Yve Eats: Spanakopita + Greek Orzo Lemon Chicken Soup

I'm starting to get the hang of working in the kitchen (rather than just dealing with dishes and scouring the fridge for a snack) and I thought it'd be a good idea to tackle two recipes at once. It ended up being a lot of running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I can't say it wasn't worth it, though. It's safe to say I'd do anything for Greek/Mediterranean food and doing laps around the kitchen wielding a knife and/or a carrot is one of the milder of those anythings.

Again, I was looking through Pinterest when this one caught my eye. I pinned it and pushed it off until Mikaela brought it back to the forefront. It was the perfect time for it because this time last year, we were on our Greek Isles cruise (the exact day we made this I was 365 (366?) days from the last time I set foot in Santorini!). I remember that heat like it was yesterday and the weather we were having here in the present was comparable (although that may have just been because the oven was on). Western Washington has its days. 

Fold over excess phyllo

Compared to the two previous cooking days, this session had significantly less preparing. It was not a smart idea to wait until the day of to go food shopping. Turns out frozen things need to defrost. Of course, I knew that, but knowledge and wisdom are different things. Thankfully we were able to find all the things we needed. There were a lot of different and lots of moving parts across these two recipes but the biggest kicker was the phyllo pastry. It's in the frozen section, guys. It's also supposed to defrost overnight in the fridge or in room temperature for 5 hours. The warm day did a great job of expediting that process. At least all the fresh ingredients were fresh as could be! That's crucial on hot summer days. 

Score pastry before baking

Our original endeavor, the Greek spinach pie aka spanakopita, ended up being a lot more involved than expected. Maybe it wasn't too bad, but trying to take on two recipes at once was kinda overwhelming. My biggest hiccup was with the teaspoon conversions (we substituted dried dill for fresh and I ended up needing a very odd 1/3 teaspoon) and deciding which aspect of each dish to work on first. You have to get the timing right, after all. No use in having a cold soup by the time the pie makes its way into the oven. Separately, the recipes are fairly straightforward. To make the pie, you just have to mix the filling together and layer it. The soup is a little more complicated, but still very simple. 

Golden, crispy, and not crumbly

Things that will help your pie making process smoother would include buying your frozen ingredients (spinach and phyllo dough) ahead of time to give it enough time to defrost. The phyllo dough is also bigger than the pan so we folded the excess over towards the center. In doing so we gave the outer pieces that extra crispiness. Speaking of crispiness, it's the very thing that makes the pie really hard to cut once it's baked. I mean it's not going to fight your knife, but your beautiful top layer will be reduced to a sheet of crumbs. For our final piece of phyllo we folded the dough under itself rather than over to make the top as pretty as could be. The original recipe also calls for fresh dill but Mikaela and I couldn't track it down in our limited shopping time so we substituted dried dill. Dried dill is more potent than fresh so we substituted 1 teaspoon dried for every 1 tablespoon fresh (there are 3 teaspoons in 1 tablespoon). 

To make your soup easier, I would suggest buying a rotisserie chicken (we found roasted chicken breast at Safeway which was more than enough) so you can forgo actually having to cook your own chicken. We also thought shredding would be easier than chopping since it would already be halfway shredded by the time you got the meat off the bone. Might as well go all the way. It also may be worth your while to buy pre-shredded carrot but I don't think it would provide the same flavor as freshly shredded carrot. It'd just be in there for the color. For the egg mixture, I used a Magic Bullet and since this recipe was doubled (did I mention that? I guess I just did...) I had a lot of eggs to fit in that blender. What I did instead was use two bullets and did 4 eggs, 1/3 cup lemon juice, and 1/2 cup cooled broth in each bullet. Still very manageable. 

Here are the recipes with my revisions:

Spanakopita

Spanakopita + Orzo Lemon Chicken Soup (x)

Serves: 12 people

Ingredients:

6 sheets phyllo pastry, defrosted 

4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped (yes, all of it!)

Two 10 oz packages frozen, chopped spinach, defrosted 

2 cups (16 oz) ricotta cheese

1 cup (8 oz) feta cheese, crumbled

1 cup (8 oz) Monterey jack cheese 

 2 large eggs

3 tsp dried dill

3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley 

1/4 tsp salt 

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

 Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter a 9 x 13 baking dish or spray with nonstick spray.
2. In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook until softened, about 5 minutes, stirring often. Set aside.
3. Squeeze the liquid out of the thawed spinach.
4. In a large bowl, stir together onion, drained spinach, ricotta, feta, jack cheese, eggs, dill, parsley, salt, and black pepper. 
5. Spread half of filling in baking dish. Cover with 2 pieces of phyllo pastry. Fold over excess. Brush pastry lightly with melted butter. Top with 1 piece of phyllo. Fold over excess.
6. Spread remaining filling over phyllo. Top with 2 pieces of phyllo pastry. Fold over excess. Brush pastry lightly with butter. Top with final phyllo (excess folded under) and brush with butter.
7. Use a sharp knife to mark 12 squares by cutting through the top layers of the pastry.
8. Bake until phyllo topping is golden and filling is bubbling gently, about 45 minutes. Use a sharp knife to cut through the marked squares. Serve warm. 

Greek Orzo Lemon Chicken Soup

Serves: 8 people

Plenty of chicken and carrot

Ingredients:

12 cups organic chicken stock (or chicken broth)

2/3 tsp dried dill

1 cup uncooked orzo

8 large eggs

2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 cups shredded carrot

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

16 oz (1 lb) shredded roasted chicken 

 

Instructions: 

1. Shred your carrot and chicken if you didn't buy them pre-shredded. 
2. Bring chicken stock and dill to a boil in a large saucepan or pot. 
3. Add orzo. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes or until orzo is slightly tender. Remove from heat.
4. Place eggs and lemon juice in a blender; process until smooth. Remove 1 cup stock from pot, making sure to leave out orzo. With blender on, slowly add broth; process until smooth.
5. Add carrot, salt, pepper, and chicken to pot. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, and cook 5 minutes or until orzo is done. Reduce heat to low. Slowly stir in egg mixture; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly (do not boil).

This, overall, has been a lot and I really hope I didn't accidentally leave anything out. This meal was definitely a success. I loved the slight tartness of the soup and orzo is a lot of fun to eat. When I look at the recipe, I'm taken aback by how much food it takes to serve eight. The original recipe only serves four and my family already has four members. That's already not enough to serve everyone in the house at the time let alone having some left over for Mikaela to take home and share with her family. We had no such problems with the pie, however. There was enough to go around and still have leftovers. I've heard glowing reviews from everybody who's tried these dishes thus far so I don't think it would be a bad idea to try it yourself!

Talk to you soon!

xo, Yvette