This was a fun recipe to cook up on a relaxing Friday evening for weekend snacking. The problem you will have, is that these won’t last past that relaxing Friday evening. Be prepared to make a few batches!
This was adapted from a recipe featured on Nadia G’s cooking show Bitchin’ Kitchen. I didn’t have all of the ingredients, so I combined some of my favorite ingredients to make this yummy sweet.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup sugar
- 14 dried apricots, chopped
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons strawberry jam
- 1 vanilla bean
- pinch ground cinnamon
- 3 sheets phyllo dough
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 4 ounces goat cheese
- handful crushed slivered almonds
- 2 sheets crispy prosciutto
METHOD
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
SYRUP
Bring water and sugar to a boil, then simmer over medium heat. Add dried apricots and reduce to low heat. Add the balsamic vinegar, strawberry jam, vanilla bean (seeds scraped from pod and added to pot, and pod thrown in), and cinnamon. Simmer for 10 minutes until it has a nice syrup consistency, strain the syrup, setting aside the apricot pieces. Throw vanilla pod away. You will be left with an amber- colored syrup with visible vanilla bean seeds.
CRISPY PROSCIUTTO
Take 2 pieces of prosciutto and place them in a frying pan. You don’t need to add any oil. Fry them on medium heat until they crisp up so you can crumble them over the top of your purses.
PHYLLO PURSES
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Stack the 3 sheets of phyllo dough, brushing with melted butter in between. Be sure to get the corners as they will dry out. Once stacked, cut the phyllo sheets into thirds lengthwise using a pastry wheel. Cut the goat cheese into small 1/2″ rounds, and using your hands, form them into balls. Add a few pieces of the reserved apricot pieces. THEN, fold the phyllo dough over the goat cheese and apricots where the bottom right meets the top left of the mixture. This is the first fold of your purse, or triangle. Continue to fold the dough back and forth until you reach the end of the dough and have a nice looking triangle. They don’t have to be perfect. If your purses look like logs, that’s ok. Brush once more with melted butter just to seal it all up, and put them in the oven for 18 minutes or so. Note: I actually cut these into thirds and then I cut those in half, so that I could make 6 total purses. The original recipe calls for only making 3.
ASSEMBLE
When your purses are done, let them cool a bit, then place them on a serving tray. Drizzle with the syrup, and sprinkle with crushed almonds and prosciutto.
OPTIONS
1) There will be more syrup than you need. I used it the next day for a baked salmon. I just poured the syrup onto a large salmon filet and baked it for 30 minutes. It was yummy!
