{"id":17493,"date":"2015-04-20T10:45:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T08:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=17493"},"modified":"2015-04-20T10:54:31","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T08:54:31","slug":"mock-spanakopita-rolls-with-wild-garlic-filo-rolls-with-feta-and-wild-garlic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=17493","title":{"rendered":"Mock Spanakopita Rolls with Wild Garlic (Filo Rolls with Feta and Wild Garlic)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spanak_wgarlic\"<\/p>\n

Greek spinach or spinach and feta pie is one of the rare vegetarian dishes\u00a0I am truly fond of.\u00a0I have recently discovered it tastes even better if made with baby spinach. Since its\u00a0season corresponds to wild garlic’s, I simply changed\u00a0the leaves and made a mock garlicky spanakopita (or rather mock spanakotiropita, as I learnt from Katerina<\/a>). I don’t know if wild garlic is popular in Greece and whether my Greek visitors would approve of such a modification, but for a\u00a0garlic fan like me\u00a0these strong-flavoured\u00a0snacks were a sensational discovery. Wild garlic and feta proved to be perfect companions\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0flavours were\u00a0so complex, no one would ever\u00a0believe the filling\u00a0includes only\u00a0four ingredients with\u00a0ground pepper as the sole\u00a0seasoning.<\/p>\n

\"ailours9pp\"<\/p>\n

If you have never heard about wild garlic\u00a0(Allium ursinum),\u00a0also called ramsons, ramps or bear’s garlic, it’s a plant growing in the forest or nearby with long wide leaves (see above, but Wikipedia should have better photographs), which are unfortunately similar to toxic lily of the valley leaves. An olfactory test is however a \u00a0very easy method\u00a0avoiding confusion: wild garlic smells of… garlic and the aroma is really strong. In Europe wild garlic’s season lasts at least from April to May (sometimes it stretches, depending on the temperature and the region), so it’s quite short. I don’t know if it can be grown, but I have never heard about cultivated plants, so consumers are limited to this very short \u00a0period.<\/p>\n

Wild garlic grows in many European countries, but strangely it’s not popular everywhere (unfortunately there are countries where it’s a protected plant and picking is forbidden, so check your country’s regulations before foraging). It is usually used in warm dishes (cooked, fried, baked, etc.) or mixed (such as in the below pesto I posted). I have never tried freezing it, but it dries very well and keeps its wonderful aroma. The dried form can be used as seasoning in many dishes; for example in Switzerland, where wild garlic is very popular, a supermarket chain has\u00a0recently started to sell sausages seasoned with dried wild garlic and I find it an excellent idea.<\/p>\n

I have adapted here the fresh and unique spanakopita recipe from\u00a0Katerina’s Culinary Flavours<\/a>, a beautifully written blog, full of inspiring\u00a0dishes\u00a0and\u00a0featuring not only Greek cuisine. The process of squashing spinach instead of cooking it is an extremely ingenious idea I discovered at Katerina’s blog. As well ass adding cracked wheat to absorb humidity. I have been using both\u00a0with real spanakopita and I\u00a0have also\u00a0practiced\u00a0it here with wild garlic (obviously with equally satisfactory results).<\/p>\n

If you get hold of fresh wild garlic and wonder what to do with it, here are some suggestions:<\/p>\n

\"Chicken<\/a>
Chicken with Wild Garlic and Cashew Nuts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Wild<\/a>
Wild Garlic Pillows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Wild<\/a>
Wild Garlic Pesto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TIP:\u00a0Most of you have eaten feta many times, but have you ever had feta made with both sheep and goat milk? (Most of feta is made with sheep’s milk). According to Wikipedia such a cheese can still bear “feta” name and the Greek sheep & goat milk feta I buy is the best I have ever had. I strongly encourage you to taste such a variety of feta if you find it.<\/p>\n

Preparation: about\u00a01 hour<\/em><\/p>\n

Ingredients (makes 6 rolls):<\/em><\/p>\n

6\u00a0sheets of filo pastry<\/em><\/p>\n

200 g feta cheese, crumbled<\/em><\/p>\n

1 egg<\/em><\/p>\n

2 big handfuls of chopped wild garlic leaves (with or without stalks)<\/em><\/p>\n

1 flat tablespoon cracked wheat (you can use semolina instead, but I prefer cracked wheat)<\/em><\/p>\n

black pepper<\/em><\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 180\u00b0C.<\/p>\n

Put the chopped wild garlic leaves into a bowl and squash\u00a0them with your hands until the volume is reduced.\u00a0Crumble the drained feta into a bowl. Add the chopped wild garlic, cracked wheat and some ground black pepper, stir well and with a spoon divide into 6\u00a0equal portions (this will make the filo sheets filling process much easier).<\/p>\n

Spread one filo sheet on a big chopping board.<\/p>\n

Place horizontally, about 2,5 cm\/1 in. from the filo sheet\u2019s shorter edge which is closest to you, a portion of feta and wild garlic\u00a0mixture.<\/p>\n

Roll tightly but delicately, starting from the edge which is closest to you, folding the two lateral edges into the roll, so that the filling doesn\u2019t leak during the baking process (I have folded here about 3 cm\/about 1,2 inch on each side).<\/p>\n

Proceed in the same way with the remaining rolls.<\/p>\n

Brush the top of the rolls with some oil or melted butter, place on a baking tray or baking paper and bake in the oven until slightly golden (about 30 minutes in mine). Watch them often as they tend to burn quite quickly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greek spinach or spinach and feta pie is one of the rare vegetarian dishes\u00a0I am truly fond of.\u00a0I have recently discovered it tastes even better…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[130,209,85,71,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17493"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17493"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17519,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17493\/revisions\/17519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}