Mama’s spinach pie

SERVES 8

2 bunches of silverbeet 1 brown onion

2 spring onions olive oil, for cooking

5 large free-range eggs 250g Dodoni feta

250g fresh ricotta, drained a bunch of dill, finely chopped freshly ground black pepper, to taste

250g unsalted butter, melted

375g Antoniou fillo pastry

1 Preheat the oven to 180°C. Wash the silverbeet and strip the leaves from the stalks. In batches, steam the silverbeet leaves till soft. Leave to cool and drain. Once cool, using your hands, squeeze the moisture from the silverbeet and tear or cut into squares. Set aside to cool.

2 Peel the onion and cut it into eighths lengthways, so you have long wedges.

Cut up the spring onions into 2 cm lengths. Add the olive oil to a frypan on low heat and caramelise the onion and spring onions for around 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

3 Beat the eggs well in a large bowl, then crumble in the feta. Crumble well so you don’t have any big chunks, then mix in the ricotta and dill too.

4 Let it sit to marinate until the onion mixture is cool. (Make sure the silverbeet and onion are both cool before adding them to the egg and cheese mixture, so the eggs don’t cook.) Now add the cooled onion and silverbeet to the bowl, season with pepper, and leave to sit while you prepare the fillo.

5 Using a pastry brush, grease the bottom of your dish (I use Mum’s special dish but you can use any round 24cm pie dish or ovenproof frying pan) with some of the melted butter. Line the base and sides with two layers of fillo pastry, brushing on more butter between each layer. Then add another two layers in the opposite direction.

The pastry sheets should hang over the side of the dish. Repeat, buttering between sheets, until you have used all but two sheets of fillo. You will use these to make the top of the pie.

6 Now, pour the egg, cheese and greens mixture into the middle of the dish and spread it out evenly. Then, get your remaining two sheets of fillo pastry, butter them, fold them in half and place in the middle of the dish. Fold over the excess pastry that has been hanging over the side and, working layer to layer and buttering each layer as you go, fold and gently pull them into the middle of the dish to form a top layer sealing the pie. Bake until the pastry is golden brown, around an hour.