There’s nothing quite like pastizzi. The flaky pastry parcels – traditionally filled with either ricotta or mushy peas – have a fan-base that extends further than our little island and have become synonymous with Maltese cuisine.
There are sweet fillings for dessert pastizzi and themed fillings depending on the time of year
With a pastizzeria (or two, or three) found in practically every locality on the island, a shortage of pastizzi is nowhere near likely and many still prepare homemade pastizzi on special occasions such as Good Friday.
Marie Louise Vella – Marilù – is one such person who believes homemade pastizzi are the way to go. Armed with her grandmother’s traditional recipe and a love for cooking, Marilù has taken it upon herself to create the mouthwatering pastizzi that we know and love, with her own special twist – low-fat pastizzi.
I meet up with Marilù, and eager to find out more about ‘Pastizzi Gourmet’ as she calls them, I ask about how she began making pastizzi in the first place and find out that she comes from a family who love to cook.
She caught the cooking bug early, thanks to spending time in the kitchen with her grandmother Kolin and aunt Melita, making her first pastizzi at around age four.
“They were not proper pastizzi,” she adds, “but I remember rolling out the dough, filling them and showing them to my Nanna, who was surprised at my enthusiasm.”
Although her love for cooking never waned, Marilù left pastizzi-making on the back burner, pursuing her other passion by reading for a degree in Theatre Studies.
Ironically, it was during the year she spent studying in the UK that she began to make them again.
“Using my grandmother’s old recipe, the pastizzi automatically reminded me of home – they definitely helped with the homesickness,” Marilù explains, adding that making pastizzi became a regular event during her time there.
“It was also a way of bringing a little bit of Malta to my friends there, a way of tasting something homemade and typically Maltese.”
Back in Malta, Marilù tried her hand at tweaking her grandmother’s original pastry recipe in an attempt to create low-fat pastizzi.
Although it sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, Marilù assures me that the healthier version, which substitutes lard for seed oils, is just as mouthwatering as traditional pastizzi but much lower in fat, as she uses vegetable margarine instead of animal fat, which also makes them suitable for vegetarians.
As to why she went through the hassle of tweaking the recipe, Marilù replies it was no trouble at all: “I enjoy experimenting in the kitchen, and if it can be found - a healthier option is always better.”
Picking up on her love of experimenting in the kitchen, I inquire about the fillings she uses and am not surprised to hear she moves beyond the traditional ricotta and pea fillings.
Most of the fillings used are still based on traditional Maltese recipes such as ricotta and broad bean, ġbejniet and pea and corned beef but also various other fillings have been created, including sweet filling for dessert pastizzi and themed fillings depending on the time of year, such as the latest filling of fresh cranberries and ricotta for Christmas.
Marilù makes all the pastry by hand and all her ingredients are sourced from local farmers; “wherever possible home-grown vegetables and products are used – and it definitely makes a difference – but at the same time it’s an opportunity to support local producers too”.
I ask Marilù what’s next in line for Pastizzi Gourmet. Surprised at the amount of interest her low-fat pastizzi have garnered via word of mouth, Marilù divulges that we will be hearing more from Pastizzi Gourmet in the future, and reveals that she plans to branch out from just family and friends. She’s always dreamt of owning her own tea shop one day.
“For now I am content with putting Pastizzi Gourmet on Facebook and taking things one step at a time. It’s definitely something I love doing and that makes all the difference.”