Up until recently, using filo pastry had been a childhood memory and I had somehow got it into my head that it was super fragile and difficult to work with. Well, guess what? I was wrong. It’s fun and easy to use, and when I opened the packet of just-thawed pastry, the smell immediately brought me back to when I made little filo triangles with my mother out of a recipe from a children’s cook book.

Making pasties or turnovers or dumplings is such a meditative activity. What if we could all just sit down together and fold pasties together? I’m pretty sure the world would be a better place.

These crispy börek-inspired filo triangles filled with a  spinach, feta and mint mixture are not only fun to make, they’re also very, very addictive. They’re also surprisingly light and since they’re even better cold, they’d also be great to make ahead for a party or a picnic. 

Ingredients (for about 15 triangles):

1 kg frozen leaf spinach

250 g  feta cheese

2 eggs, lightly beaten

(1 tbsp crème fraîche, I still happened to have some and it binds the filling a bit more, but isn’t essential)

a handful of fresh mint, finely chopped

plenty of black pepper

500 g frozen filo pastry sheets

a small bowl with some olive oil

a small bowl with some water

• Defrost the filo pastry by leaving it in the packaging, but out of the freezer for about an hour.
• Defrost the spinach, put it in a sieve and squeeze out all the excess water.
• Put it in a bowl and mix with the crumbled feta, the mint, eggs (and cream) and black pepper.

• Heat the oven to 220 degrees. And cover a large (or 2) baking tray(s) with a sheet of baking paper
• Cut the filo sheets in half lengthwise (unless you want to make supersized triangles).
• Brush a sheet with some olive oil. Cover with another sheet, then repeat.
• Now you have three sheets on top each other, add a big tbsp of the spinach mixture on the bottom part.
• Now fold a triangle in 3 steps, like this: fold the bottom right-hand corner to the middle left-hand side of the pastry sheet. Fold it over again and finally fold  the top right-hand corner back down to the bottom left.
• Seal the triangles with a bit of water and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.
• They can be eaten straight out of the oven, but they will be even better once they’ve cooled down. Store in airtight container.