Spinach and Ricotta Cheese Pie

Spinach...
He's strong to the finish 'cause he still eats his spinach,,,,
he's POPEYE the sailor man...!!!!
roll of drums,red carpet...whatever....not a lot of people like spinach....not me, not my sweet child...I guess we are not as strong as the sailor man...but sweet hubby lurves his spinach.....only... he sails on Terra firma ...but he is STRONG!!

I tried out this pie with a little tweaking ...so many things not available in jharkhand...
starting with sun dried tomatoes and ricotta...spinach was bad enough without adding the tomatoes...so I did not bother with the tomatoes. and well I looked up the substitutes and realised that our humble paneer can be used in a lot of continental cuisine in place of  ricotta too......
Went ahead and tried ...this recipe comes from a book called "The Pastry Cook"....
Totally localised all the ingredients but the pie was AWESOME......

For us who love our food super spicy...
this spinach was so lightly spiced that we  actually tasted the flavour of the home grown spinach...
so the key to this pie is a light hand on the red chili powder/paprika/cayenne....I had all three and I went with cayenne...
this recipe would require you to go back to the.....Quiche Lorraine- if you haven't already tried it out... click on http://baketitude.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html  ...go ahead and bake the pie shell...
then get the rest of the stuff...


for this
Spinach and Ricotta Cheese Pie
you need...

1 baked pie shell
a large bunch fresh spinach approx 400 gms
3-4 medium sized potatoes boiled...not mushy but firm
3 eggs
200 mils cream-I used milk plus a couple of tablespoons of the cream
150 gms of fresh homemade paneer
50 gms cheese -cheddar
salt,pepper to taste
Cayenne pepper/paprika to taste
a good pinch of nutmeg

You must first keep your oven pre heated to 180C
Clean and wash the spinach well and then place it in a sauce pan without any extra water...while cooking it releases enough of it s own..Place the pan on heat and cook the spinach till the colour changes.Drain it ina  collander  and let it cool.
In the meanwhile peel and slice the potatoes into rounds of about 1/4 inch thickness.Layer them on the pie shell so as to cover the base completely.season with salt and pepper lightly.
Crumble or grate the paneer and cheese together and spread it generously over the potatoes also season lightly...you don't want a burst of salt in your mouth.
When the spinach is cool enough to touch ,squeeze out all the water you acan and chop finely .....
In a bowl lightly whip the eggs ,cream/cream-milk mixture and the spinach.Add to this salt ,pepper,cayenne and nutmeg-you don't need volume just ensure you don't have globs  of unmixed yolks and the works.
Pour this carefully over the pie filling you can if you want put some cheese on top.and pop it in the oven for 35-40 Min's.
It will be firm to the touch and look a healthy brown.Take it out of the oven and let it rest at least 5 Min's and then unmould....slice and ENJOY!
It tastes fantastic on its own...but if you want to ,serve it with a chunky tomato sauce.
Unfortunately I did not take any pics of the step by step process while baking the pie but  I do have many of the finished product...And I can guarantee that nothing with spinach ever finished soooooooo fast.
It was devoured by Sweet child o'mine

and this was the cross section...you can see the humble potatoes and the way the egg cream mix has percolared down to the bottom...thats why season carefully

 and this was the reaction to spinach...

with Jughead for company of course.....
we have a convert...not yet spinach lover...but in the general like direction yes....maybe....

Rydham Mahajan...this was for you...try it out and tell me how raji masi liked it.....but a word of caution to all....Do NOT skip all the cream...you'll end up with an omelette pie...so a little cream goes a long way into making us all into .........Popeye's......what else...
Olive Oyl is not who we want to be...

So what are you baking today???