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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Spanakopita - A Greek Starter

Couple of months back after making an yummy Greek dessert - Baklava , I was wondering about how to use up the little of the remaining phyllo sheets. I thought of going again for the same Baklava - the rolled up version, then something stopped me warning me about the calories. So after browsing through the numerous bookmarked recipes on starters and appetizers, I settled on Spanakopita that aptly needed the exact amount of sheets that I had in hand.




I adapted the recipe from Here by omitting the egg and baking instead of frying.


Ingredients:
2 cups of frozen spinach
1 small onion minced
2 garlic cloves minced
1 tsp red chilli flakes.
2 tblsp of chopped parsley or cilantro
salt and pepper
Butter or olive oil for brussing the phyllo pastry

Method
Thaw and sqeeze all the water from the Spinach/
Take a tblsp of olive oil in a pan and saute onion and garlic.
Stir in the spinach, salt , pepper and redchili flakes. Saute for 2 mins.
Allow it to cool and mix in the Feta cheese.

Place 3 phyllo pastry sheets on a flat surface.
Brush them with melted butter or olive oil on one side.
Cut the Pastry sheets into thin long rectangular shapes.
Place a tblsp of the stuffing and fold it like a triangle.
Keep folding the triangle continuosly left and right till you reach the end of the strip.
It will resemble a samosa wrapped in layers of trace paper.
Seal the edges with melted butter.

Bake in the  180C preheated oven for 20 mins or the pastry is well browned.
You can also substitute the Feta cheese with Ricotta or crumbled Paneer.





Sending these to the AWED event started by DK held this month  at  TastyCurryLeaf and also to Divya's  Healing food Spinach event.

Sending this also to this week's Bake-off event over at Bangalore Baker

21 comments:

  1. I love these and you have made them so perfect. Wish i could grab few of them.

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  2. Never tried it, but sounds like Indian spinach-cheese-garlic samosa..these are baked..+++
    Perfect for the events..

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  3. I just love these..always order them when got change..very delicious and yummy yum yum Sumi..thanks for sharing..i would give it a try very soon..

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  4. Dear,
    The Spanakopita looks awesome.My favorite greek appetizer ever. I make these at home sometimes but mostly grab it from the freezer section of costco.

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  5. Looks very good. I love the way they've browned evenly. You could send them to my'Bake-Off' even if you wish.

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  6. Spanakopita looks really delicious... I would love to have this:)

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  7. Love spanakopita! U ve done beautifully!

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  8. Yummy appetizer..love the way they look

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  9. Mmmm, cheese/spinach & coriander as filling in those crunchy wraps, sounds absolutely delicious!!! I love this version & like the baking part instead of frying :) lovely recipe!!

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  10. Got the entry. Thanks and it'll be on 3/19 roundup.

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  11. Cute and crispy...rouro

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  12. Never knew about Greek cuisine///nice to know !

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  13. I thought I left a line here ... the spanakopita look so gorgeous that I guess I left drooling. ;-)

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  14. he spanakopita look inviting.Hearty Thanks for the wonderful entry.I am sorry I could not visit earlier as I was a bit busy.Thanks again

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  15. Spanakopita looks prefect, even i have prepared the same, will post them soon..great appetizier..

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  16. These look absolutely delicious! A Perfect evening snack!

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  17. First time here....

    Spanakopita sounds very interesting and delicious :-)

    ArunaManikandan
    http://ensamayalkuripugal.blogspot.com

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  18. They look so perfectly done and gorgeous..

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  19. You didn't mention how much cheese (feta) you used in the recipe, nor did you say how wide the phyllo pastry strips should be. Do you stack the 3 sheets on top of each other brushing the butter between the sheets or do you use only one sheet at a time? I've never made these and would really appreciate more information.

    Thank you

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  20. How much fetta cheese should you use? it's not in your list of ingredients?

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  21. How much fetta cheese should you use? it's not in your list of ingredients?

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Thanks for dropping by.Your comments are very much valuable to me. Will reply to you guys as when time permits