Spanakopita - 2 - $ - V

This recipe is the real deal, straight from the lips of my Yia Yia. However, I have added actual measurements and cooking times, instead of her estimations of 'about this much' and cook 'until it's ready'.

Yours won't be as good as hers, and neither is mine, but she has approximately 60 years of practise ahead of us, so we must persevere.



Ingredients

1 Large bunch of spinach, trimmed, washed and finely chopped (squeeze out the excess water)
1tbs olive oil
1 Brown onion, finely chopped
2 Spring onions, finely chopped
2 tbs finely chopped flat leaf parsley
1/3tsp ground nutmeg
250gm good quality Greek feta
2 eggs
100gms melted unsalted butter
Filo pastry

Preheat oven to 180C degrees.
In a large pot fry off the brown onion in the olive oil over a medium heat, until soft and translucent. Add the spring onions, parsley, nutmeg and spinach and cook until the spinach wilts and all the liquid has evaporated from the pot. Strain the mixture and leave to cool.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper (don't be too heavy handed with the salt, as the feta will add to the flavour). Crumble in the feta and mix well. Make sure the spinach mix is cool enough to not cook the egg, add to the bowl and stir through until well combined.
Brush a shallow baking dish with the melted butter and line the bottom with 8-10 sheets of filo, brushing the butter between each layer. Let the overhang on the edges build up.
Pour in the filling and spread evenly over the base, then add another 8-10 sheets of filo, again with butter between each layer, and then fold the edges over and trim any excess.
Brush the now sealed top with the last of the butter and score it into as many pieces as you like. It will make about 6 decent slices for a main meal or about 18 smaller pieces to serve as a starters.
Cook in the oven for 40-50 minutes until the filo is golden. This dish can be served hot or is perfect to take to a picnic and serve cold.

If you can find it, you can also add kasseri cheese, which is made from sheep's milk. Just grate in about 50gms at the same time you add the feta. You can also add any leftover rice you might have in the fridge when you are cooking the spinach filling. Sounds weird I know, but I'm not going to argue with a woman in her eighties and nor should you.

Enjoy!