Savory spinach pie is a pastry eaten throughout

Southeastern Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe is a geographical sub-region of Europe, consisting primarily of the region of the Balkans, as well as adjacent regions and Archipelago, archipelagos. There are overlapping and conflicting definitions of t ...

. The filling is made of chopped

spinach Spinach (''Spinacia oleracea'') is a leafy green flowering plant native to Central Asia, Central and Western Asia. It is of the order Caryophyllales, family Amaranthaceae, subfamily Chenopodioideae. Its leaves are a common vegetable consumed eit ...

(sometimes chard) and usually feta or white cheese, and egg.

Etymology and history

Turkey

''Ispanaklı Selanik Böreği'' and/or ''Ispanaklı Boşnak Böreği,'' is a Turkish savory

pie, or '' börek''. The ''börek'' gets its name from either Selanik (Thessaloniki) or Bosnia as it is widely common in

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

Bosnia and Herzegovina

''Zeljanica'' in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a savory pie filled with spinach, or sometime chard (in Serbo-Croatian ''blitva''); the word burek (Turkish ''börek'') is a pie filled with minced meat. TasteAtlas, an encyclopedia of traditional dishes, in their presentation of the 100 best pastries in the world ranked Bosnian and Herzegovinian traditional pastry dishes, putting ''zeljanica'' above ''burek'', ''sirnica'' and ''krompiruša''.

Greece

''Spanakopita'' (; , from ''spanáki'' 'spinach', and πίτα ''píta'' 'pie') is a Greek savory spinach pie. It often also contains cheese, typically feta, and may then be called ''spanakotiropita'' ( "spinach-cheese pie"), especially in northern Greece. In southern Greece, the term spanakopita is also common for the versions with cheese. A version without

cheese Cheese is a type of dairy product produced in a range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk (usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats or sheep). During prod ...

and eggs is eaten during religious fasts throughout Greece. Spanakopita appears in many traditional Greek cookery books and appears in numerous restaurants and hotel menus throughout

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

and internationally.

Ingredients and variations

The traditional filling comprises chopped

, feta cheese,

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

s or scallions, egg, and seasoning. Other white, preferably salted cheeses such as kefalotiri may also be mixed with the feta cheese, and some may be used as a substitute for feta cheese. Herbs such as dill, mint and parsley may be used as flavouring. The filling is wrapped or layered in

phyllo Filo or phyllo is a very thin Leavening agent, unleavened dough used for making pastries such as baklava and ''börek'' in Middle Eastern cuisine, Middle Eastern and Balkan cuisines. Filo-based pastries are made by layering many sheets of filo ...

(filo) pastry with

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of Churning (butter), churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 81% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread (food ...

olive oil Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained by pressing whole olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea'', a traditional Tree fruit, tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin) and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods, as a cond ...

, either in a large pan from which individual servings are cut, or rolled into individual triangular servings. While the filo-dough recipe is most common, some recipes use a village-style pastry ''horiatiko'', which has a thicker crust. It can also be made with puff pastry. The pastry is golden in colour when baked, the colour often enhanced by butter and

egg yolk Among animals which produce eggs, the yolk (; also known as the vitellus) is the nutrient-bearing portion of the egg whose primary function is to supply food for the development of the embryo. Some types of egg contain no yolk, for example bec ...

. It can be served straight from the oven or at room temperature. There is a "

fasting Fasting is the act of refraining from eating, and sometimes drinking. However, from a purely physiological context, "fasting" may refer to the metabolic status of a person who has not eaten overnight (before "breakfast"), or to the metabolic sta ...

" (; "nistisimi"), or

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a ve ...

, version of spanakopita, eaten during

Lent Lent (, 'Fortieth') is the solemn Christianity, Christian religious moveable feast#Lent, observance in the liturgical year in preparation for Easter. It echoes the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring Temptation of Christ, t ...

and other religious fasts. This version has spinach, onions or green onions, other green herbs like dill, parsley, or

celery Celery (''Apium graveolens'' Dulce Group or ''Apium graveolens'' var. ''dulce'') is a cultivated plant belonging to the species ''Apium graveolens'' in the family Apiaceae that has been used as a vegetable since ancient times. The original wild ...

as filling and uses

and a little wheat flour but no eggs or

dairy A dairy is a place where milk is stored and where butter, cheese, and other dairy products are made, or a place where those products are sold. It may be a room, a building, or a larger establishment. In the United States, the word may also des ...

products. The mixture is

oven upA double oven A ceramic oven An oven is a tool that is used to expose materials to a hot environment. Ovens contain a hollow chamber and provide a means of heating the chamber in a controlled way. In use since antiquity, they have been use ...

-baked until crisp. Non-traditional vegan versions are available that typically use

tofu or bean curd is a food prepared by Coagulation (milk), coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', and ''extra (or super) firm''. It originated in Chin ...

instead of cheese. In rural Greece, smaller amounts of spinach are used, with the missing amount replaced with

leek A leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek (synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of Leaf sheath, leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a "s ...

s, chard and

sorrel Sorrel (''Rumex acetosa''), also called common sorrel or garden sorrel, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Polygonaceae. Other names for sorrel include spinach dock and narrow-leaved dock ("dock" being a common name for the genus ''Ru ...

Related pastries

''Börek'' or ''burek'' is a family of pastries or pies found in the

Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. The pastry is made of a thin flaky

dough Dough is a malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from flour (which itself is made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops). Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes ...

such as filo with a variety of fillings, such as meat, cheese, spinach, or potatoes. Boreks are mainly associated with the

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

, and also with the former

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, including the

and the

South Caucasus The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and West Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Armenia, ...

, Eastern European and Central European countries, Northern Africa and

References

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