Greek Garden Pie
This is a pie to make the most of gluts and excess veg — delicious warm and almost as good cold. The Greeks make it at the weekend and then eat it cold for breakfast or lunch for the rest of the week. It’s good with a tomato and onion salad.
For 10-12
- 1kg courgettes (but you can use chard or spinach instead or a mix of things)
- Salt
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 4 spring onions, chopped
- 150ml olive oil
- 1 pack of filo pastry
- 300g feta cheese
- 3 eggs
- 120ml double cream
- Small bunch of dill
- Small bunch of parsley
- Mint leaves stripped from 2–3 stems
- Milk, for glazing
- Sesame seeds for scattering
Grate the courgettes and salt them, allowing them to drain for 30 minutes. Squeeze out any excess juice.
Fry both types of onions in a little of the olive oil until they’re soft and then add the courgettes. Fry them together gently for 15 minutes until the excess liquid evaporates.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6.
Separate out 6 filo pastry sheets and brush them with oil on both sides. If the pastry seems to be a bit dry, lay it between two damp clean tea towels.
Place 3 of the sheets in the base of a 30 x 40cm oven tray, one oiled sheet layered on top of the next.
Pour in the courgette mixture and crumble the feta over it. Beat the eggs and cream together and drizzle them on top. Add the herbs, pepper and salt, and fork the cheese and egg mixture lightly into the courgettes.
Fold in the filo sheets enclosing the courgette mix and brush with oil. Then place another filo sheet on top and brush with oil, and repeat with 2 more sheets. Brush lightly with oil and snip most of the excess pastry around the edges, leaving just enough to tuck in right the way around the tin. Glaze the pie with a little milk and scatter sesame seeds over the top. Prick the pastry all over with a fork.
Put the pie in the preheated oven and cook it for about an hour. You can shake it in the pan to see if there’s much movement. Remove from the oven when the pie is set and the pastry golden. Put a tea towel over the top and leave it to cool for half an hour before you eat.
