As the winter blues are going away our diet changes too. Its time for some greens and lighter dishes.
A lovely Spinach Pie came to mind after a friend asked for the recipe. The spinach pie reminds me of home as my mum is the queen of pies, since she owns a shop where she makes pastries as such.
The recipe I make is a slightly altered version of my mums recipe. The reason of alteration is that I do find that the spinach I can get here in the UK is rather bland in taste, so I need to give the recipe some extra flavours. Thats where my lovely leeks come in handy. Not a spring vegetable but helps!
Spanakopita - spinach filo pastry pie
1 bunch of spring onions
500gr frozen spinach
2 medium size leeks - avoid the huge ones they are just bitter and we need sweetness
1 bunch of fresh dill
2 eggs
1 block of feta cheese
1 packet of Filo Pastry
2 cups of olive oil
salt pepper to taste
Instead of frozen spinach you can use fresh but you will need 1kg as the frozen one is already partly cooked so half of the moisture is gone. Before you start you recipe thaw your spinach in a colander so the juices can leave and that reduces the cooking time needed
Heat a pan with some olive oil. Chop the leeks and the spring onions and through in the pan so they start sweating.
Once that is done through in the spinach and cook all the greens till the liquid that came out of the spinach is gone.
Before you are ready to turn of the heating put some salt and some pepper and the finely chopped dill. Herbs at the end so they keep the full flavour. If you wish you can also add a table spoon of finely chopped mint but this is not really part of my recipe.
As I mentioned above, the leeks are not part of the original spanakopita. But they do add sweetness and flavour. We do actually make another pie solely with leeks instead of spinach.
Leave the mixture to cool down and that also gives you time to see if there is any liquid left. If there is you can put some fine semolina to thicken it. The semolina will pick the liquid and expand and also give more volume to the mix. Add the two eggs and the feta cheese which you either crumbled or diced and mix.
I mentioned to wait till the filling is cold because if its too hot the eggs will possible cook and the cheese will melt and you want that to happen in the over not in your pan!
Now it time for the filo pastry to go in the tray. In this occasion I found pastry in an Arab super market and that is for Baclava and this one is drier thinner and stays more crunchy. Brush some olive oil to cover all the tray and lay your first filo to cover the one side, brush with oil and add the next one. You need to make sure that every part of the tray is covered with pastry and every sheet is brushed with oil before you add the next one on top
Layer about half of the pastry you have and then add the filling as by this time it would have cooled down.
Finally add the last of your pastry, one sheet at a time and make sure that you do not forget to brush with oil. All the pastry that was hanging from the rim of the tray can go on top now as you can see on the photos below. The remaining oil can be mixed with some water and poured on top of the pie.
The water helps the pastry to be more crunchy!
Preheat the oven to 170°C -330°F and place the pie in the middle of the oven. If you have fan assisted oven place it on the setting up and down heat and fan.
The pie should cook for about 40-50 minutes till its golden on top and bottom. I used a pyrex dish that helped me see if the bottom is cooked as I haven't made a pie in this oven before.
Your pie should look like this!
You can serve it cold, warm, straight from the oven, for breakfast or dinner, on its own or with a dollop of Greek Yogurt on the side. The ultimate greek way would be with a glass of chocolate milk! (www.milko.gr)
No matter how you serve it, make sure you share it and enjoy it!!
Looks divine! Thankyou! xx
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