Showing posts with label spinach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spinach. Show all posts

Saturday, 13 June 2009

Feta-spinach pastry

Not sure how Finnish this is, but this kind of pastries (resembling the quiche en France) are very common in Finland, and this recipe is originally from a Finnish recipe magazine. Attention, it's very filling. I served it along with onion soup yesterday, and it was an excellent combination.

Ingredients (for a mould of 24x24cm):
3-4 layers puff pastry
1 big onion
2 tablespoons oil
150 g frozen spinach
200 g feta cheese
3 eggs
2 dl light cream or cream-milk
1/4 teaspoons black pepper
a pinch of nutmeg

Preparation:
Chop the onion and sauté it on a frying pan with olive oil. Melt the spinach and squeeze the excess liquid off it. Pour the liquid off the feta cubes.
Cover the mould with puff pastry. Spread the spinach, onion and feta cheese on the puff pastry.

Mix the eggs, cream and spices together. Pour this mix on the mould.
Bake the pastry in the lower part of the 200 c hot oven for about 45 minutes.


Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Risotto of spinach, leek and peas

Here's a recipe for a very green risotto. It tastes fresh and in winter it reminds me of summer, even if using frozen spinach and peas! I created this recipe once when these three vegetables were the only ones I had at home and I had to improvise. Good that I did.

Ingredients (x2):
200 g risotto rice
500 ml vegetarian broth
1 onion
200 g frozen spinach
100 g peas
1 small leek
3 tablespoons ricotta
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
nutmeg
salt
pepper
soft cheese (In Italy I'd use Fontina, in Finland Koskenlaskija, not sure what the equivalent is over here!)
parsley

Preparation:
Chop the onion into fine pieces. Chop the leek first into circles and then cut them in 4. Pour these two vegetables on a frying pan with olive oil and fry them for 5-7 minutes. Put a bouillon cube into 500 ml of water in a pan and let it dissolve on the cooker.

Put the rice and the butter into the saucepan. Put them on the cooker and keep them in medium heat, mixing continuously. When the rice has got a golden and more transparent colour, add the spinach and a part of the broth. Mix all the time so that the rice doesn't get stuck in the bottom. Check the indications in the package for the cooking time of the rice. Add more broth little by little. Add salt, pepper and less than a teaspoon of nutmeg. At halfway of the cooking time add the peas and the leek you have previously chopped.

By the end of the cooking time, add ricotta. Cut the soft cheese into pieces that you will set on the food when serving. Cut the parsley leaves smaller and add it on the portions.