Spanokopita - Greek Spinach Pie

You need

½ packet phyllo pastry, defrosted at room temperature

About 150g butter, melted

Spinach filling

600-800g spinach or Swiss chard

25ml canola oil

2 large white onions, coarsely chopped

250ml chopped mushrooms, optional

2-3 cloves garlic

1ml ground black pepper

(as feta cheese is salty, do not add salt)

½ ml ground nutmeg (I never use nutmeg as I dislike the flavour!)

If you want to omit the separate cheese filling below, then use only 250ml coarsely crumbled feta*

Smaller English Spinach leaves are more tender than Swiss Chard

Cheese filling

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 cup crumbled feta cheese (I use Feta flavoured with herbs or black pepper)

1 cup grated cheddar

1 egg, lightly beaten

½ ml ground black pepper

The cheese mixture must not be too wet

To prepare

Set oven at 180°C

Wash the spinach. If using Swiss chard, remove the spines of the leaves and roughly chop the leaves.

Place the wet leaves in a microwaveable bowl, cover with plastic and microwave on full power for 3 minutes. Allow the spinach to stand for a few minutes, then drain off any water.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onions and mushrooms and fry until the onions are tender and the mushrooms are turning brown. Add the garlic (if you add the garlic too early it burns easily) and the pepper.

Remove from the heat. Add the spinach and Feta*

For the Cheese filling, mix all the ingredients together in above.

Follow the rules for using phyllo pastry (click here)

Line a 22cm diameter pie dish with 3 sheets of phyllo pastry, ensuring that you paint each sheet with melted butter.

: Line a pie dish, pastry overlapping edges

: Add cheese filling

: Add spinach filling

Place the cheese layer in the base and top it with the spinach layer.

Fold the sheets of pastry that extend over the pie dish inwards, then take half sheets of pastry, that have been painted with butter and ‘scrunch’ them to form loose folds on top.