A spinach and cheese pie for spring

It's funny how sometimes a dish seems to crop up everywhere. Last weekend I needed something nice to cook for a family meal. It was a sunny early April day and something springlike, not too elaborate and damn tasty was what I was looking for.

So my thoughts turned to spanakopita. It's a Greek filo pastry-wrapped pie with a spinach and feta filling. I cooked it, we devoured it for Sunday lunch and it was pretty good, if I do say so myself. Spinach has a bit of a holier-than-thou good-for-you reputation (I blame Popeye) but treated right, it is one of my favourite veg.

Later that day I was reading the Observer magazine - only to find Nigel Slater's recipe for spanakopita. The next day the other half came home from his weekend away and brought me a copy of the Saturday Guardian magazine. And there was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe for nettle spanakopita. Is this a food trend that I have missed? I hadn't seen either of them when I decided what to cook, so it seemed like a funny coincidence.

Speaking of feta, did you know that it is now protected in Europe with an AOC designation of origin label? It has to come from certain regions of Greece, use mostly sheep's milk, and be made according to traditional methods. Which is why you now get things called "salad cheese" or "Greek-style cheese" on the shelves. I do like proper feta, especially if I am eating it raw, but I have to confess that for this dish I used "Greek salad cheese" (it was still made in Greece, but using cow's milk) and it worked perfectly well. 

Here's my recipe. It's fairly flexible, so feel free to adjust the ingredients as you see fit. I made it in a deep pie dish, but you can make it strudel-shaped or into individual triangle-shaped pastries if you want something more portable.

This is a dish that works really well with frozen spinach, which is cheaper, and saves you the washing and chopping. Use fresh instead if you wish, but I personally wouldn't bother. 

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

900g frozen spinach, defrosted
250g feta cheese (or similar Greek-style cheese), roughly crumbled
2 eggs, beaten
3 spring onions, chopped
About half a bunch dill (more if you really like it), chopped
Freshly grated nutmeg
3-6 sheets filo pastry
Melted butter (optional) for brushing

Method

Combine all the ingredients except the pastry and butter in a large bowl and mix well.
Grease a large oven-proof dish like a pie dish, or even a small roasting tin with sides, large enough to accommodate all your filling with room to spare.
Take a sheet of pastry and lay it across the dish so it comes up the sides. Take the next sheet and overlap it a bit, repeating until the base and sides of the dish are covered with 1-2 layers of pastry and you have some pastry overhanging the edge. You will need to work fairly quickly so the pastry does not dry out. If you wish, you can brush each sheet of pastry with melted butter. Most recipes tell you to do this, but I didn't and it worked fine.
Put your filling inside the pastry in the dish. Take the overhanging pastry and fold it over to form a lid. If there isn't enough to cover the top, add another sheet of pastry, rumpling it up a bit to give attractive folds.
Bake in a medium hot oven until the pastry is golden brown and the filling is piping hot.
Serve hot, warm or at room temperature, perhaps with some new potatoes and a salad.

I haven't tried Nigel Slater's version yet, but he suggests using broad beans or peas as well as the spinach. I might try this next time - I like serving peas on the side anyway.

I haven't yet picked any nettles, so I don't know whether I will be trying Hugh's wild version, but I am not totally convinced by it. I like nettles but find their texture is best when diluted with something else, as in a quiche, souffle or creamy ricotta-based pasta sauce. I think using them in a spanakopita might just be too much nettle.