Spanakopita is a Greek spinach tarte. This is a slightly up-market version: instead of a flat tarte with a varying degree of density, soggyness and puffyness, our open Spanakopita is baked as a stand-up roll of filo pastry with the traditional spanakopita filling of spinach, feta cheese and pine kernels.
This makes a generous lunch for two, or a delightful starter for four.
500g frozen leaf spinach
100g Feta cheese
flat green parsley, toasted pine kernels, egg, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg
Optional: rich strained yoghurt (strained sheepmilk yoghurt preferred)
Optional: ground almonds
Pack of frozen filo pastry sheets
Begin by thawing the spinach, then squeeze it as dry as you can. Mix it with a handful of flat parsley, chopped, a handful of breadcrumbs, 2 whole eggs. Optionally also add 2 heaped tablespoons of yoghurt. If you can’t find strained yoghurt, strain it with a sheet of muslin. Mix this well, best using the hands.
For the filo, prepare 75g slightly salted soft butter.
Spread out one sheet of filo pastry, brush with soft butter. Optionally, thinly sprinkle some ground almonds across the sheet, then cover with the next sheet. Repeat this process to get three of four filo sheets combined in this manner.
Crumble the feta cheese and distribute evenly across the filo pastry. Sprinkle with the toasted pine kernels, then add the spinach mix (strain if too wet!) to form an even layer. Now roll the flat cake into a roll, and glue the ends together with buttered filo. Wrap with a sheet of baking parchement if necessary, then cut into thick slices.
Use the remaining filo to make a little bottom for each slice.
Bake at 190C for approximately 20 minutes. Decorate with a poached quails egg, or edible flowers.
