Spanakopita – Spinach and Feta pie

This traditionally Greek recipe is nothing too different to beautiful Borek but gives a nice pie feeling in the mouth when cooked with puff pastry and is very easy! I changed it a little bit but this recipe comes from my Irish friend (as I recently found out that his lovely Greek girlfriend cheated us saying she cooked it: )

I think the spinach is in season right now and tastes great so I suggest popping into Blackheath Farmer’s market and buying some.

Here we go:

1 pack of Puff pastry
1, 5 or 2 blocks of feta cheese
2 packs of spinach (I used two bunches of spinach bought from the farmers)
3 eggs
Half an onion (I used a whole onion)
Chopped parsley
Chopped dill
Pepper
Sesame seeds (I used black seeds which you can find in Middle Eastern shops)

How do I cook spanakopita?

1. Handful by handful, wash the spinach, leave in water, add some drops of apple cider vinegar  as it kills the left over germs, drain.

2. Finely chop the onion and gently fry it in some butter until it turns
soft, then leave that aside to cool a little, do the same with drained spinach.

3.In a big bowl crumble the feta until it’s all broken up, then add the
three eggs, a handful of chopped parsley, a generous amount of dill, the
fried onion and lots of black pepper. Using your hands, mix it all
together until it’s evenly mixed.

4. Butter your pie dish then cut the puff pastry into two, you have to open it up in the shape of your pie dish. Then add the bottom layer of pastry.

5. Fill the filo with the mixture and spread it out as evenly as possible, then cover with the rest of the pastry. Add some milk to the bowl that contained the feta mixture then brush the liquid over the top of the pie. Finish by sprinkling sesame seeds on top. (or blackseeds)

6. Cook at 180 degrees until the top goes brown, then cover with foil and
cook for a further 20 mins or so.

Like a lot of food it tastes better after it has been cooled and
reheated later : )

Enjoy!

Do we have to put egg in borek?

No we don’t have to, great answer for vegans I guess!

So what is the replacement then? You heard the bell rang, that’s right: Yoghurt! When you are cooking your borek, if you do not want to use egg or if you have ran out of eggs, spread some yoghurt on the top layer of the filo pastry, then add your blackseeds or anything you like as a topping. Easy as that!

Also there are options in vegan shops like egg replacement powders, but personally I don’t like using those.

Another alternative is grape juice syrup or grape molasses. You can find them easily in Britain.

Have a few spoonfuls of it in a bowl and make it thinner with some water. Spread it thinly over your borek and it will be roasted beautifully!

Enjoy!

Spinach and Feta Borek – Filo Pastries

Yummy! I have never ever rejected anyone offering borek. If you want to find out why, try this recipe. It is perfect for picnics as it is edible hot or cold, any time of the day.

You can call anything cooked with filo pastries “borek” actually, but this dish is cooked happily in the Balkans as burek, in Greece as spanakopita (with spinach and feta), in Israel as burekas (with cheese).

You can fill your borek with anything you want, but usually cheese and spinach is used.  Flat parsley or minced meat are also good options.

Let’s begin:

• 500g filo pastry
• 1 glass of milk
• 5 spoonfuls of olive oil or butter
• 3 eggs
• some sunflower seeds or black seeds
• 250g feta cheese
• 1 pack of fresh spinach leaves (alternatively a big bunch of parsley)

1. Spread some butter onto your cooking tray, this will stop your borek from sticking the tray.
2. Filo pastry is usually sold in a round shape so leave one sheet aside and cut the rest to fit to your tray.
3. Mix your butter or olive oil, milk, and eggs all together in a bowl.  Stir well.
4. Put the sheet of filo pastry in your tray, leave the corners out, you will close them at the top once you finish layering.
5. Spread the oil-milk-egg mixture with a brush over each sheet, and put each sheet on top of the other.  Use half of the sheets.
6. Soften the spinach in a pan quickly, cool it down and mix with crumbled feta cheese. (if you use parsely, you do not need to cook it.)
7. Pour this mixture onto your filo pastry layers in the tray.
8. Then, carry on putting the filo pastries one by one over this mixture and each time do not forget to spread some butter-milk-egg mixture onto the sheets otherwise they will become dry.
9. When there is no filo pastry left, cover the corners of the first big sheet onto your borek and spread the rest of the butter-milk-egg mixture on top.

10. Sprinkle some seeds over it.

11. Cook it for about 20 minutes in the middle of a pre-heated oven at 200C, until the top and the bottom gets brownish. It is delicious eaten with a spoonful of yoghurt.

