Mamta's Kitchen - A Family Cookbook





Feta Cheese and Spinach Parcels

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On 11/05/2007 04:05pm, AskCy wrote:

Spanakopitta as they are known in Greece/Cyprus and the recipe has been on this site for a long time

Spanakopitta 1 and recently Spanakopitta 2

are "parcels" of feta cheese and spinach which like many other recipes vary slightly depending on where they are made and by whom.

I came across them in Cyprus and they were made into rectangular sealed parcels, where Mamta makes them with a fancy folding giving a cross in the middle (see the pictures on either recipe) So liking the way they looked I used that method of folding in my recipe but hadn't seen them like this anywhere myself.

Oddly today while browsing the frozen meals (I do this with no intention of buying, merely as an indication of what sort of things people are buying at the moment - although I did buy frozen falafel the other week just to see what they should be like as I've never seen them "for real").. anyway they had Mediterranean vegetable parcels that were folded the exact same way, but were filled with roasted peppers, onions and probably a tomato sauce of some kind.

Strange how things pop up when you look...

Steve

On 11/05/2007 05:05pm, Mamta wrote:

Hello Steve

Your Spanakopitta pictures are looking very good :-)!

I have always loved these small parcels, without knowing their proper name. I saw them folded this way, Spanakopitta 1, in some delicatessen shop a while back and thought that they looked nice. So I made them this way. I have also eaten them made in Filo pastry, tiny mouthfuls offered with drinks. Come to think of it, I think I will add this information to the recipe 1. Would you like me to add it to yours too? Small will be nice to serve with drinks.

Falafel; I found my amended recipe taste quite good, so am not trying any more, unless you know of one better ;-)! I can see that just like me, you carry on trying a recipe, until you get it right. I am still trying the one I talked about last time, Rasgulla. The ones I made last night are slightly better, but still not as I want them :-(!

I have seen these parcels with roasted vegetables and even meat, in Malta, of all the places!

Mamta

On 11/05/2007 05:05pm, AskCy wrote:

You can add the info to my recipe as well thanks..

Malteze cooking... oh here he goes again.....

I had some ricotta cheese parcels (brought back from Malta...) and they were similar to the Spankopitta I'd had but without spinach and being ricotta almost a pudding...

So far my favourite Maltese dish is "Bigila" which oddly is a little like houmous but made with Brown beans ... hang on.. Made by my Maltese friend with Brown beans (so I go off that) but many online recipes suggest Broadbeans which although I haven't tried yet will not be quite the same...

anyway you cook the "beans" (changing the water often, etc) then pur?e them, adding olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh chilli, garlic and then usually fresh mint and/or parsley... you get a thick paste that you spread on crusty bread.. It used to be carried to the villages in large terracotta pots strapped to either side of the "Bigila Mans" donkey, but saddly this site and probably dish is few and far between...

even more oddly than this being similar to houmous and the parcels being similar (as we mentioned somewhere about food/cultures and the cross over between them)...

Having tried my friends Bigila and then making it myself a few times I decided to experiment ( no shock there then).. and rolled them into small balls, floured, egg wash and then bread crumbs making them into deep fried balls... erm... Think I might have just come up with (a type of) Falafel without realising it (and at the time without even knowing what Falafel was).

now off to see if I can find the picture I'm sure I must have taken

Steve

On 11/05/2007 06:05pm, AskCy wrote:

that should say "this sight" not "site" !..

On 13/05/2007 03:05pm, AskCy wrote:

Just out of curiosity I did a "google search" for "spanakopitta" and this post comes up on page 2 ... not bad going considering its only been here a few days.

Steve

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