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By MARY THERESE BIEBEL
[email protected]
Wednesday, May 07, 2003 Page: 1D
As the aromas of mint, onions, parsley and lemon swirled through their
back yards, residents of a certain South Wilkes-Barre neighborhood sniffed the
air appreciatively.
This tantalizing blend could only mean one thing, they thought, as their
mouths started to water.
Yes, Louise Saba Carol had fired up the old wood-burning stove in her
garage, wrapped a scarf around her dark hair and devoted the day to baking
dozens of spinach pies.
The lady was generous with her bounty, and adults who lived nearby munched
gratefully.
“You’ve got to taste this,” they told their children. “Try one of Mrs.
Carol’s delicious spinach pies.”
But, alas. Sometimes youngsters look askance at anything green and leafy.
No matter how good it smells. No matter how much the grown-ups praise it.
And, of course, they don’t know what they’re missing.
Thirty years ago, I was one of the reluctant kids who refused to experience
the glory of homemade spinach pie.
Today, matured and reformed into a spinach-lover, I wish Mrs. Carol were
here to teach a cooking class. Unfortunately, neighbors have a way of moving
away, and Mrs. Carol divides much of her time between Allentown and New
Jersey. But she did make her recipe available.
So, armed with a list of ingredients and a sense of derring-do, I set out
last week to give this Mideastern delicacy my best shot.
The first hurdle was the dough recipe’s call for “2 pounds of flour.” A
math teacher would have sighed with vexation to see how long it took me to
translate that to 7 1/2 cups.
Still, after many mental gymnastics and some hand mixing, the yeast worked
its magic, and the dough grew to a satisfactory mound.
While the dough was rising, I chopped onions, fresh mint and an enormous
bunch of parsley taking great delight in every pungent scent. Squeezing the
lemons was refreshing as well. But the spinach, after it was rinsed and
chopped, formed what appeared to be a most unwieldy mountain.
Wanting each pastry to be chock-full of the green stuff, I worked hard to
enfold each scoop of filling. But the dough tended to stretch and break.
Chunks of spinach tumbled back into the bowl.
After slow and painstaking effort, the pies were ready for the oiled cookie
sheet. They weren’t folded as uniformly as Mrs. Carol would have made them,
but insisted on forming an odd assortment of shapes and sizes.
Nevertheless, after 20 minutes in the oven, several waiting taste testers
declared the pies were mighty good “especially for a first try.”
Still, wishing that each fluffy pastry could have contained even more of
the flavorful filling, I tried another batch the next day. For the second
experiment, I boiled the spinach mixture to condense it and voila! was able
to fit more filling into each pastry.
But Mrs. Carol’s recipe said nothing about pre-cooking spinach. Was that
the right thing to do?
“Oh, no, that would change the taste,” she confirmed Tuesday in a
telephone conversation. If you want to work with a smaller volume of spinach,
she suggested trying the frozen variety. “But be sure to get all the water
out.”
As for how my pastries stuffed with precooked spinach turned out … well,
taste testers who sampled both batches did prefer the raw. So next time there
will be boiling. I’ll just try to chop it into finer pieces.
“Crush it with your hands,” Mrs. Carol advised.
If you’d like to attempt your own homemade spinach pie especially
considering homegrown spinach is one of the first spring crops to appear in
local gardens here is Mrs. Carol’s time-honored Lebanese recipe. Cookbooks
and Web sites will offer other versions, inspired by other ethnic traditions,
including some with eggs, Feta cheese or Monterey Jack. Take your pick.
And good luck.
Basic Pie Dough
7 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup oil
1 cake yeast
1 tablespoon salt
3 cups lukewarm water
Combine ingredients, mix well and knead until smooth. Cover with cloth and
let rest in a warm place until dough rises, about an hour and a half. Cut into
small sections, 3 inches in diameter. Cover with cloth for 30 minutes. Then,
with your hand, flatten to thinness of pie dough. Wrap each piece around
filling and shape in triangles, like turnovers, or fold over on edges, leaving
center open. Yield: Enough dough for 3 dozen pies, or less.
Spinach Filling:
1 lb. chopped spinach, fresh or bagged.
2 to 3 medium chopped onions or equivalent chopped scallions
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint or 1/4 cup dried mint
1 large bunch chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
Mix together spinach, onions, mint and parsley. Add lemon juice, olive oil
and salt and pepper, to taste. Crush mixture between hands for easier handling
in dough rounds. Fold into prepared pastry. Preheat oven to 450. Place
pastries on oiled cookie sheet, leaving space between each for expansion. Bake
for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