Bon appetit!

Bakery pastries

Hello there,

Finally I have a bit of time to add new recipes, this recipe is extremely good, because the results can be eaten in the morning, at lunchtime or in the evening… It is something you won’t regret trying… Delicious! Also it goes well with any food as a bread if you cook the plain version. I should thank Cenk for cooking it for us last festive season then sending the recipe to all of us.

Now here we go:

What do I need to have?

3 egg whites (keep the yolks separate we will use them later)
5 turkish teacups of warm milk (tricky one I would say 1 pint of warm milk)
2 packs of instant yeast (apprx 10 – 14 g) or 2 packs of fresh yeast (apprx 80 g)
1 1/2 dessert spoons of salt
1 dessert spoon of sugar
1 pack of margarine
white or brown flour (as much as the dough needs – see below)

Do not get scared about how much margarine is needed, as you will see when you prepare the dough!

How do I cook it then?

Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and knead until it becomes a dough. The dough should be very very soft, almost like liquid but not totally, slightly softer then your earlobe hehe:)

Then leave the dough in the bowl somewhere warm (next to a radiator) and cover it with a tea-towel but do not cover with a cling film as it needs to grow a bit. It will ferment for about half an hour or an hour – check it occasionally. When it has doubled in size, then it is ready for cooking.

Rub your hands with a bit of oil to make it easy to roll the doughballs. As I said above, a lot of margarine but you get at least 24 doughballs out of it in the end, enough for a party!

I used a muffin base to cook them, but any flat tray would be good, you just have to give a nice shape and it reminds me of Japanese cartoons a lot. Do you remember how delicious looking the breads are in Japanese cartoons?! Anyway may be it is just me:)

Ok, when you are shaping the doughballs you can add any filling you like but pay attention to keep the filling inside, not mixed with the dough. I prefer feta cheese with parsley, or plain cheese cheddar or feta, or boiled and mashed potato with a bit of spice or minced meat. (But cook the minced meat and cool it down before you add it. )

When you lay the doughballs on your tray, leave them to rise a bit more. During that time, brush them with egg yolk, and cover them with seeds (sesame, sunflower, or anything you like).

Then, preheat the oven to 200°C (400F / gas mark 6) and place on a baking tray for about 15 minutes.

pastries with cheese and parsley

Hello there,

Thanks to friends visiting the new flat I had the chance to cook a lot, so have got a lot of recipes. This one in particular is very good when you have lots of people around and no bread at all. They are very tasty, warm, and could be eaten with all sorts of mezes. Called poğaça in Turkish, but according to wikipedia, it seems to have names like Pogača or Pogacha in the Balkans pogácsa in Hungary and pogatschen in Austria. It says it becomes foccaccia in Italy a more flat version. I feel like it sounds more of a Slavic word pogaca. (pron. may be say it like this in english : po-acher?)

It is definitely not a very healthy food given the amount of oil you use but very comforting and happy food I should say! The loveliest thing with pogaca is it is very good in the mornings or in the afternoons with tea.

Right, let’s begin cooking then.

What do I need to buy?
3 eggs (keep one yolk away as it will be used later)
one cup of plain yoghurt
a pack of butter
a cup of sunflower oil
1 bunch parsley, chopped fınely
3 spoonful of baking powder
a pack of feta cheese, crumbled
flour
sesame seeds or black seeds

How to make the dough?
The easiest way is trying to feel it:) Put the oil, butter, baking powder, yoghurt and 3 eggs (one yolk aside) in a bowl and add the flour slowly. Whilst kneading it will become not too wet not too dry, it should end up feeling like an earlobe as it is said in a Turkish idiom:)

Then mix the feta and parsley in a bowl this will be your stuffing. Do not forget the stuffing can be anything you want like just cheese, potato, or minced meat ( it is better to cook the minced meat before you put in the dough.)

Take several pieces of dough, make them round in your palm by rolling and pressing. They should not too thin or not too thick like 2 – 3 inch wide. After that put some stuffing in each of them and close them as it is showed here.

It is sort of a half moon shape. Then it is time to place them a on a greased baking sheet. Brush them with egg yolk then sprinkle black seeds or sesame seeds on top.

Put the tray in preheated oven (200 degrees) and cook until the colour of the pastries turn brownish and smelling beautiful.

There is an alternative and easier way of cooking which is when you make the dough you put the feta and parsley in it. And you make your dough a mixture. Then make several little doughs and cook them the same way.

After all these epısodes your pogaca is ready and believe me it is not hard as it sounds, enjoy!