Cooking: Spanokopita

I've mentioned before how lucky I am to live in a town with many ethnic grocery stores, and I spied this package at my favorite Mediterranean produce store called Dean's. I chose the package that was in English rather than the other brand which was all Greek to me. You need to thaw the frozen ingredients of spinach and phyllo sheets for at least 4 hours at room temperature if not overnight in the refrigerator.

I perused a lot of recipes online and settled on the Spanokopita in the New York Times though I read all the comments posted including advice that it's okay to use frozen spinach instead of fresh, to sub out some of the feta for cottage cheese if you like less salt. I had also read other recipes that included a sprinkling of sesame seeds on top from Jamie Oliver or others whose Greek grandmothers used mint or dill instead of the parsley in the newspaper recipe. Since I have access to a garden where lots of mint abounds and because I just bought a huge bunch of dill for a buttermilk dressing--I chopped both herbs.

I squeezed the water out of the spinach thoroughly with my hands, letting the liquid drain out through the colander and added just as much chopped herbs in order for the mixture to be very dry and not make a soggy bottom crust. I spent a lot of time too, chopping the alliums of red onion, green onion, and garlic.

Luckily, I bought cottage cheese as all the feta I had left was a small block, which I crumbled and combined with the cottage cheese into the spinach.

I then sauteed the aromatics in olive oil, let it cool for 5 minutes and then added to the spinach and cheese. Umm, it needed seasoning. And so I added dashes of salt and Parmesan cheese. Oh and I also almost forgot to add two eggs to bind the mixture.

And then came the tricky part: handling all the delicate and defrosted layers of phyllo dough which you must keep under a damp towel to prevent cracking and then not being able to use it. The Times recipe called for 7 layers of that tissue-like dough, but there are all kinds of thinness when it comes to phyllo. I used 7 for the sheet pan layers on the bottom with brushings of melted butter in between before layering the spinach and cheese, and that might have been too many layers. I think 5 or even 4 might have sufficed.

The Times recipe likewise called for 7 layers, but I think I only used 2 at first. I still had enough spinach and cheese to make a whole another but small spinach pie in a tin baking dish. And I ended up re-distributing the phyllo between the two pies before finally cutting (and you want to score or use a sharp knife to making serving easier)and sprinkling sesame seeds and baking in a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven for 50 to 60 minutes or until golden brown.

I was pretty chuffed at how both pies turned out and shared with neighbors and friends. 

Just as important as the appearance, the spanokopitas were delicious. And now I wanna try my hand at baklave.