Adventures In Greek Cuisine
Right now, it seems like Indian food and Thai food are all the rage. I really like Thai food, but Indian cuisine isn’t really to my taste. I don’t care for the flavor profile of those particular spices. One of the lesser known (these days anyway) ethnic foods that is readily available in the US is Greek cuisine. If you don’t know if you like it because you’ve never had it, well…chances are excellent that you’ve had at least two different dishes (four if you’ve made my Greek salad or my chicken gyros). The two very well-known Greek dishes I’m thinking of are the sticky yummy dessert baklava and the savory pastry spanakopita.
Both these dishes are made with phyllo dough, which is an extremely thin layer of pastry and which tends to be used in multiple layers, with melted butter spread between each layer. I have done this but I decided awhile ago that I’d rather stick a pencil in my eye than mess with phyllo dough again. It’s not hard, exactly, but it is fussy and tedious, and I don’t care for either of those things in my cooking and baking.
I got to wondering if puff pastry could be substituted for the phyllo, and the answer is—deliciously—yes! I haven’t figured out how to make baklava with puff pastry, but the spanakopita was easy peasy.
I started with a single sheet of puff pastry, thawed but still cold, and rolled it out into approximately a 12” x 16” rectangle. Then I cut it into 12 squares, and put it back in the fridge to stay cool while I worked on other things. It’s quite important to keep your puff pastry as cold as you can manage. For one thing, it’s easier to work with. And most importantly, if the pastry isn’t cold when it goes into the oven, the butter inside will just melt out instead of staying in there and puffing up the pastry.
While the pastry was chilling out, I started on the filling. One small onion, chopped relatively finely, sautéed in a little olive oil until it was soft and slightly translucent, and at the end of cooking, three garlic cloves pressed in and cooked for just about 30 seconds. Then I turned off the heat and set the pan aside to cool a little bit.
In a bowl, I whisked together eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, feta cheese, and parmesan cheese. Then I grabbed my thawed bag of spinach and squeezed out the water. The easiest way to do this is to just cut a little corner off the bag and then squeeze the spinach in the bag, making sure you have one hand cinching down the opening so that the spinach can’t escape. This is much faster and less fussy than using a colander and pressing and pressing and pressing, and then at the end you have to wash the colander. Just squeeze the bag.
After I’d gotten the water out of the spinach, I added it into the egg mixture and then mixed in my somewhat cooled onion mixture. Then I was ready to fill the puff pastry.
I lined a couple baking sheets with parchment paper, then retrieved my puff pastry from the fridge. Each little square got two tablespoons of the filling. Then I beat together an egg with a little water and used a pastry brush to apply it to two adjacent edges of each little pastry square.
I grabbed the corner of pastry that didn’t have any egg on it, and pulled it crosswise over to meet up with the eggy corner. This made a little triangle, and I did my best to align the edges over the egg wash, then used a fork to crimp the edges closed. When each triangle was moved to a baking sheet, if an edge had come loose, I crimped it again. Finally, I brushed my egg wash all over the surface of my pastries. I did get a little carried away with the egg wash…
When all my little triangles were on the baking sheets, I baked them until they puffed up and became golden, then my folks and I chowed down on them immediately. My father didn’t say much about it (as is his way) but he did ask for seconds, which I interpreted as approval. My mother raved about them and also took seconds. And I thought they were pretty darn good and had seconds. Yummy stuff.
There was a bit of the filling left over, which I took home and ate up a couple different ways. The first night, I toasted a whole wheat bagel, then sprinkled some mozzarella over both halves, then spread some spanakopita filling on both halves, and then topped it all with some feta cheese and set it under the broiler for a couple minutes. It was utterly delicious. The second night, I whisked the rest of the filling into a serving of scrambled eggs, and then melted some feta cheese over the top at the end. Also quite delicious, and tasted quite a lot like my Greek quiche, only without the crust or the fuss. Yum!
These little pastries make a nice meal but they are also commonly served as appetizers at dinner parties. Either way, they aren’t hard and they are delicious.
Spanakopita
Click here for printable PDF of recipe
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, pressed or very finely minced
10-12 oz bag of frozen spinach, thawed and drained*
1 Tbsp panko or bread crumbs
3 eggs
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375º. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment.
Over medium heat, cook the chopped onion in the olive oil until tender and translucent. Add in the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool a little.
In a bowl, beat 2 of the 3 eggs. Add in the breadcrumbs, spinach, feta and Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Stir to combine well. Add in the cooled onion mixture and set aside.
Use a rolling pin to roll the puff pastry out into a rectangle that is roughly 12” by 16”. More or less. Cut into 12 squares. Place 2 Tbsp of the filling mixture in the center of each square.
In a small bowl, beat the remaining egg with a little bit of water for an egg wash. Use a pastry brush to apply the egg wash to two adjacent sides of each little pastry square. Then fold one corner of the pastry square diagonally across to the opposite corner, and use a fork to tamp the edges closed.
Add each little triangle to a baking sheet as it’s done. When you have six triangles on each baking sheet, brush the egg wash over the top of each, and then bake them until they are golden brown, anywhere from 20-40 minutes.
Remove from oven, and serve immediately. Any leftovers can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge for a couple days, and eaten cold or rewarmed.
Any leftover filling can be eaten on toast or with scrambled eggs or as a pizza topping or anything else your heart desires.
