Thread by @Incindery1

#5: My grandmother’s spanakopita. I only know this from doing so will try to write down...

Purée several bunches of washed fresh baby spinach (no you cannot use frozen)

Finely chop two white onions

Sauté onions in generous amount of good Greek olive oil (Ilaada is good). Translucent, not browned. You need a bunch of this grated olive oil—not just to coat the onions, but to baste the fillo dough.

When the kitchen starts to agreeably smell of onions, put on some music. Miles Davis is good. Also Alice Coltrane. Pour yourself a glass of some good Malbec...

Crack six eggs into a bowl with about two packages of the freshest & Greekest feta you were able to get your grubby, hungry hands on..,

Really mix the eggs into the feta. Work that mixture like dough in your hands. Get messy. Use a little muscle. (Nothing is more gross than a fried egg layer in one’s spanakopita. Mix that all the way up.)

Drain the majority of the olive oil out of the onion & olive oil mixture. Set aside.

Pour the puréed spinach into remaining onion & olive oil. Pour yourself another glass of wine. Put on an early talking heads album, or old punk rock.

After spinach purée doused in onion & olive oil, get ur 9x11 glass baking dish, & ur fillo dough. (Fillo should be defrost beforehand 2 hours. Also, preheat oven now! If this is out of order, put on David Bowie, take dance break, & have more wine while things align temporally

Where was I? Ok, you need a brush. A fancy basting one is ok, but you can buy a $2 paintbrush as well. Just don’t use it for anything but spanakopita...

Gently lift a sheet of fillo from its wax paper refuge. This is an art. The fillo wants to break apart. Start at corner but don’t end there. Put your hand underneath near the middle. Peel with both hands slowly like you are trying to get the fillo to trust u. Because u are..,

There’s extra fillo, don’t worry. You will make mistakes & many tries will be un-usable, especially ur first 100 times making this

When you have a good sheet loose, Place it in the glass dish. Then use your little brush to coat it THOROUGHLY with the onion-y olive oil. The olive oil should be warm. Add more oil as you go along. Turn up the talking heads; maybe switch to Lou Reed or Patti Smith..

There’s a fine line between lubricated & greasy. You’re trying to find that line. Don’t worry, you’ll get it eventually. Keep going. Once you have five coated layers of fillo in the glass pan, combine the egg/feta mixture with the spinach/onion/olive oil mixture...

Spoon a layer of the combined mixture onto the fillo. Then do another five layers of fillo, each hand coated with warm onion-y olive oil...

Then another egg/feta/spinach layer. Then a final five sheet layer of hand coated fillo. Bake until the toothpick comes clean of raw egg & top sheet of fillo lightly browned. Tell everyone it is their job to do the dishes, and that we are ordering out for pizza tomorrow