Friday, November 7, 2008

Simple Spanakopita

Spanakopita is a Greek pastry containing mainly spinach and feta cheese along with onion/spring onions(also known as green onions or scallions) and eggs and seasoning.The filling is wrapped in phyllo sheets buttered and stacked together and baked.I have recreated a spanakopita dish by using a cousin of phyllo dough -puff pastry.
Puff pastry is a dough which is slathered with butter/fat and repeatedly folded in and out.When you bake it,all the butter within the layers will start melting and will hold together the layers and puff up.Normally spanakopita is made by taking a sheet of phyllo,buttering,then topping with another phyllo sheet and repeating the process with as many layers as needed.If you compare the two dough,the puff pastry has more fat content than the phyllo. But workwise it is quicker.

Ingredients:

Puff Pastry Sheet: atleast 2

Filling:

Spinach: 2 cups
Feta cheese: 1/4 cup
Spring onion/scallion/green onion: 1-2

Red Pepper flakes
Oregano
Parsley
Basil

Salt & Pepper

Preparation:

Thaw the puff pastry as per package instructions.Chop onions and spinach into small pieces.

Heat olive oil in a pan,addd the chopped onions,saute for a few minutes and then add spinach.Add all the spices and salt and saute till starts to wilt for 1-2 minutes.Keep aside to cool.Squeeze the cooled spinach and mix with shredded/crumbled feta cheese and little cornstarch.You can ad the spices now as well.This is to absorb the moisture if any.You can add any amount of cheese and any other prefered spices.The must spices are oregano,parsely and basil though nutmeg can also be seen in some versions.I added red pepper flakes for spiciness.

Cut puff pastry sheet into 3 or 4 portions.Take a portion and roll it out a bit to get a rectangle with the shortest side near you.Place a small scoop of filling on the bottom part or the.Fold over the pastry to close the filling within.Press around the filling with wet hands to press out air and close in the filling.Take the bottom right corner of this with your hands and fold over the filling to the left upper side to make a triangle.Then take the bottom left corner of the trinagle and fold it over to the right upper corner to form another triangle.Continue like this till you reach the top and then tuck in whatever remaining portions are there.Place this on a greased baking sheet.Do so with all the puff pastry pieces.Bake in a preheated oven at 400F for 10-12 minutes.Serve with your choice of dip/sauce as snacks or appetizers.

The process of folding the spanakopita is from food network.Even for a samosa,I can never get a perfect triangle,so I used the method from FoodNetwork.But I can see various different ways-you can simply cover it up as rectangles or triangles or even make a big spinach pie.Authentic spanakopita recipes can be found in dear Ivy's Blog.

Munching on this appetizer for Reipe Marathon Day #7, lets take a peek into fellow athlete's kitchen:
1) DK 2) Siri 3) Srivalli 4) Ranji 5)PJ 6)Medha 7)Priya 8)Bhawna 9)Raaji 10)Ruchii 11)Anu 12)Kamala 13)Roopa 14)Divya Kudua 15)Rekha 16)Divya M 17)Lakshmi 18)Raaga 19)LakshmiVenkatesh 20) Sripriya 21)Viji 22)Kamalika 23)Pavani


24 Comments:

Kitchen Chronicles said...

So easy and so yummy.

viji said...

Name & the recipe is new to me.very nice explanation... lokking yummy.....

Unknown said...

This is superb and love the combo.

ST said...

This is super, yummy and easy..

Bhawana said...

mmmm yummmmy :). we call them patties.

Priya Suresh said...

Yummy spanakopita...all ur recipes n ur titles are quite different n really fabulous...great work CL..

Yasmeen said...

Thanks for posting recipes from diverse cuisines. I'm enjoying them!

Medhaa said...

love your collection of recipes, love spinach and feta combo

raaji said...

soooooo easy with lovely ingredients

Cham said...

I love spanakopita, but tasted the phylo sheet one, as u said puff pastry reduce the work load! Good one !

Srivalli said...

well I always wanted to prepare this..but we don't get the sheets..yours looks lovely!

anudivya said...

Hey, yeah you could substitute with regular salt (celtic variety just picks up all the flavors from the flour and I personally like to add them to all the breads I make) Not compulsory.
Spanakopita looks great and yet simple.Keep running girl.

Unknown said...

I like your version,spicy spanakopita.

Anonymous said...

Looks delicious

Mansi said...

I love spinakoppitas, they are so easy to make and great to eat and serve!

you have some beautiful recipes here curry leaf! I'd be glad if you could participate in my vegetarian Thanksgiving recipe event!:)

kamala said...

Quick and easy one!!These sheets comes in handy all the time

anudivya said...

YOu are very welcome, no problem at all :)

Suganya said...

This is a very yummy recipe. Will try is soon. Love Greek food a lot. Never thought of making it in house. Will try it soon. YUM!

Malar Gandhi said...

Sounds nice to me, guess its easy to fix too!

Unknown said...

wow looks so crisp i am going try them to day

Divya Kudua said...

I love the name..though the dish looks simple,pronouncing the name isn't so..;-)

lakshmi said...

some athletes we are - munching on food, sitting on our bums and typing about food, drooling over "virtual" food :D

the default filling for calzones at home is spinach-feta

lubnakarim06 said...

A small suprise waiting for you dear.Click on the link to follow Award Time

Deepthi Shankar said...

sooo yummy .. i have never made this .. looks yummy

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