Spanakopita (Greek spinach pie)

This is a side of Greek cuisine that you can eat hot or cold, and that is very popular with Greek meals. It resembles spinach / feta flaps (Spanakopitakia). In this savory tart but added extra ingredients and the crust is piedeeg instead of puff pastry. This is a trickier recipe because you have to make the dough itself. You can facilitate the course yourself by choosing ready-made puff pastry for the bottom and top. That is also a very common variant in Greece. You can use this vegetarian dish well as main meal or lunch dish, but maybe you can best complement the cake than with a Greek salad. The fact is, in any case that Spanakopita combines well with many other dishes to feast!

Ingredients (for 16 pieces)

For the dough:

250 grams flour

Half teaspoon salt

30 grams of butter or margarine in lumps

Sixty milliliters olive oil

125 milliliters of hot water

For the filling:

420 grams of spinach or frozen spinach in a suit

One leek, white only, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

Quarter teaspoon nutmeg

Two teaspoons of fresh or dried dill

200g crumbled feta cheese

One tablespoon breadcrumbs

Half teaspoon black pepper

Three eggs, lightly beaten

Two tablespoons of olive oil

preparation

Brush a baking pan (about 28 x 18 x 3 cm) with olive oil. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Knead with your fingers through the butter or margarine until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Pour the oil and knead gently with your hands. The mixture has to clump together. Make a well in the center and add kneading enough water to make a smooth dough of it. Continue to gently knead - the dough should not be completely smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for an hour. Wash and chop the spinach leaves, put them in a clean tea towel, turning points as tight as possible into each other and squeeze the spinach dry. If you must of course be thawed first used frozen spinach, but then you have to squeeze out much moisture as possible. Put the spinach in a bowl, along with the leeks, nutmeg, dill, feta cheese, breadcrumbs and pepper and mix together well. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Role slightly more than half of the dough on a floured surface. Divide dough evenly over the bottom and the edges of the pan. Add eggs and oil to the spinach mixture. Mix it with the hands, but not too long, otherwise it is too wet. Put the mixture into the lined baking pan with dough. Roll out the remaining dough so that it is large enough to cover the entire surface of the pan. Cover the contents of the pan with it and press the edges firmly together all good exit. Trim excess dough with a sharp knife and brush the top with olive oil. Mark with a knife three narrow stripes in the length, and then diagonally, so that a diamond shape. Create two or three notches to let the steam escape. Bake forty to fifty minutes or until golden brown. If it goes too fast, you could cover the cake with aluminum foil. The cake is done when he is in the tin can slide when you shake. Turn the cake on a rack and let it cool down for ten minutes. Place it on a cutting board or back in the tin and cut the diamond shapes. If you make the cake the night before, he's the best. The white spots on the crust of the pie are solidified oil droplets.

Bon Appetit!