Best Greek Spanakopita (Spinach Pie)- Easy!

I had one welcome back to party historybut today instead of history I thoughtwe would do a little bit of quarantinecooking I’m a big fan of easy and tastyfoods and one of my favorite things tomake easier the new thing is a spun hopethat’s on a cookie that is a spinach pieit’s a Greek dish that we make withspinach and feta and made brilliance andfeel a little phyllo dough to us sothat’s what we’ll make todaydon’t be scared it’s very easy you canmake it very quickly and it’s deliciousok let’s get started in order to makeyour easy and tasty spanakopita you needa few key ingredients and the first oneis of course spinachI have opted for frozen spinach it’smuch easier than fresh spinach there areabout 2 pounds of frozen spinach herewhich I’m going to heat up and defrostthe next thing you need is some crumbledfeta cheese this is about maybe half apound of crumbled feta we need someonions I’ve got 2 small onions that I’mgonna chop up you can use a big onewhatever you’d like some garlic I usemaybe one or two cloves depending on howbig they are I like to put in a leek Ichop this up very finely and put it init gives it a little bit of a sweetertaste and about 2 tablespoons of choppedparsley which give it a little extraflavor of course we have the filo doughnow phyllo dough you can make your ownif you’d like but if you want to make iteasyI get the ready-made just pie crust oryeah so just a non sweet pie crust theseare rectangular in shape but you can usethese circular ones as well if you wantyou can put them in like a springformpan I’m going to be putting these in thePyrex fish it’s rectangular pirate fishso you need one for the base and thenone for the top and of course we willneed some salt some fresh ground peppersome olive oil and I have this bakingspray because I will spray the piratesdish with that in order so that the filodough doesn’t stick and then on top ofthe when we finish with the the filodough on top we’re gonna brush it withan egg and sprinkle it then with somesesame seeds so these are theingredients that you need and let’s putit together so the first thing we’regoing to do is chop up our onion garlicand leek into small pieces[Music][Music][Applause][Music]so while you chopping up your leeksonions and garlic you can create theoven to 350 Fahrenheit or about 170Sussex and you can defrost the spinachby setting a little bit of water puttingit in a pot heating it up a little bituntil it’s completely defrosted we’regonna strain that though afterwards toget all of the excess water out okay sowe’ve drained all the water out of thespinach and we are ready to startputting everything together so I’m usingthe same pot that I use for the spinachyou don’t even have to clean it it’seasy just to just dump the spinach inthe drainer the strainer and then addabout four tablespoons of olive oil welet that heat up a little bit and tothat we’re going to add our choppedonions garlic and Link so now we sautethe onions garlic and Link in those fourtablespoons of olive oil for I’d sayfive to seven minutes until the onionstarts turning a bit transparent nowwe’re going to add the spinach that wehave drained into the top with theonions garlic and leekthis is going to give a little bit favorand we’ll add the chopped first daythe change just to give everything tomix everything together finished a bitof flavor and also to get any residualmoisture out of this finishso I sauteed the spinach together withKenyon’s garlic and leek for maybe justa minute or two and I’ve taken about twofeet and I’m going to add some freshground pepper as much as you want and abit of salt this is obviously eaten abit of salt and we’ll mix that up andthen set it aside to cool just a littlebit before we eventually but if we addup to set them out for 5-10 minutes tolet it cool down a little bit and we’llgo put down our first layer of phyllodough in the pyrex dish now it’s time toput the filo dough in the Pyrex – so thefirst thing we do is butter the dish sowhat are the bottom and the sides EP isbutter olive oil whatever you want youcan also put down a piece of parchmentpaper if you want but you got nothingthen we unroll the first crust so as Isaid this one is rectangular in shapeagain you can use pretty much any shapeas long as it’s on sweet hican we just kind of drop it down intothe pirates dishremoving the consulate summit and justit doesn’t fit perfectly so you kind ofput them aside and this and what we’regoing to do is beep just the bottom ofthe filo dough just this bit here formaybe five to seven minutes I’m going toprick it with a fork to to put someholder and I like to use glass hiringsdishes instead of metal so that I cansee the bottom when it’s done but firstwe cook the the bottom of it the bottompiece of phyllo dough just to make sureof thatbut it gets the floor enough and thenwe’re gonna add the spinach mixture witha 5-ironthis was in the oven after a trick tohold on[Music]okay so our phyllo dough base is readyto go in the oven again for five toseven minutes we put pop it in there andjust let it bake for a little bit andthen we’ll put deep filling so I’vetaken the phyllo dough base out of theoven and it should look something likethis so as I’m mixing the feta andspinach mixture I always like to addmaybe another tablespoon or two of oliveoil just waver now it’s time to putthese finishes at the mixture into theon top of the first layer of phyllodough so we dump that in there and thenwhat I’m gonna do is just kind of spreadit evenly along the phyllo dough piecedon’t worry it’s the phyllo dough iskind of puffy and placing this okay thiswill knock it down a little bitthat you can add more or less betta ifyou like some people like their spinachpies with more some of glass some peopledidn’t even put feta in you can dodifferent variations these pies aregreat because you can do whatever youlike in thereI cry sometimes just with leeks no justfinish it off just like with some onionsokay so we’ve got the base we’ve got thefilling and now we’ll take the secondfit of phyllo dough or pie pastry[Music]and[Music]we have to do now is kind of get in alittle bit don’t have to be perfect Ikind of like it to be a little bitabstract actually so they’re easy okayno the next thing we do is prep neck[Music]take this brush and just brush the topwith egg and what this is gonna do it’sfor two reasons one is to to the pizzaFe and they shine once it cooks it’salso going to anchor down and the sesameseeds it for the phone call if you’reallergic to sesame seeds or don’t likesesame seeds you don’t have to put themon but I would recommend putting the eggdid on top of the filo dough justbecause it gives it that nice shine andOh more sort of aesthetically pleasingbut they also control a bit about a nicetaste so you don’t need a wholly-owneduse of a leg actually the next thing wedo is we take our sesame seeds and youcan spread them much however many want Iquite like sesame seeds bottom and thenvery very summer gonna fall off you wantthe egg there so kind of spread them allover the place here you can use yourfingers legs faster and all about easeand I like the cocoa foot it becomes abit of a chore sometimes so easy recipesthat are tasty definitely high okay sohere we go full of that and this issomething which is always a good idea todo as well just to score the people sowhat I do is I kind of separate it likethis it has baked like this everythingjust makes it easier to[Music][Applause]okayso now our pita is ready to go in theoven keep in mind there are as manyvariations of spanakopita as there areretirement so there are new many manyways of making this is just my own easyway to make it and I think you’ll findthat it’s quite tasty and it reallytakes almost no time today so we’regonna pop this in the oven now for I’dsay about 30 minutes but just keep aneye on it and see you know what it’snice and golden brown on the top andalso on the bottom again that’s why Ilike to use a glass baking dish just soI can pick it up have a look underneathit at the bottom see if it’s good stateokay so I’m putting it in the oven Ihave preheated to 170 degrees and keepit in there for about half an houralright so now we’re ready to take ourspanakopita out of the oven I’m gonnarevise the time this one took about 45minutes so between 30 and 45 minutesdepending on your oven and how hot it isbut let’s take it out it should looknice and golden on the top crispythe sesame seeds in the top look foreverlook at the bottom the bottom shouldlook a bit Brown as you can see likethat and we are ready there’s been acouple days right thanks for joining forthis quarantine cooking class I hopeeverybody spot all the veterans outbreakand then they’ll join me for anotherinstallment in the future until then oneof the key or as I say in Greekpaleography[Music][Applause]