Brisè olè

Yesterday I was surfing through food blogs to find a recipe for a pie to bring for dinner at friends and I saw many yummi quiches. My brain was about to send the command to type "puff pastry" in my shopping list when I read the recipe for making shortcrust pastry (pasta briseé in italian): water, butter, flour, mix, done. Well well well, let's give it a try, I thought. Now I wonder why I ever bother spending hours of my life looking for puff pastry in the supermarkets (it is always in an unpredictable place) when shortcrust is so easy. Also, I have to say, apologising in advance to my french readers, despite it contains a good amount of butter, it doesn't give the impression of eating a whole french bakery as the puff pastry does :) 

SPINACH AND FETA PIE

for the pastry:

200 gr regular flour

100 gr butter

70 gr cold water 

for the filling:

20 gr butter

a small onion

800 grams fresh spinaches

200 gr feta cheese

4 eggs

80 gr parmigiano

nutmeg

In a mixer, place the flour and the butter extremely cold and mix until sand-like. Place on a cold surface (metal for example), make a volcano and add the cold water sip by sip, but quite quickly, to make a solid dough. Place in the fridge until the last second.

Boil a large pot of salty water and cook for a couple of minutes the spinaches, then drain them and, when cold enough, squeeze them to remove as much water as possible. In a pan, place the butter and the chopped onion, and then the spinaches. Let it go for 5 minutes and then blend it quite coarse.

In a bowl, mix 4 eggs with the grated cheese, add the blended spinach cream (cold!!!!) the nutmeg, salt (only a bit), pepper and the feta cheese cut in small cubes. 

With a rolling pin, make a thin layer with the shortcrust and place it on a round tray, trim the border and use the remaining pastry to make small stripes. Place the spinach cream inside, fold the border, place the stripes and bake in the oven for 35 minutes. Delicious!