Spanakopita (Spinach Pie)

Spanakopita in Greek translates to spinach and feta pie. Layers of flaky phyllo pastry (just buy store-bought, don't be a hero) hold a creamy spinach and feta filling. Apparently the key to a successful spanakopita is to never cook the spinach leaves before you add them to the pie - which seems so counter-intuitive.

To be honest, this recipe was a smidge of a fuck-up. Starting this food blog, I vowed to do three things:

1. Talk about messing up. Happens a lot. All the time.

2. Not ramble about how delicious the recipe is cos honestly, no one cares. I always skip all the verbiage when I look at recipes so I assume most people do that too. Also sometimes I make gross food and I want to talk about that too.

3. Categorize my recipes into either how they made me feel, or what I was feeling when making these recipes.

Thus, this is a comfort dish because it is god-damn HEARTY.

Unfortunately, I have a peanut-sized emotional capacity for patience, I didn't wait for the phyllo pastry to defrost completely so it was literally breaking apart as I was assembling the pie before baking. The fantastic thing about phyllo is that a fuck up's end result is artistic interpretation and I definitely went the "suburban Target soccer mom preparing unnecessarily fancy gift bag with tissue paper" route in terms of how I layered the top layers of phyllo. Judge me all you want for my lack of finesse, but the final result looked pretty DANG GREAT to me.

Some photos of my process:

Ingredients

• 1 pound (#4) phyllo pastry at room temperature

• 12 ounces salted butter, melted

• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs

• 1 pound spinach leaves, coarsely chopped

• 3 teaspoons dried dill

• 6 scallions, thinly sliced

• 15 ounces ricotta cheese

• 1 pound feta cheese, crumbled

• 3 eggs

• 3-4 tablespoons olive oil

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

Instructions

1. Make the filling:

   • In a big bowl, mix the feta and ricotta cheese. Add the dill, salt, pepper, olive oil, and the scallions. Mix until combined.

   • Add the spinach. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed. Combine the eggs in a small bowl and whisk them together. Add the eggs to the spinach mixture and dive on in with your hands to mix it all up.

     
     

2. Assemble the Pie:

   • Sprinkle the breadcrumbs into a large baking pan to create an even layer.

   • Take a stack of 3 sheets of phyllo and place it in the pan to cover the bottom and let the rest of the stack hang over the side of the pan. Drizzle the top sheet with some dang melted butter.

   • Place 2 sheets half in the pan and half hanging outside of the pan on all four sides of the ​pan. Drizzle more butter between the layers.

   • Spread all of the filling inside of the phyllo sheets. All of the sheets that are hanging outside of the pan should go over the filling. Place all of the filling inside of the phyllo and fold the phyllo that is hanging outside of the pan over the filling brushing butter in between the layers.

   • Reserve 6-7 sheets of phyllo for the topping and place the remaining sheets over the filling. Drizzle with MORE BUTTER!

   • Take one sheet at a time and crinkle it like an accordion and place it on top. Continue creating accordions and place them side by side until the top is covered. MORE BUTTER! and score into pieces.

   • POUR LEFTOVER BUTTER on top and brush all around. Butter, butter, butter. Don't skimp.

   • Bake the pie on the center rack for about an hour or until golden all around. For an extra crisp bottom crust, transfer the tray to the bottom rack for the last 10 minutes. If your oven's heat is too high then, skip this step and just bake the pie a few extra minutes on the center rack.

   • Allow the pie to rest at room temperature for 15-20 minutes. Get your ASMR gear together and get ready for some solid crackling as you cut into that flaky phyllo to serve!