It has been a long-standing tradition in our family to serve spinach pie (spanakopita, the kind with buttery layers of filo dough surrounding a spinach and cheese filling) at Thanksgiving. My husband’s Nana was from Albania, although she had immigrated to Greece as a child, and it was always difficult to tell which of her culinary and cultural traditions originated from Albania, and which came from Greece. In any case, she would always make large batches of spinach pie and bring them to holiday celebrations.
By the time it occurred to anyone to get her recipes, her dementia had progressed too far for her to pass them on. She invited us over to her kitchen to make the dish with her, but unfortunately that never came to pass. When Nana was finally too ill to cook herself, I vowed to take up the mantle. I found the closest recipe I could in a cookbook, and it took years of tweaking (less onions! no onions! more cheese! less spinach!) but I finally got, well, close enough to satisfy the boys. This left me with a recipe that is more or less mine, hastily typed out on a piece of paper and shoved in one of our overflowing recipe binders. Someday, that carelessness is going to bite me in the butt.
If you have never had spanakopita, I command you to proceed post-haste to a Greek restaurant and order yourself some. It is one of the best things ever. Sadly, it is also time consuming to make at home and not very healthy. The dish is created by layering ultra thin filo pastry sheets (you can buy these pre-made in the freezer section of any large grocery store – even Nana didn’t make her own) in a pan, gently spreading melted butter on each tissue-thin layer with a pastry brush. The dough itself is very picky – it must be removed from the packaging right before use, or it will dry out too quickly and become unworkable. It also cannot get too damp (a problem here in humid Hawaii) or it starts to stick together, at which point you’re better off ordering a pizza for dinner.
For all of the above reasons, I normally only make spanakopita once a year, around Thanksgiving, grumbling about working with the pastry and how much work this is for something that gets eaten so fast, while DH just rolls his eyes because he knows I love the attention. Seriously, master spanakopita and bring it fresh to a party – your reputation for being a culinary genius will be secured forever. Then you can breezily tell your friends it’s no big deal, that you just have to layer the delicate pastry piece by piece, keeping it covered with a damp towel, working quickly but gently etc. etc. etc. while they stare at you in awe.
Our other obstacle to everyday spanakopita is getting the correct feta cheese. This issue is probably more specific to our family. Most folks would be content with any good quality feta, although I encourage you to at least use sheep’s milk. The feta we use is Bulgarian. In Massachusetts, we would obtain this from a specific shop in Arlington, but as we’ve relocated three times since, we have had to search it out each time. The only source of Bulgarian feta I have found in Honolulu is at the India Market on Beretania Street near University, where it comes in plastic tubs. Fortunately, I am often in the area for work.
If you decide to seek out Bulgarian feta, I should warn you that the product by itself is very much an acquired taste. The first time I had it, I was certain it had gone bad. The family assured me that it hadn’t, and that I’d get used to that. It’s true – now American feta tastes like cardboard to me, and even the stronger French fetas just don’t seem quite right. The flavor mellows considerably once it’s cooked in the dish, I promise, and I think that extra sourness is what makes our family recipe so special. I have never encountered wrinkled noses when anyone, child or adult (and my son brought it to share with his Kindergarten class last year), tasted the finished product. So trust me.
I was content with making spinach pie a yearly special occasion kind of thing, except my son just absolutely LOVES the stuff. It’s hard to say no to a kid that’s begging for green vegetables. Still, with a cup of butter, it does not exactly qualify as a healthy dietary staple. I’m not against butter, but it might as well be dessert at that point (although we do that too; I make a killer Baklava). I have been wondering if substituting with olive oil would be a possibility.
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| Malabar spinach grows on the trellis |
I used a Misto pump to spritz on olive oil between layers. This made my work go much faster and more easily. The quick progress also minimized my problems working with the filo as it was exposed to the environment. In the recipe, I describe how to work with filo under most conditions. However, I will tell you that in my local climate, I usually do NOT cover the pastry with a damp towel as it ends up getting sticky before I am done. You will have to experiment to see what works where you live.
The end product came out crispy and tasty. It certainly was not the decadent melt-in-your-mouth treat that a good spanakopita normally is, but that was not the goal here. The greens were a bit overwhelming (I blame the addition of the chard which is a bit on the mature side) but that did not bother me. What was surprising is that it didn’t bother the kids either. My son gratefully chowed it (after MUCH anticipation) and took a second helping; he’s still talking about how great the leftovers are going to be in his lunch. But the real shocker was that my greens-hating daughter polished hers off too, although I’m not ruling out 100% that some didn’t make it into the dog when I wasn’t looking, and there was that lingering promise of ice cream afterward. (The night before, she had rejected a perfectly good caramelized onion, pepper, goat cheese and mozarella pizza, opting to skip the ice cream altogether rather than finish her dinner. Really. When I was a kid I recall choking down canned peas, green beans and corn. I didn’t even realize you could get vegetables any way other than in a can until I was a teenager. She doesn’t realize how good she has it.)
Healthier Spanakopita
- 1/2 lb. fresh spinach
- 1/2 lb. feta cheese, preferably sheep’s milk
- 2 tsp dried or 2 tbsp fresh chopped dill
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 package of filo pastry sheets
- Olive oil
Wash and drain spinach. Place in large pot or pan over medium high heat. Allow to cook about three minutes, until completely wilted. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Squeeze as much water as possible from the cooled spinach (a potato ricer is excellent for this). Set aside.
Lightly beat eggs in a medium bowl. Add dill, salt and feta. Break up feta with fork if necessary and stir to combine. Add to drained spinach and combine.
Prepare the pastry:
Heat oven to 350F. Spray a 13x10x2 pan with olive oil. Remove thawed filo pastry from refrigerator and open package. Cut the block of filo in half vertically (to fit your pan), then tightly wrap and return half the pastry to the refrigerator for another use. Cover the filo with wax paper, and cover this with a damp kitchen towel. Remove sheets one at a time and cover remaining pastry with wax paper and towel.
Lay the pastry sheet in the pan and spritz with olive oil. Repeat until half the pastry is used (about 10 sheets). Spoon spinach mixture onto pastry, spreading evenly. Continue to layer remaining filo pastry on top of spinach mixture, tucking the pastry in around the edges. Spritz top generously with olive oil. Score the top half of the pastry with a sharp knife, cutting through to the spinach layer but not any deeper.
Bake for 35 minutes until crispy and slightly brown on top. Allow to cool slightly, cut through full thickness of pie along score marks, and serve.
BONUS RECIPE: Lemon Rice Soup (goes great with the spanakopita)
You can make this while the pie is baking.- 6 cups vegetable or chicken broth
- 1/2 cup uncooked rice
- 2-3 eggs
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Freshly ground black pepper, optional
Bring the broth to a boil. Add the rice and simmer for 20 minutes or until tender. Beat eggs in a medium bowl. Carefully add the hot broth, 1/2 cup at a time, to the eggs, until doubled or tripled in volume, then add the egg mixture back to the soup and stir. DO NOT allow the soup to boil once the eggs are added. Stir in fresh lemon juice and serve, topped with freshly ground black pepper if desired.
