Spinach and cheese open pita – round baking dish
Ingredients
Filling
- 500 g frozen spinach, thawed, 2 cups
- 300 g goat feta, 1 ½ cups loosely packed when crumbled
- 200 g ricotta, 1 cup
- 100 g parmesan cheese, shredded, 1 cup
- 240 g Greek yoghurt, 1 cup
- 2 spring onions, chopped
- 2 tsp dry mint
- 2 eggs
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp salt
Assembly
- 1 whole pack of pre-made phyllo sheets, 20 phyllo sheets, 375g
- 100 g salted butter
- 4 tbs olive oil
- ½ cup milk
- 2 eggs
Instructions
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Thaw the phyllo by taking it out of the fridge and letting it come to room temperature in its pack for at least 2 hours and if you are using frozen spinach then thaw that as well (see note 2). Otherwise please read note 1 on how to prepare fresh spinach. When you are ready to assemble the pita preheat the oven to 170°C.
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To prepare the filling simply smash the feta and ricotta in a bowl. Squeeze out the liquid from the spinach with your hands, use kitchen scissors or a knife to roughly cut it smaller chunks and then add it in the bowl. Continue by adding the rest of the filling ingredients and mix everything with a spoon until well combined and set aside.
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Melt the butter and then stir in the olive oil. Place the phyllo sheets you need under a damp cloth and return the rest of the phyllo wrapped well in the plastic and then its container, back in the fridge.
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Line the baking dish with baking paper or brush it with butter well around all the sides. I used a large round shaped dish with a 38cm diameter.
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Get one phyllo sheet and place it in front of you along its length (see photos above for clarity). Then brush all the edges well with the oil/butter mixture and then the inside. Add another phyllo on top and repeat the brushing.
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The filling will be split 10 times to create 10 separate spinach and cheese filled fans. So get 1/10 of the filling (just over ½ a cuand place it randomly on the phyllo sheets. Use the back of the spoon to smear the filling on the phyllo so it can spread a bit more. Then use your two thumbs to push the phyllo upwards hence creating a fan shape (see photos above for clarity).
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Curl the first fan into a circle in the middle of the dish and then continue the process above until all phyllo and filling are used up. As you finish making each fan you will need to keep working from the middle to the edges, placing each fan curled against the one made previously. In the end you should have 10 fans in the baking dish. If a single phyllo sheet is left on its own, then just add 3 phyllo sheets to make the last fan instead of two.
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Brush the phyllo on top with the remaining oil/butter, whisk the egg and milk together and pour it all over the phyllo. Place it in the oven for 40min or until golden brown.
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Please note that for this recipe card the filling is doubled but there are a few less phyllo sheets used in comparison to the one using a rectangular dish above. So this will end up fuller.
Recipe Notes
1. To use fresh spinach wash and sauté 600g of baby spinach leaves with a little with of olive oil. Cook until they just slightly wilt. Then once it cools down squeeze the excess liquid and continue as per instructions above.
2. The spinach I typically use was from the frozen aisle of Aldi and it is less than $1 for a 250g pack. I also used a separate brand from Woolworths (Bell farms brand) but it was prepare very fine, almost blended. There was heaps more liquid released and actually 2 packs (500g) of the Woolworths (Bell farms brand) ended up being a bit less than a cup. Unlike the Aldi brand which I got 1 cup worth of spinach from just 1 pack 250g.
3. I used a smaller round springform pan of 26cm once and I only managed to get 4 filled spinach and cheese fans (8 phyllo sheets in total). So you may want to adjust the measurements above to suit a smaller pan, if you don't have a larger one.