Spanakopita, or spinach pie, is a Greek classic: sweet, earthy leaves and salty cheese wrapped in an incredibly crunchy layer of flaky pastry, it’s just as good for breakfast as it is for lunch or dinner. Delicious hot or cold, suitable for vegetarians, and fairly cheap to make, it’s my current top picnic tip. Also, of course, it makes a nice light lunch or dinner, especially with a tomato salad on the side and, if you want to make it into little triangles or cigars, instead of a big cake, it makes a top-notch appetizer. In short, if you don’t already have one, you need a spanakopita recipe in your life.

spinach

In truth, although I have chosen spanakopita because spinach is more widely available than many other wild and cultivated vegetables used in similar pies in Greece, you can use any quick cooker sheet you have available – Christina Mouratoglou and Adrien Carré of London restaurant. Mazi gives a recipe in her book of the same name for hortopita, which uses nettles and cavolo nero in addition to spinach, while the Serious Eats website recommends using chard, arugula, and watercress for a more interesting flavor—treat them the same. just like the spinach in this recipe.

Christina Mouratoglou and Adrien Carré of London restaurant Mazi use nettles and cavolo nero in addition to spinach. Felicity Cloake miniatures for The Guardian.

In general, though, spanakopita recipes simply call for spinach, which, without further qualification, I assume means adult leaves, since the Greeks seem too sensible a society to have abandoned it in favor of the oppressively iron young leaves. suitable for salads (I try it in a recipe and find that it almost dissolves in the filling). Fortunately, I have several greengrocers nearby, but if you don’t, frozen whole-leaf spinach turns out to be a very decent alternative: make sure you thaw it well, then drain it before adding it to the stuffing.

In fact, whatever you use, it needs to be as dry as possible before it goes anywhere near dough, so you’ll need to reduce the water content. One way to do this, of course, is to wilt it with heat until it sits in a pool of its own juices, and then drain it well, an approach favored by Akis Petretzikis, Diane Kochilas, and Mazi’s cookbook, but I think this runs the risk of overcooking it. Much better to do as Vefa Alexiadou recommends in Greece: The Cookbook and massaging the fresh leaves with salt instead: it’s faster and the end result tastes much fresher. This also has the advantage of keeping the filling mixture relatively cool, which means you can bake it right away without worrying about the residual heat from the spinach spoiling the dough. (NB: you can skip this step with frozen leaves.)

Spanakopita from Vefa Alexiadou: massage the fresh leaves with salt.

The newspaper

This is completely optional – Lenten recipes leave it out entirely, and there are vegan versions that use tofu – but if you eat cheese, I recommend it because it’s delicious. Feta is the standard choice, but some recipes also add a bit of grated kefalotiri, a harder, richer cheese that is often served fried as saganaki, though I don’t think you need the extra flavor unless you have something that does. wear. . Mazi is the only cake that eschews the crumbly white stuff entirely in favor of a béchamel sauce made with Parmesan, which feels a bit thin by comparison: feta, apparently, can’t be beat.

Traditionally, the filling is enriched with eggs, although Petretzikis uses cream cheese for a richer consistency, Tess Mallos uses ricotta and Sofia Souli, whose Greek Cookery And Wines is highly recommended by Jack Monroe, sticks with some evaporated milk and a good drizzle of oil as well, while Alexiadou uses regular milk and melted butter. Testers find the oil, butter, and cream cheese a little rich, and the evaporated milk a little sweet; in fact, it amazes me that, having worked so hard to squeeze the moisture out of the leaves, it’s a bit counterintuitive to add more again. , with the exception of the egg, which will sit in the oven and harden the filling in the process.