Spanakopita

spanakopita, greek recipe, spinach, feta

AncestryDNA results are in and look nothing like I was expecting. 


I'm well puzzled. This is partly due to the fact that DNA analysis alone is still limited. A family tree, which I don't have, would greatly help. It's a bit of a shock to confront the fact that I know very little of my family history and almost nothing past one set of great grand parents.



But I am making progress via a series of process of elimination. Here is what I think explain my 15% British: 

"Thus, French people may be assigned a large percentage of "British" ancestry. Normandy and Kent are genetically similar, as you would expect from history and geography, so it is not easy to distinguish English from French based on DNA alone. Given high quality genomic databases it would be possible to assign an individual to a region of origin with a reasonable degree of accuracy (human provenancing), but this is beyond what genetic testing companies currently have available both in terms of having enough genetic markers in large and well-annotated databases." read on the UCL website.

So, I drop this line of inquiry for the time being, to turn to my 51% Italian and Greek. No news here either but, I was able to  prepare in all impunity a classic Greek dish filled with Spinach. He usually frowns upon green but I could be Greek.

Spanakopitas which constituted my daily breakfast when I lived and worked in Greece were take-away and look like patties. Here I chose a recipe from Delicious magazine because it looks very photogenic and we were going nowhere.
Spanakopita



  • Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4
  • Ingredients
  • 500g spinach 

  • 1 onion, finely chopped 

  • 3 garlic cloves, sliced 

  • 25ml olive oil, plus extra to drizzle 

  • 200g feta, crumbled 

  • 80g parmesan
  • 1 small bunch fresh dill 
(optional)
  • 1 small bunch fresh parsley 
(optional)
  • Pinch chilli flakes (optional) 

  • 1 large free-range eggs, beaten 

  • A few gratings nutmeg 

  • 270g pack good-quality filo (you’ll 
need 5-6 sheets) 

  • Sea salt and seeds 
to garnish (cumin or sesame)

You'll also need
  • 30cm loose-bottomed tart tin 
or shallow cake tin
Method

Steam the spinach until cooked (Frozen can be used too). Press in a colander to get rid of the water, do not skip this step. Your spinach need to be really water free.

In a large salad bowl, mix the garlic, feta, chilli, egg and nutmeg add the spinach to the mixture and combine thoroughly. Place in a tart tin or oven dish

Prepare the filo pastry by oiling them lightly with a pastry brush, cut each sheet into 2 or 3, crunch and place over the mixture, scatter the seeds and place in the preheated oven. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown.


Spanakopita, Greek recipe, spinach, feta, filo pastry



I will be publishing more classic from around the world as I research my ancestry. Spanakopita deserve a place in the Inheritance Recipes challenge hosted in May by Coffee and Vanilla



To inspire more people to cook vegetarian dishes, I have entered this recipe in the current MEAT FREE MONDAYS link up hosted by Tinned Tomato

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