Amazing Greek Traditional Spanakopita

Ingredients

For a baking tray with a diameter of 42 cm

For the dough

• 650-700 g all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• 2 tsp salt
• 450 ml lukewarm water

For the filling

• 1 kg of fresh spinach or 500 g frozen
• 500 g feta cheese
• 3 eggs
• Salt and pepper

Optionally you can add:

• 1 onion
• 1 leek, the white part, will give sweetness
• Fresh herbs such as spring onions and dill

Also

• 1 to 1.5 cups olive oil
• Cornstarch to stretch the phyllo sheets

Preparation

For the filling

The filling of the spinach pie can be made in two ways:

Raw filling

In this case, you need fresh spinach.  Rinse the spinach and keep the leaves only. Sprinkle some salt. Massage the spinach to wilt and start releasing its water.

Let it sit for an hour and squeeze out the remaining water. Drain the water and add the herbs, the eggs, the crumbled feta cheese and the pepper and stir.

Sautéed filling

Finely cut the onion and leek. Add some olive oil (2-3 tbsp) in a pan and sweat the onions and leek in low heat until soft. Tip in the spinach and sauté until wilted, if it is fresh, or until all the water evaporates, if frozen.

Add the finely chopped herbs and sauté some more. Finally, season with salt and pepper and let it cool down. Once cool, add the eggs and feta cheese and stir.

For the dough

In a mixer or a mixing bowl, combine the water, oil, vinegar and salt. Gradually add the flour, kneading until you have a soft and elastic dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl and sticks slightly to your hands. Cover it and let it rest for an hour.

How to assemble

When the time is up, the dough no longer sticks to your hands. Divide it into 12 pieces and make balls. Cover them with a towel to prevent them from drying out. Take one ball, sprinkle the surface of the counter with cornstarch and, using a rolling pin, roll it out to a size slightly larger than your baking pan.

Generously grease the pan and spread it out so that it sticks out all around. Drizzle it with olive oil. Repeat with the next four balls. Over the 5th sheet, spread 1/3 of the filling.

Roll out the 6^th sheet and spread it wrinkled so that it covers the filling but does not protrude from the baking pan. Add another 1/3 of the filling here and there and spread the 7th sheet on top.

Pour the last 1/3 of the filling and spread the last 5 sheets on top, wrinkled and without protruding from the baking pan, always drizzling with oil in between.

Crimp the edges of the pie and cut the surface into pieces without reaching the knife all the way down. Grease the surface well and bake the pie in a preheated oven at 200C for about 40 minutes but this depends on the oven.

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