Spinakopita

AKA Greek Spinach Pie – Makes 16 squares

Hardware

• Baking pan or casserole dish (about 11x14x2)
• Pastry Brush
• Sauté pan (at least 4qt)
• A sharp knife 🙂
• A couple towels
• Microwave safe coffee or measure cup (for butter)

Ingredients

• 1 Small onion minced
• 1/4 Cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 Packages of frozen, chopped spinach: thawed (or the equivalent in fresh chopped spinach). Liquid squeezed out
• 1/5 lb Feta Cheese
• 1 lb Large curd cottage cheese
• 3 Eggs beaten
• 1/4 Cup breadcrumbs (unseasoned, panko is fine)
• 1/2 lb Filo (phyllo, phylo, etc.) pastry dough
• 1/2 Cup melted butter

Directions

1. Set Oven To 350F
2. On the stove, sauté onion in olive oil for 5 minutes until translucent.
3. Add spinach (again, make sure as much liquid has been drained as possible) and stir, spread everything out.
4. Simmer uncovered with the onion over low heat, stirring occasionally, until most of the moisture is evaporated.
5. Turn off the burner.
6. Crumble feta cheese into small pieces into a pan, add cottage cheese afterward and blend well.
7. Add eggs and stir, then add breadcrumbs and stir well.
8. Line a baking pan that measures 11x14x2 with 10 individually buttered (brushed) sheets of filo pastry.
9. Add the spinach mixture on top, then cover with another 10 individually buttered sheets of filo pastry. Do NOT cut yet.
10. Bake in oven for about 30 minutes. Filo should be golden brown.
11. Once done, allow to rest for 10-20 minutes before cutting into portions.

Notes

• When you unroll the phyllo (filo) dough out, do so on a damp towel (flour-sack is ideal, no fuzzies), and cover that with another damp towel. It will keep it pliable.
• Feta Cheese: this is one of the few times I’m gonna recommend Greek over Bulgarian. The extra hit of saltiness from the Greek stuff helps everything along.
• Whole-fat everything.
• Since the spinach is going to be baked, there really is no reason to go through the trouble of using fresh spinach.

When Yaya (AKA Jessie, AKA Efithia) taught me how to make this, she wacked my hands whenever I tried to skimp on brushing each individual filo sheet completely with butter.

Miss you, Jessie & Phil

[For Jessie & Peggy]