Spanakopita- a Greek savory pastry

I am not an ardent fan of Greek food, but from the one time I tried it, the only dish that impressed me was the Spanakopita. Did some research online and I had to make it part of one of our Saturday brunch sessions...which btw is my favourite meal of the week. You can make them like small filo parcels, but I went ahead and made a pie. I am not in a mood to ramble, so here goes:

Spinach- 500 gms (washed and blanched)

Egg- 1

Feta Cheese- 120gms

Onion- 1, roughly chopped

Garlic- 2 pods, roughly chopped

Filo Pastry sheets- 6 to 8

Melted butter- 1/4 cup for brushing the filo

Olive oil- 1 tbsp

Sat and Pepper- to taste

Preheat the oven to 180C

In a frying pan, heat the oil and sauté onions and garlic till light brown. Add the blanched spinach and sauté for a few more minutes. Season with salt and pepper and keep aside.

Whisk the egg in a mixing bowl and add the cooked mix. Crumble the feta cheese over this and mix till well combined. Its ok if the feta cheese is still lumpy in a few places.

Assembling: Grease a baking dish with butter and place 4 filo pastry sheets on top of each other, generously greasing after each layer, except the last one. Spread the spinach filling over the pastry evenly and cover with the remaining 4 sheets, again following the same procedure of buttering each layer before you put another on top. This time, go ahead and grease the lastpastry as well..so that the buttery top gives a nice golden brown colour.

Bake for about 40 minutes. Remove and leave to cool for a while and then cut into squares and serve with a salad.

Notes: If you want to serve it as a starter, you can make filo parcels instead..like how we roll for spring rolls or samosa with the spinach and feta as filling.

You can replace feta with ricotta cheese.

be careful while you take the filo pastry sheets, it can easily tear and even worse become dry..so have a wet towel ready and keep covering it to keep it moist

I am sending this to the AWED Event hosted by Curry Leaf where the theme for this month is Greek Food. Kudos to DK who kick-started this event. I am also sending it to Dil Se who is hosting this months Healing Foods Event, an event started by Siri's Corner, and the theme is Spinach.