Nettlekopita: Nettle hand pies

April/May is nettle season. If you're lucky enough to have nettles in your life, here's a delicious way to use them. Cooked nettles are like a hearty spinach (but even richer and tastier, in my opinion), so I like to use them in place of spinach in Greek-inspired hand pies. I call it "Nettle-kopita."

FLAKY!

The main ingredient is one pound of fresh stinging nettles (Urtica dioica). I harvested these from my beloved nettle patch. I weighed nettles as I harvested. This is what a pound looks like.

Also at the ready is crumbled feta cheese...

Onion and garlic ready to saute, and two friendly eggs...

And only a portion of the melted butter I will end up using.

Ingredients:

1 pound fresh nettles
1 T extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 eggs
1 cup crumbled feta
1 stick butter, melted (more if necessary)
1 pound fillo dough (my package had 13 sheets)
1/2 t dill
1/2 t oregano
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper


Preheat oven to 375F.

Steam nettles, then chop.

Once cooked, the nettles have no sting

Ready to chop

Chopped

Saute onion and garlic in extra-virgin olive oil. Add dill and oregano.

In a large bowl, mix crumbled feta with 2 eggs and pepper. Add chopped nettles and the onion-garlic mixture to the feta mixture. Combine. Divide the filling in half in the bowl (just move it apart), then divide that in half so you have 4 sections of filling in the bowl.

Get your pie-making station-ready, which should include a large quantity of melted butter, a pastry brush, and an oiled sheet pan. The main requirement for pie-making is to brush everything with melted butter so it will be flaky and crispy once baked. Also, follow the fillo dough package's instructions for thawing and for keeping the dough from drying out (I did this by covering it with waxed paper every time I removed a new, paper-thin sheet). For each pie, use 1/3 of one of the 4 sections of filling (goal is 12 pies total).

Build the pies. I used one sheet of fillo per pie, but there are other methods and if you know them, feel free to use them!

For each pie, I brushed half a sheet of dough with butter, folded it over, then brushed the top with butter and turned so it was a horizontal rectangle. Next I added the filling a few inches from the edge, folded in the side and the top and bottom edges, brushed with butter, and rolled/flipped the pie toward the far edge, brushing with butter at each fold.  Place finished pies on a sheet pan as you work. If you run out of butter for brushing, melt some more.

I had an odd number of phyllo sheets, so I made a couple of triangular pies that had extra dough in them. When done, make sure everything is buttered on top.

 


Bake for 30 minutes until brown. Let cool a bit before eating. Enjoy!


 


Do you eat nettles? I used to get them at the Brattleboro Farmer's Market (if you go on the right Saturday, once a year) before I started growing my own.