SPANAKOPITA : GREEK PIE SPINACH FETA

Spanakopita is an iconic and essential Greek dish. A pie made from filo pastry (most of the time) garnished with spinach, feta, new onions … This is the pie that you buy from the baker, which you can find on large tables as a starter or main dish, perfect for a picnic and the one that accompanied me enormously during my travels in Greece. In summer, with just a salad next door it’s perfect.

I give you the recipe that I have been preparing for years and which is always greatly appreciated at home. From elsewhere, but ultimately quite familiar in flavors (especially for an Italian, hence the famous ricotta-spinach pairing). In addition I love phyllo dough (I have friends who make it themselves I admire). Now you can find them quite easily in supermarkets (rather hyper markets outside the city) or even better in oriental grocery stores (in Aix there is the Panier Gourmand which I love).

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Ingrédients

  

• 600 g fresh spinach or tender leaves
• 260 g feta
• 16 filo pastry sheets (or phyllo) or ten if they are really large
• 2 new onions with green (or 4 spring onions)
• 30 flat parsley leaves
• some dill pluche
• 3 eggs
• 50 g grated Parmesan
• extra virgin olive oil
• 20 g Pat of butter

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 180 ° C. Brown the chopped onion (the white) in a little oil for 5 minutes. Wash then sauté the spinach in a frying pan or frying pan with the onion and mix for a few minutes until they "fall" and lose a little water. Drain and cut with a knife.
• Crumble the feta, parmesan cheese in a salad bowl then add the spinach, the chopped herbs (including the green of the new onion), the new onion and mix. Stir in eggs, salt and pepper.
• Brush a pan lacking in olive oil (I used two 18 cm molds, otherwise we can opt for a rectangular mold about 30 cm long). Place a sheet of filo pastry (if the mold is small, cut it in half) and brush with olive oil. Keep the rest of the leaves well covered as they dry quickly. Do the same with 8 other sheets (they will protrude from the mold, this is normal).
• Then spread the stuffing and cover with the rest of the sheets of filo pastry, placed one by one and brushed each time with olive oil. Fold the edges of the dough out on the pie, brush with more oil.
• Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes. The dough should brown and become crisp. Barely cool, then gently turn out and serve with a salad.

Notes

• Storage: the spanakopita can be stored at room temperature overnight or two days later if it is not too hot. It will suffice to reheat it a little in the oven before serving (or in the microwave but it will lose a little crispness.
• Variations: instead of making a pie, form rectangles sprinkled with sesame seeds: very practical to take to the beach or on a picnic
• Cheese (tyropita): the process is the same but the stuffing consists of an egg, 300 g of feta, 150 g of ricotta and 3 tablespoons of milk. You can also add herbs to flavor it.
• Spinach: if they are fresh and good (not old) it's the best but if you don't have any on hand, know that good frozen spinach does the trick (I recently discovered those of tender Bonduelle and soft).