Hortakopita

Wild greens in filo

In my article on Horta, I promised a recipe, so here it is. Cooking with wild greens lends itself to a wilder culinary way; variations in flavors and ingredients depend on what happens to be seasonal and the quantity you’re able to find. This makes providing measurements, in many cases, difficult. If you find two cups of dock and one cup of dandelions, the final product will be quite different than if you find two cups of dock and one cup of daisy leaves. Instead, my advice is to collect what you can and taste it, in small quantities, using your senses to determine amounts.

So, technically, “Horta” just refers to the greens, but I decided to shoot for something resembling spanakopita, that delicious spinach and feta cheese pie typical of Greek cuisine.

First, I cleaned the greens by soaking them in a bowl full of water mixed with about 1/4 cup of vinegar. This is good practice for anything you forage from the wild.

Next, with the help of my sous chef, I “garbled” the greens, removing dirt, errant buggies, tough spots and woody stems:

When the greens were cleaned and processed, I chopped them, coarsely (but not too coarsely):

Next, I minced three garlic cloves. I added a glurg of olive oil to a saute pan and tossed in the garlic, stirring it until the kitchen started smelling like deliciousness. I added the greens, another glurg of olive oil, two glurgs of lemon juice, and salt and pepper, stirring frequently. When the greens were wilted, I removed the mix from the heat.

Next, I preheated the oven to 300 degrees and had my sous chef paint the bottom of an 8 x 10 baking dish with more olive oil (LOTS OF OLIVE OIL!). We covered the bottom of the dish in filo dough (store bought because making filo dough is hard) and added a spoonful of the wilted greens, followed by a spoonful of crumbled feta cheese (you could go crazy and use chevre or gorgonzola too!), etc., until we’d used up all of the greens and cheese.

Then, another pass-over with olive oil, and another glurg of lemon juice.

Finally, my sous chef added another few sheets of filo (I’d say ten) to the top of the dish, and gave it one more coating in olive oil, using a pastry brush to evenly coat the top layer.

We placed the dish into the oven and let it cook for, oh, twenty minutes or so? Until the top looked like this:

OH WOW. So crunchy and moist and fresh-tasting and doughy and cheesy and delicious!

This is such an easy recipe, and so simple to modify using any wild leafy green. You could leave the top open and make tarts. You could add some meaty stuff. You could add tomato sauce. Go crazy! Go local! Go wild!

Now, if only I could get my sous chef to eat vegetables….