combination of 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika and a pinch of chilli flakes (instead of nigella and chive). Feel free to experiment with the herbs and spices you add to the basic recipe, we're thinking of trying out ground cumin, fresh coriander and lemon zest soon!  We'll post a blog update with some further flavour combos once we've had a chance to try them out ourselves.

The recipe suggests cutting the cold butter into dice-sized cubes, grating the Cheddar and crumbling the feta. This means the finished result has lovely cheesy pockets and a light, crispy texture when baked.

Once you have all of your ingredients in a large bowl just bring them together with your hands, working the pastry as little as possible, until it has just combined. It’s ok, in fact it’s good, to still be able to see lumps of butter and cheese in your pastry.

Tip out your pastry on to a lightly floured surface and gently shape and flatten it into a 2-3cm thick rectangle. Don’t worry too much if it’s not exact. The traditional shape is into triangles as shown above, but there’s no reason you can’t make them into any shape. We like to make them small to get 12 bouikos out of this amount of pastry, but you could make larger ones, it’s really up to you! You can also freeze the bouikos at this stage to thaw and bake at a later date.

Line a baking tray and place your pastries on top. If you want a nice brown, shiny top to your bouikos, brush with a little milk before baking. Put them on the middle shelf and bake for 10 minutes then reduce the temperature to 200°C/180°C fan, turn the baking tray around and bake for another 6-8 minutes. They should be golden brown when done. 

Wife of the Vegan Man usually likes to ‘quality control’ a couple straight from the oven to make sure they are good (they’re always delicious). They are best eaten the same day while they are still beautifully crunchy and as Mr Vegan Man doesn’t like them WVM doesn’t have to share, although they are a crowd pleaser with our friends, one of whom once exclaimed “You made these?! I thought they were from M&S!” They have a tendency to disappear very quickly!

We absolutely love this recipe and there are many other delicious treats to be found in this wonderful book, please check out Honey & Co.’s website for more details.