British chef Jamie Oliver said he’s made a “cracking combination of creamy feta and spinach” for his homemade filo pie, as the two ingredients pair really well together in multiple recipes.
The flaky filo pie, stuffed with spinach and feta, is “baked to perfection”, said Jamie Oliver, and is “delicious” served with a simple salad.
As the filo pie is topped with lots of herbs and spices, including nutmeg, every mouthful of the filo pie is bursting with flavour.
While Jamie suggested serving the spinach and feta filo pie with a simple salad, it’s also possible to have the filo pie alongside mash, if you so wish.
Taking one hour to bake in the oven, there’s plenty of time to decide and make a side dish that suits you – and if you want to make it again, you can try out another side dish with it.
Spinach, feta and lemon filo pie recipe
Serves: eight people
Cooks in: one hour
Ingredients:
One kg frozen spinach
Two onions
Two cloves of garlic
Olive oil
One whole nutmeg, for grating
One lemon
100g feta cheese or goat’s cheese
15g of fresh flat-leaf parsley
15g of fresh dill
200g natural yoghurt
Four large free-range eggs
One x 275g pack filo pastry
10g Cheddar cheese
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas four. Defrost 1kg of frozen spinach and squeeze out some of the excess water.
Peel and finely slice two onions and two cloves of garlic, then fry in a large non-stick pan with one tablespoon of olive oil for 10 minutes.
Stir in the spinach, then add grated nutmeg and the zest of one lemon. Crumble in 50g of feta cheese and season with salt and black pepper.
Pick, chop then stir in a bunch of flat-leaf parsley (15g) and dill (25g) into the spinach mixture.
In a bowl, whisk the remaining 50g of feta with 200g of natural yoghurt and four large eggs until well mixed.
Lay a sheet of filo pastry on a clean worktop, brush with a little olive oil and spread with a little spinach mixture.
Roll into a long sausage shape and place in a (30cm x 40cm) baking dish. Repeat until all the filo pastry sheets and spinach are used up and the baking dish is filled with neat rows of filo.
Pour over the egg mixture, brush with olive oil, then finely grate over 10g of Cheddar. Bake for 35 minutes, or until golden.
Scatter the remaining herbs over the top, and serve alongside your desired side dish.
While soft cheese, such as feta or goat’s cheese, is used for the filo pie stuffing, Red Leicester is also acceptable. Jamie advised: “Have fun experimenting.”
