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Σπανακόπιτα με παραδοσιακό χειροποίητο φύλλο= Spanak'opita (or spinach pie) with traditional han

Writer's picture: E-kalimeraE-kalimera

Dough

Around 400 g all-purpose flour (keep some more flour aside -like 100-200 grams- for the rolling of the dough)

4-5 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of vinegar

1 full teaspoon of salt

Around 1 cup of lukewarm water (add more if needed in the end)


Or use 1 packet (around 500g or 5 fyllo) of fyllo dough (the thickest type if available)


Filling

some olive oil

2 spring onions, finely chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

1 kilo spinach, cut in big pieces

¼ bunch of mint, finely chopped

1/2 bunch of dill, finely chopped

1 bunch of parsley, finely chopped

A pinch of oregano

600g feta cheese, crumbled

Salt to taste (not too much because there will be feta in it)

1 leek, finely chopped (facultative)


Olive oil in a cup for brushing


Instructions

We put the flour in a bowl and add all the ingredients for the fyllo and start mixing till it is a fine smooth dough (not too hard) that does not stick to the hands. If it is too hard, we add some water, if it is still sticky, we add some flour and continue till we have the desired result and all the ingredients are well incorporated. We let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes.

Meanwhile we prepare all the ingredients for the filling. We make sure they do not hold any water after we washed them and cut them, and they are completely dry. We put everything in a bowl after we have cut them (except for the feta, the cream cheese and the oil).

We let them sit a bit in the bowl, while we take the dough and cut it in 5 pieces. We start rolling each piece till we get a fine fyllo, like one centimeter high and less. The fyllo does not have to fit exactly the baking pan, in fact it is always best if it is a bit bigger. We keep sprinkling flour as we roll, so that the dough does not stick to the rolling pin. We give it the shape of the baking pan. We brush the baking pan with olive oil, and we put inside the first fyllo. We brush It with oil on top. We make 2 more fyllo with the same process and put them in the pan always brushing them with olive oil. Finally, we make the last two fyllo, but we do not put them in the pan, we let them aside because we will put them after we have put the filling in the pan. The last two should fit the pan in size and one of them should not have holes because it will go on top. If we cannot make it exactly the size of the pan, we shape it with a knife. Make sure the two fyllo you leave aside are sprinkled with flour, so they do not stick.

We go back to our filling, discharge any liquid and put the feta, cream cheese and olive oil in it. We mix well. We put the filling in the pan on top of the fyllo. We then add the two remaining fyllo, making sure we brush them with olive oil each time.

We fold the excess fyllo towards the center of the pan in order to seal the spanakopita and have once baked a nice crust on the sides (make sure that the excess fyllo is not too much and covers the whole spanakopita, it should cover only the sides when folded). We finally make sure everything on top is brushed with olive oil and sprinkle some water on the spanakopita. We put it in a preheat oven at 180C for around 1 hour (when the spanakopita is ready it has a nice light to medium brown color - not very dark because that will mean we overbaked it).

If we make the spanakopita with store-bought fyllo, the process is the same for the filling. For the fyllo, we use a bit more than half of the packet of the fyllo for the bottom of the pie (brushing always each fyllo with olive oil). Then we put the filling, then we put the remaining fyllo on top (again brushing with olive oil). Do not forget to sprinkle water on top before baking. Enjoy!

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