Underrated Spinach

It's more to these pastries than just boring spinach. There's all kinds of odd ingredients that together make them what was described as "exquisite" by John. Figure out for yourselves.. Also, in the background, there is freshly baked bread and Pistou sauce dor dipping, coming originally from southern France.

Spinach Empanadillas 

 2 tablespoons raisins

olive oil

1 pack of spinach, makes about 120gr, chopped roughly

6 drained canned anchovies, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/3 cup pine nutes, chopped as good as you can, but don't exhaust yourself

300gr puff pastry

1) Soak raisins in warm water for 10 minutes, then chop ans set aside. Also chop pine nutes.

2) In a large pan with little oil, simmer spinach, covered with lid, for about 2 minutes. Then turn up the heat and wait for any water to evaporate.

3) Add anchovies, garlic and season with salt and ground black pepper, if you like, but please bear in mind, that anchovies will bring salt anyway.

4) Remove from the heat, add raisins and nuts and cool.

5) To make the parcels, roll out the pastry 3mm thick, cut out circles about 7-10cm in diameter, and fill each with the spinach filling. Make sure you seal the edges, wetting your fingers with water if necessary.

6) Bake at 180 degrees Celcius on lightly greased baking sheet for about 15-20 minutes, until golden. Pastries can be brushed with egg yolk before baking, to give them that lovely golden shade. I, personally, use mixture of plain yoghurt (1 part) and water (2 parts) to brush with.

Now, for the Pistou.. You will need to finely chop, or better still, crush with mortar and pestle, 30gr basil leaves and 4 garlic cloves. Add 1/2 cup grated Parmesan to it, as well as grated zest of half a lemon. You will then need to gradually introduce about half a cup of olive oil, to mix it well together. Do not overdo oil, or it will float separately from your pistou.

Enjoy!!