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SPANAKOPITA-2 - Greek spinach and feta cheese pie
This recipe is from a greek cookbook, with my modifications
and the addition of my mother's secret ingredient-leeks.
``fillo'' or ``fyllo'' is the greek word for ``leaf''.
500 g fillo dough
120 ml olive oil
1.5 kg spinach (5 packages, if you use frozen spinach)
100 g unsalted butter
1 medium onion, chopped.
3 leeks, washed and chopped.
500 g feta cheese
5 eggs
100 g breadcrumbs
250 ml milk
5 ml salt
pepper
(1) If you are using fresh spinach, wash it, dip it
for a minute or two in boiling water to blanch it,
and then chop it. Drain the spinach and squeeze
most of the water out of it.
(2) Wash thoroughly and chop the white part of the
leeks. Peel and chop the onion. Saut' the chopped
leeks and onion in the butter.
(3) Add the spinach, salt and pepper. Mix everything
together and simmer for 20 minutes.
(4) While the spinach is cooking, grate the feta
cheese (I use a food processor). Alternatively,
you can crumble it into small chunks.
(5) Remove the spinach from heat and add the cheese,
eggs (beaten), breadcrumbs and milk. Mix every-
thing together and set aside.
(6) Grease a square baking pan with a little olive
oil. Take one sheet of dough and place it on the
bottom of the pan towards one of the corners, in
such a way that the dough sticks out a little from
two of the sides of the pan. Brush the sheet with
olive oil. Repeat this step until you have used
about two thirds of the dough, alternating corners
and always brushing each sheet of dough with olive
oil.
(7) Pour the spinach mixture into the pan. Level it,
and fold in the sides of the assembled crust.
Brush the dough with olive oil.
(8) Take one sheet of dough and place it on top of the
pie, this time without any bias towards any of the
corners. Brush the sheet with olive oil. Repeat
this step until you have used all the remaining
dough, always brushing each sheet with olive oil.
(9) Gently tuck the edges of the top sheets of dough
under the sides of the pie. Brush the top with
olive oil. Using a sharp knife cut the top of the
pie as if you were cutting it to serve it, but
don't go all the way to the bottom. Sprinkle the
pie with
of water and bake it at 175 deg. C for 45 minutes.
(10) Let the pie cool, and serve.
I find that frozen spinach works wonderfully for this
recipe. Also, it's cheaper and somewhat easier to prepare.
Unless you work quickly when assembling the dough layers,
the unused pieces of dough will dry out. Until you become
nimble with this process, you can cover the unused dough
pieces with a damp dishcloth to prevent them from drying out
while you fumble with the construction of the pie.
The pie keeps well out of the refrigerator for a few days
and can (indeed, some claim must) be eaten at room tempera-
ture.
Because of the way the pie is constructed, pieces cut from
the corners and sides of the pan are particularly crunchy,
and a lot of people consider them the best part of the pie.
This suits me just fine, because I like the middle pieces
which have more filling!
The original recipe called for twice the amount of olive
oil, but I find that I don't need that much.
Difficulty: moderate. Time: 1 hour preparation, 45 minutes
baking. Precision: approximate measurement OK.
Kriton Kyrimis
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
kyrimis@princeton.edu allegra!princeton!kyrimis
| Last modified: 9 May 2006 | 24 hits in May 2012 |
