Spanakopita

Greek spinach pies, Spanakopita, make great portable party pies! Spinach, feta, egg, filo dough and butter are about all you need.
 
This recipe is based on Jeff Smith's book The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece, Rome. You can make this with fresh Spinach (after cooking it, squeezing dry, then chopping finely) but I haven't noticed any degradation using frozen. Don't use too much parsley or it can taste grassy. We like making small triangular ones, folded like paper footballs from grade school. If your filo is thick, you can cut the large sheets in half; if it's thin, you'll use the whole sheet, folding it over lengthwise before filling. This is a job best done as a team: one butters and cuts the sheets, the other fills and rolls.

 20 ounces Spinach, frozen, chipped, defrosted, squeezed dry
  4        Eggs
  8 ounces Feta Cheese, crumbled
  1 bunch  Green Onions, chopped
1/4 cup    Parsley, chopped
1/4 cup    Fresh Dill, chopped (or 1 Tbs dried dill)
           Lemon Zest, finely grated (microplane) from one lemon
           Lemon Juice, from half lemon
  4 cloves Garlic, crushed

salt and white pepper to taste (unless your feta is very salty)

  1 pound  Filo Dough, frozen, defrosted over night in the fridge
  1 pound  Butter, melted

Combine the ingredients for the filling (everything but the filo and butter) in a mixing bowl. The filo we got was fairly thick (#7), with 14 sheets to the pound, so we used a half-sheet for each pastry, cutting each in half before buttering, folding in half, then buttering the top. Lay the sheet on a cutting board or something so it doesn't stick. Cover the rest of the filo so it doesn't dry out and get brittle.
   

I'm an engineer, so I wanted to use all the filling evenly. I split the bowl in two, then divided each lump into four, then when filling, I used a third of each lump: 3 * 4 * 2 gave 24 pastries. If you're not so fussy, place about 1 tablespoon filling near the bottom center of the buttered filo strips.

 

Fold the bottom corner up diagonally to form a triangle, then fold the triangle over and over on itself until you reach the end of the sheet. Brush lightly with butter so it doesn't burn. Place on an elevated rack so air can get underneath, if possible, and place that on a cookie sheet.

     
Repeat until filo and filling are gone. If you're clever, both will run out at the same time. Bake at 375F convection, or 400 F conventional, for 25 - 30 minutes or until they're light golden brown. Let cool so you don't burn yourself, but serve warm.