Eggplant-Feta Turnovers in a Greek Yogurt Pastry Crust

I really adore baking hand-held pastries, from turnovers to mini-pies to cream puffs. And when I received an invitation to a potluck, I thought turnovers might be an appropriate offering, as an easily portable, not-so-messy dish. I always worry about finding the careful balance between original and overly-advernturous, particularly when making something for people I don't know, so I decided to make an eggplant-feta filling. Plus eggplant is fairly summery, and, well, it's a summery day. So I took the filling from these Eggplant-Phyllo cups in an Everyday Food mag. They look adorable; little purses of smooth eggplant and salty feta, spiced with coriander and all baked up in a muffin-tin. Despite the recipe's appeal in its original form, I really wanted to make turnovers, and didn't have phyllo anyway. So I found a cream cheese pastry dough recipe in my King Arthur Baking Book, substituted greek yogurt for the cream cheese, and made turnovers.

I made the pastry dough while th eggplant was roasting in the oven, letting it firm us per the directions in the fridge for a bit.The result was a lovely, pliable dough. Towards the end of shaping the turnovers the dough became a bit too pliable; I might keep half the dough in the fridge until you're ready to use it, to avoid it getting too soft. I didn't crimp the pastries in the end because it was so soft.

But they baked up very well without exploading, which was exciting; more often than not, my calzones, turnovers and other handheld pastries tend to fall apart in the oven. I ended up taking them to an outdoor potluck, and they held up very nicely in transit to Louisville's Waterfront Park.

Eggplant-Feta Turnovers with Greek-Yogurt Pastry Crust

Ingredients for pastry:

1/4 cup greek yogurt

8 TBSP (1 stick) butter, room temperature

1 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for cutting board

---Using a fork, mix together yogurt, butter, sugar and salt until smooth. Add flour and mix until a loose ball has formed; use your hands to bring the dough together. Shape into a ball and place in the fridge (either in the bowl or wrapped in plastic) for thirty minutes.

Ingredients for filling:

1 large eggplant, halved lengthwise

olive oil

salt and pepper

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/2 tsp ground coriander

2 TBSP dried basil

---Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly brush cut sides of eggplant with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place eggplant, cut side down, on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until tender, 20 minutes, then remove from oven and reduce heat to 375 degrees F. When cool enough to handle, scrape flesh from skin and roughly chop. Transfer to medium bowl and mix together with feta, coriander and basil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To Assemble:

---Lightly grease or line with parchment one baking sheet. Remove dough from fridge and separate into eight pieces of equal size. Using hands or a rolling pin, shape dough into a square on a floured cutting board.

---Scoop 2 TBSP-worth of filling onto corner of pastry. Fold pastry in half, over filling, and press edges together to seal. Place on baking sheet. Repeat with seven other pieces of dough.

---Bake 30 minutes or until pastry is light golden brown. Transfer to rack to cool.