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Cheese Filled Triangles

"The only tricky part of this recipe is working with phyllo, and once you get the hang of it, it's fun. Sometimes you get a bad batch of phyllo that rips and tears easily, so I always buy an extra just in case. I have frozen these before baking. Just add a few minutes to cooking time when you cook them in a frozen state. I have also doubled this recipe for large parties."

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Why it works: Feta cheese and cottage cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 20 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

The recipe

36 pastries
Prep45 min
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

  2. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, add the onion and cook for 5 minutes until soft. Let it cool slightly.

  3. In a bowl, mix the cooled onion, squeezed-dry spinach, crumbled feta, cottage cheese, beaten egg and salt until evenly combined.

  4. Stack the phyllo sheets, keeping under a damp towel the ones you are not using. Cut the stack into strips about 2.5 inches (6 cm) wide.

  5. Brush one phyllo strip lightly with melted butter. Place a spoonful of filling on one end, fold a corner over to form a triangle, and keep folding along the strip.

  6. Repeat with the remaining phyllo and filling, placing the triangles on the prepared baking sheet and brushing each with more melted butter.

  7. Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown and the filling is hot throughout, reaching 160°F (71°C) in the center, then serve warm.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Feta cheese + cottage cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Olive + feta cheesetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  3. Spinach + feta cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cottage cheese + buttertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Onion + feta cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, spinach, feta cheese, cottage cheese, egg, phyllo dough, butter):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Cucumberabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, spinach, feta cheese, cottage cheese, egg, phyllo dough, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).