Corn & sour cream filo pie

December 25, 2025

   

My mum, brother and aunty visited our place for Christmas in 2025. They don't expect anything fancy of us but are always very appreciative when Michael and I cook. The weather was right for a picnic at the nearest park so we planned a menu that we could feasibly take down there. The centrepiece was a filo pie stuffed with charred corn kernels, spring onions, feta and sour cream.

I adjusted the recipe to suit my style. I thought, mid-summer, that fresh corn would be much more fun than canned. I sautéed the spring onions, instead of mixing them into the filling uncooked, because I prefer my onions tender. Dragging the pastry sheets through the thick filling seemed unwieldy, so I just layered up the filo and filling in turns as I'm accustomed to. And I used the whole box of filo, instead of the fraction suggested in the recipe, for convenience.

This pie was worthy of the occasion, standing tall and golden with a creamy and gently savoury centre. We didn't mind spilling pastry shards all over the blanket. The pie was well teamed with a pomegranate molasses-dressed tomato salad and roasted asparagus topped with capers and almonds. We followed up with bienenstich for dessert at home. 

Corn & sour cream pie

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi in The Guardian)

the kernels from 2 cobs corn

300g spring onions, finely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 eggs

300g sour cream

200g feta, crumbled into 2-3cm pieces

100ml milk

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

salt and pepper

spray oil

375g box filo pastry

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

100g baby cornichons

Place a medium frying pan over medium-hot heat and add the corn kernels. Stir them only occasionally, allowing them to char. Before they properly burn, transfer the kernels to a large bowl. Keep the heat in the pan going, and sauté the spring onions in a bit of oil until tender; when they're ready, turn off the heat and add them to the corn in the bowl. Beat the eggs and pour them onto the corn; add the sour cream, feta, milk, baking powder, salt and pepper, stirring everything together until well combined.

Preheat an oven to 200°C and line a springform cake dish with baking paper. Unpack the filo pastry and roll it up in a lightly damp tea towel. Spray oil into the cake dish and build up some filo sheets to cover the base and sides. Spoon in about half of the corn filling, then scrunch up some more pastry sheets and spray them with a bit of oil in between; repeat with the remaining corn filling and messily layer the rest of the filo sheets with some oil on top. Give the top a final oil spray and sprinkle over the sesame seeds. 

Bake the pie for about 40 minutes, until golden on top, then allow it to cool for up to an hour, before serving with the cornichons on the side.