Spanakopita is a handy ‘emergency’ kind of dish, for when you feel yourself victim of a ready-steady-cook challenge in your kitchen and need to serve up something fast

EVERY TIME I think about spanakopita, I think of my teenage holiday to some Greek island, with about 10,000 other hideous teenagers. In between bouts of sunburn and sambucca, we found a tiny little village shop that served these pastries, along with several other Greek concoctions.

The trip to Greece was during my angry, vegetarian years, so being fed up with the lack of veggie options available in the 1980s, I was delighted to find this little shop and one vegetarian thing to eat that wasn’t alcoholic and actually contained one of my five-a-day. But, like all things in life, familiarity breeds contempt and by the time I left that little island to catch a ferry back to the mainland, I swore I’d never look at spanakopita again.

That was until a flick through Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg Every Day revealed his recipe for this Greek dish. He said quite amusingly that his friend laid down a challenge for him to make dinner using ingredients from the average convenience store, which is where this creation came from.

I tried it and found he uses puff pastry instead of filo pastry, which works quite well. But we found his version much too dry, so fleshed it out with some crème fraiche, which made it a lot more appealing. This is a handy “emergency” kind of dish, for when you feel yourself victim of a ready-steady-cook challenge in your kitchen and need to serve up something fast. I usually have frozen spinach and frozen peas in my freezer, along with puff pastry. The rest is fairly standard and altogether it makes a tasty and very last-minute type of supper.

The lentil, red pepper and goats’ cheese salad is the type of thing I love eating and making. It’s vegetarian, great for you, and full of your five-a-days. It probably gets you up to two full portions out of the five, what with the lentils, red peppers, onions, celery and watercress. Bar the peeling of the red peppers, it’s also a cinch to make. No matter how much of a bore this is to do, I always find that it is a very worthwhile task. One of my favourite things to do is roast or grill the peppers, put them in a bowl, covered with cling film, and then peel them after they’ve “steamed” for a few minutes and become cool enough to handle. Do try to keep all those juices and add a very generous glug of your nicest olive oil, a good squeeze of rock salt rubbed between your fingers and some pepper. Sometimes a few drips of balsamic vinegar are good too, and crusty bits of bread dunked into this red pepper essence are sublime.

Spanakopita

Serves 4

1kg bag frozen spinach, ideally defrosted

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 large onion, finely sliced

Few pinches dried oregano or mint, or any herb

Squeeze of lemon juice

2 eggs

200g feta

100ml crème fraiche

35g pine nuts

300g puff pastry

Salt and pepper

Heat an oven to 200 degrees/gas six. If the spinach hasn’t defrosted, you can heat it up in saucepan with some water and a good knob of butter, then drain and squeeze it dry in a tea towel. Sauté the fennel seeds in a frying pan until you can get a good whiff from them and then add the oil and onions and sweat it slowly. Add the herbs and when the onions have softened up a bit, add the lemon juice. Roughly chop the spinach and then add it also. Mix well and season lightly, then take it off the heat and let it cool down.

Beat the eggs and pour a small amount into a cup, which you can use for glazing the puff pastry later. Chop the feta into cubes and add it and the rest of the beaten eggs to the spinach mix, along with the crème fraiche and pine nuts. Mix well and adjust the seasoning.

Pour the filling into a buttered gratin dish. Roll out the puff pastry big enough to cover the spinach. Press the pastry into the edges of the dish, trim off the excess, and glaze with the beaten egg. Make a few slits in the pastry. Bake for about 30 minutes until it has puffed up and is golden brown. Allow it to settle for a few minutes and then serve.

Lentil, red pepper and goats’ cheese salad

Serves 6

250g Puy lentils,

5 large red peppers

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 celery sticks, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

3 sprigs thyme

1 bay leaf

600ml water

Squeeze lemon juice

Bunch flat leaf parsley

Bunch watercress, or baby leaves

Approx 200g soft goats’ cheese

Dressing

100ml olive oil

2 tsp Dijon mustard

Squeeze honey

1 tbsp Balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

Soak the Puy lentils in cold water for 20 minutes, if you can. This will speed up the cooking time. Cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds. Rub them lightly with some olive oil and grill until charred and black. Put them in a bowl and cover with cling film. When the peppers are cool enough to handle, peel them and discard the skin, then slice and put them back in the bowl and add a few glugs of olive oil, salt, pepper and a tiny drop of Balsamic. Leave to marinate.

Sauté the red onion, celery and garlic in some olive oil until soft, but not coloured. Season well. Add the drained lentils and mix well. Add the thyme, bay leaf and water. Season some more and simmer for 20-25 minutes, until the lentils are tender. Drain them, addthe lemon juice and red peppers.

Make the salad dressing by mixing all the ingredients together. Pour this over the warm lentils. Add the parsley and serve with goats’ cheese crumbled on top and some watercress, or baby leaves.

Domini recommends

Black garlic — I bought a pack of this in Superquinn and it’s gorgeous. Rich, dark and molasses-like, it’s a lot milder than the regular stuff and can be eaten straight from the bulb. It has double the anti-oxidants and less odour because of the ageing process. Any excuse to eat more garlic has to be a good thing.