In
general, I avoid eating fast food – but there are certain occasions when, well,
you have other things to do/are on the go/are too tired and you just need fuel
– now!
On
one such instance, I was in sunny Greece, having just got off the plane and
heading to a vacation spot by the sea.
Together with my sister we sat in a "snack bar" where I had an
amazing souvlaki with pita and "everything" (meaning tzatziki, fries,
and an idea of salad…). Feeling slightly
guilty, I tried to redeem myself by ordering a "chortopita", a pie
with leafy greens (not just spinach) - that way, I could still say that I had
vegetables ;-)
An
epiphany – this pie was so delicious, I wanted more… and I actually wanted to
make it home so that I could taste it again.
I find a spinach pie tends to be on the heavy side and most of the time
there is plenty of feta cheese and/or cream.
This pie was light and aromatic and not fat at all – and I could
actually eat the dough as well.
I
set on to look for recipes on the web (thank you pinterest) and having found
one, I proceeded to adapt it (as I always do…) – the end result more than
pleased me and I'm happy to say I have since made it twice more to the delight
of all those who taste it
Pie with leafy greens
500g spinach leaves, fresh
40g each parsley, aneth, fresh
3 leeks, white parts
1 tbsp dry sage
1 tbsp dry thyme
3 tbsp dry celery leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
salt/pepper
100g feta cheese, crumbled
2*125g pie dough
A
major change for me regarding the ingredients was their nature: I used fresh
greens, and not frozen or dried. While I
would not do so for the rest of my cooking, I found that fresh really made a
difference in this recipe.
Get
the oven starting at 180 degrees C fan.
Wash
the spinach (4 times is necessary IMHO) to get it squeaky clean. Wash the herbs
and chop off any discoloured bits. In
both cases, you can choose whether you keep the stalks or not – I do, as they
provide extra flavour and in any case everything will be chopped to bits… Make
sure you get as much water out of all greens as possible, otherwise the pie
could get soggy (I used my salad spinner for this job)
Chop
everything in tiny bits – it took about 3 full loads of my kitchen robot to go
through all the ingredients. Mix everything well with the oil, season and add
the crumbled feta cheese if you are using it (I've made the pie both with and
without the cheese, and I can't say I have a preference…)
As
to the dough, I used store-bought here, but I'm finalising a recipe for
home-made "peasant" pie dough – story developing…
Line
a 30-cm deep baking dish with parchment paper or oil it well. Lay one sheet of pie dough, dump the whole
mix of greens and cover with the second sheet of dough. Make tiny little holes on the top layer and
bake for about 40'. Leave to cool and then simply enjoy!