A Greek classic, totally revisited by us
ingredients for a pie of 8 medium pieces (total cost about 8€)
- 150 g soft wheat flour
- 200 g Manitoba flour
- 50 g whole wheat flour
- 135 ml water
- 5 ml vinegar
- 50 ml EV olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- More olive oil for brushing
- 1 kg FRESH spinach, very well washed
- 1 large bunch nettles
- 3 or more large bunches (at least 250 g) of very fresh aromatic herbs (chervil or fennel or papaver)
- 8 spring onions
- 50 g sun-dried tomatoes
- 60 ml EV olive oil
- 1 peperoncino
- salt
Dough and spinach is a classic southern European combination. Starting from Spain with the “empanadas”, continuing to France with the “quiche aux épinards” and to Italy with the “erbazzone”, we reach Greece where we find the “spanakopitta”. All these preparations apart from spinach contain some aromatic herbs and, the vast majority of them, cheese and/or cold cuts.
So the first question we have to reply: “Do we have to add cheese in our spinach pies?”. The answer is that everything is a question of personal taste. There are people who cannot eat plain vegetables and they are addicted to eat animal proteins in almost everything. I cannot convince them to prepare a “vegan” spinach pie. But in my opinion spinach pies without cheese are better.
Spinach pies are vegetable-centred. By adding cheese to the filling, YES we increase the umami of the pie, but at the same time we cover, we strangle the heart of the preparation, the veggies. I assure you that the best spinach pies I have eaten were WITHOUT cheese and I call you to follow my suggestion.
There also ways to raise the umami of a dish without using animal derivatives. Sun-dried tomatoes is an example. I propose you to use it instead of cheese as it is more friendly to the veggies and it is also raises the umami.
The key of a good spinach pie is not the cheese, but the freshness and of the vegetables, especially the aromatics and the quality of the dough. Using frozen dough, frozen spinach and not very fresh aromatics, it is evident that we are gonna create an awful pie, which will be so awful that it will need some cheese to hide their problems. So, if you want to prepare a spinach pie and you have not fresh ingredients or plenty of time, better fry an egg or prepare a quick pasta dish and leave the spinach pie for one other day.
Have also in mind that spinach has not a strong aroma and it is just the base of the filling. Enrich it with abundant aromatic herbs, the herbs are the ingredients which will turn the pie to delicious.
Let’s start
First of all we put the sun-dried tomatoes to soak in luk warm water.
The layer of dough or “filo” for an oven spanakopitta is a little bit different that the thinner filo we use for the fried pies.
To prepare it we sieve and mix the flours with the salt, we add the water and the vinegar. We put all these in a mixer bowl and we start “kneading” at low speed for about 10 minutes. 2 minutes before the end we add 50 ml olive oil. We wrap the dough with cling film and we leave them rest for about an hour.
Meanwhile, we prepare the filling. We sauté the spinach and the nettles (we don´t boil them in order to keep their aromatic substances) till they reject the water they contain and we subfry the spring onions till tender. We coarsely chop the aromatics and the sun-dried tomatoes and we add them to the mix along with the oil, the salt and the pepper. We mix them with our hands to create a more homogeneous filling. We taste it and if we find it OK we keep it aside.
CAUTION: Do not press the filling. Try to keep it as airy as possible. So, before you put it in the dough, mix it with a spoon to create small gaps inside it.
We cut the dough in 10 pieces. With a rolling pin we prepare 10 pieces of filo with dimensions of about 40X30 cm. Every time we finish a filo we brush it very well with olive oil and we keep it aside.
We brush a rectangular baking pan of dimensions about 32X22cm (or slightly larger or smaller, the dimension I used is very common) with oil and we lay a first filo, leaving a border of about 2 cm on each side of the pan. We brush very well with olive oil and we continue with the 4 more filos, always leaving a 2 cm border around the pan and always brushing each filo with plenty of olive oil. We don’t flatten the filos trying to leave as much air as possible between the filos in order to provoke a crunchier result.
We add the filling. We continue with the rest 5 filos always leaving a 2 cm border around the pan and always brushing each filo with plenty of olive oil.
We lightly push the borders of the filo, and we turn them into the central part of the pan trying to close the pie and create a cornice of dough.
We preheat the oven at 170 C degrees (air function) and we bake the spinach pie for about 50 to 55 minutes. We wait it to cool and we cut in pieces.
