Approx cost: €3
Approx calories (per portion): 390 (if split between 4 people)
Approx preparation and cooking time: 40 mins
A lot of people aren’t a huge fan of spinach, but the taste lends itself really well to goats cheese. Can be served with almost any kind of salad for a fast, cheap meal.
Ingredients
– 225g plain flour
– 4 tbsp olive oil
– 100g Goat cheese
– 250g Fresh spinach
– 1 medium onion
– 1 egg
– 1/2 tsp baking powder
– 3 tbsp hot water
Instructions
- Start by preparing the pastry. Put the flour, olive oil, half of the egg, baking powder and hot water into a container with a lid and shake around for a minute or two. Remove the lid and push the crumbly mix together into a ball with your hands.
- Turn out onto a floured surface and roll out until about 5mm thick. The beauty of this pastry is that you don’t need to let it rest in the refrigerator as there is no butter inside. Once rolled out, place inside a suitably sized pie-dish, or other deep dish and gently push the pastry into the sides and corners. Trim away the edges with a knife and collect the scraps – set these aside for now.
- Chop the spinach roughly and place into a pan with a few centimetres of water in the base. Cover and place on a hot stove for about 3-4 minutes. When the water has been boiling for a couple of minutes remove. The spinach should have decreased in volume by about 70% and should be deep green in colour. Strain off any excess liquid – be sure to strain it well as a lot of water can get trapped in between the mass of leaves.
- Chop up the onion and add, along with the remaining half egg, into the spinach. Stir well and add some salt and pepper. Turn into the waiting dish lined with pastry and push into any corners. Take your Goat cheese and cut, or crumble, into small cubes and sprinkle on top. Now take your pastry trimmings from earlier and roll out again – Cut into some shapes – circles, leaves, hearts, knives, whatever and place on top of the pie.
- Bake in the oven at around 160 degrees Celsius for around 20-25 minutes. If the pie isn’t browning up as much as you’d like you can show it a hot grill for a few seconds. Serve up with almost anything you’d like – it goes really well with a fresh green salad.
Noemi C. says
I shouldn't have checked this blog before lunch time. I0m hungry now!
Andreas P. says
yummie…you're so mean, noemi, for sending me this tasty link before lunch!
Sam says
The measurements are way off. You just get clumpy flour with those. I had to add more water and oil before it would stick together at all. It's kind of bland too. Salt, garlic, and nutmeg might make it better.
Charles says
Curious – I wrote this recipe up pretty soon after making the dish and I wrote down the exact quantities used as far as I know – I'll make it again sometime and see what happens. As for being bland – I agree that the tastes are quite simple. I think I did put nutmeg in in a previous iteration – not sure why I didn't this time – but I think sometimes it's nice to have something solid and simple tasting. You can always add additional things to the plate – salads or vegetables prepared in a tasty way and so forth.