Batsaria (Greek spinach and leek pie)
Tired of plain spinach pie? This recipe uses many different kinds of 'green stuff', mixed with delicious feta cheese, of course! However, it doesn't use filo pastry, which is what you're probably used to seeing with spanakopita. The recipe is a little time consuming, but totally worth it. Serve with yoghurt on the side.
Ingredients
Makes: 9
- 3 eggs
- 450g chopped fresh spinach
- 3 leeks, chopped
- 5 spring onions, chopped
- 350g crumbled feta cheese
- 1 bunch parsley, chopped
- 1 bunch dill, chopped
- 1 bunch mint, chopped
- 1 teaspoon caster sugar
- 250ml milk
- 180ml olive oil
- 1 pinch salt and ground black pepper to taste
- 300g plain flour
- 85g semolina
- 1 pinch salt
- 60ml olive oil
- 500ml water
- 100g grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
- 2 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Method
Prep:50min ›
Cook:1hr ›
Ready in:1hr50min
- Preheat an oven to 180 C / Gas 4. Grease a deep 23cm square baking dish.
- Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl, then stir in the spinach, leeks, spring onions, feta cheese, parsley, dill, mint, sugar, milk and 180ml of olive oil until evenly mixed. Season to taste with salt and pepper; set aside.
- Whisk together the plain flour, semolina and 1 pinch of salt in a mixing bowl. Stir in 60ml of olive oil and the water until no lumps remain. Pour 2/3 of the batter into the prepared 23cm dish, and spread out evenly. Spoon the spinach filling over the batter, then spoon the remaining batter overtop. Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese, butter pieces and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
- Bake in the preheated oven until the bottom and top has firmed and nicely browned, about 1 hour.
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Reviews & ratings
Average global rating:
(13)
Reviews in English (10)
The Batsaria recipe posted is very good. Not only is it good, the first day but even better the second. And the crust fuses nicely with the other ingredients. Thank you for posting, I would recommend. It will be a regular in my oven. Always looking for good recipes and this one was over the top. - 10 Sep 2009 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)
This was just delicious! I'm not very familiar with Greek cuisine at all, but I liked the combination of leeks and spinach in this, and also that it was not too "eggy". The crust was very good, and the only changes I made was that I could not find fresh dill, so I used a heaping teaspoon of dried, and I only had about half the recommended amount of parmesan (all I had left on hand). It was very good the first day, and even better the next! Thanks for sharing your wonderful recipe, Gracey! - 13 Sep 2009 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)
The filling is pretty good, a little too wet for our taste but we enjoyed it nonetheless (will strain it much more next time). We didn't care for the dough part of the pie; I would definitely use phyllo next time. The changes... Two large leeks, three green onions, half a red onion, a bit of mint and basil for the spearmint. I used a Bulgarian feta, which wasn't as salty as the Greek variety can be so the salt factor was lacking in the final product. I still prefer traditional spanakopita though. - 27 Nov 2010 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)