I don’t bother layering the filo pastry with melted butter – just paint some olive oil on the top with a pastry brush before baking. If you find your pastry has got too crumbly to make parcels (which can happen when you’ve defrosted it), you can make these in muffin tins – use the scraps to line the tin and top with a few more pieces of pastry.
Any greens work well in the filling. Perpetual spinach is my favourite. It’s silverbeet with a green rib and very easy to grow.
Makes about 30.
Ten sheets of filo pastry (about half a 375g packet). You can freeze the rest but it’s easier to work with if it hasn’t been frozen
250g silverbeet or spinach, finely shredded
75g cream cheese (full fat or the filling will be too runny)
100g feta cheese, cut into small dice
2 tablespoons pine nuts
Bunch of chives or a spring onion, finely chopped
1 large egg
Olive oil to baste.
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C. Steam the greens until tender. Put it in a colander and press with a potato masher to remove as much moisture as you can. Toast the pine nuts on a baking tray for five minutes in the oven. Keep an eye on them and give them a shake to make sure they don’t burn. Mix the greens, cream cheese, feta, pine nuts, egg and onions or chives together well in a large bowl.
You need to work quickly to prevent the filo pastry from drying out. Seal up any pastry you’re not going to use in the packet. Take a single sheet of pastry, fold it in half (bring the shorter edges together). Cut three equal strips parallel with the fold – you’ll end up with three strips of double thickness pastry. Put a teaspoon of filling at one end of the strip. Fold the corner over the filling in a triangle then fold that triangle up the strip to make a triangular parcel. You can make bigger or smaller parcels but the trigonometry works well at this size.
Place on a greased baking tray. When you’ve used up the filling, brush all the triangles with oil. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. Serve warm.
You may also want to try zucchini and feta pies along a similar theme.