Spanakopita

The story

Spanakopita is not tied to one feast. The Greek Herald, a Greek-Australian newspaper, calls it suitable for any time of day. It still has a regular place on the Easter Sunday table. While the lamb or goat roasts over the fire from early in the day, the meal around it fills with cheese pie or spinach pie, green salads, the traditional Greek salad, cheeses and tzatziki, according to the Greek producer Biologiko Xorio, and Greece Index lists spinach and feta pie among the common appetizers and sides of the Easter Sunday feast. The pie is built from thin sheets of filo, each brushed with butter or oil, around a filling of spinach, scallions and herbs bound with crumbled feta and egg. The Greek Herald recipe uses parsley; this one adds dill. Cut into squares, it can be eaten with the fingers while the meat is carved, and it is good warm or at room temperature, which makes it easy to set out before a long holiday meal. Bake it on Easter morning, or assemble it the day before and keep it in the refrigerator until it goes into the oven.