Being gluten free, it is hard to make or find a malleable pastry recipe. We love spinach pie and we often need portable lunches for those in the house who are out and about a lot. To solve the problem of the pastry, I have used my sourdough recipe, the same dough we use for pizzas and wraps. It is robust, full of flavour and goes very crispy when cooked in a hot oven. I actually prefer this to pastry in this particular recipe.
Spinach and feta pies
These pies are a great portable lunch that can be eaten hot or cold just like the traditional greek pies, spanakopita. I like to use all the herbs listed for the different flavours they provide. There is no salt in the filling as the feta is salty enough and the dough is already salted. For the dough recipes, see above link in the description.
Ingredients
- 1 quantity of sourdough - You will only need about half the mix - use the rest for wraps or pizzas
- 3 large bunches of spinach - about 550g per bunch by weight with stems on
- 1 large red onion, finely chopped
- 1 large clove crushed garlic
- 180g block of hard feta cheese - crumbled
- 2 large handfuls of herbs, finely chopped - Dill, parsley, mint, chives
- 3 tsp sumac
- Olive oil and sesame seeds to top
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220C
- Prepare a baking tray with baking paper
- Remove stems from spinach leaves and roughly chop.
- Steam until just wilted and set aside to cool.
- Add remaining ingredients (except dough) to a mixing bowl.
- Once spinach is cool enough to handle, wring it out. This is an important step in order to prevent your pies being soggy. You may wish to save the green water for its nutrition. It can be added to curries or soups.
- Chop the spinach a little more finely and add to the other ingredients. Mix well.
- Take a handful of dough and shape it into a rough rectangle. Roll it out on a floured board to about 1/2cm in thickness- see photos.
- Spoon the filling down the long side of the dough and roll the sides up over it. Pinch it together down the seam and at the ends.
- With a flipper, slide onto the baking tray. Repeat with remaining mix. You may get 2 large or 3 small pies.
- Brush the tops and sides with olive oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
- Bake in the oven for 15 minutes on the middle shelf.
- Remove from oven and slide onto a cooling rack. Slice once cool enough to eat.
