Spanakopita from the Tomb Raider Cookbook

What did I make next from the Tomb Raider Cookbook, you ask? Why, Spanakopita, of course! This is a Greek recipe for a traditional phyllo pie filled with spinach, feta, onions and herbs. I've enjoyed it in pie form, as turnovers and even a rice dish inspired by it with the same flavors. The Tomb Raider Cookbook's version has you roll them like jelly rolls and then twist them into spirals, a flashy way of presenting them how you might get one from a street vendor in Greece.

In Tomb Raider, Greece is visited in the original game, its remake Tomb Raider Anniversary and mobile adaptation Reloaded, in the second Angelina Jolie film The Cradle of Life, and an episode of the GameTap animated show Re/Visioned: Tomb Raider. In the latter, Lara visits a cliffside casino and dives into the sea in a daring escape. Additionally, the descendants of a Byzantine civilization are encountered in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

To make it easy on yourself, the recipe advises using frozen spinach. A lot of dishes will tell you this, and it makes so much more sense. Frozen spinach gives you exactly how much you need for a dish, whereas to get the same amount with fresh, you'd need heaps and heaps of it, then to cook it down, let it cool, squeeze out the water, and then you can use it. With frozen spinach, you only need to thaw and squeeze. The filling, curiously enough, includes ricotta, not a traditional ingredient in spanakopita. I suspect this was for binding purposes and bulk more than flavor.

For someone who isn't a patient cook, spanakopita was going to be a test of that patience. With this recipe you're working with phyllo dough, which is extremely thin, very delicate and can dry out easily. Every recipe (including this one) that uses phyllo will tell you to cover the rest of your sheets with a damp cloth to stop them from drying, which I did. The recipe makes six spanakopitas with 18 sheets of phyllo, but where I live they only come in packages of 16, which meant I was only able to make five spanakopitas.

As I tried to work with the phyllo, some parts of the sheets were sticking to each other and I did my best to not tear them, only to lose at least two sheets that got completely shredded trying to pull them apart. Despite that, I was able to form 3-4 spanakopitas, but for the last bit I needed assistance with the phyllo separation. Then the last few were made much faster. Since I had filling leftover and am not a wasteful cook, we ripped up the broken phyllo sheets and made a mini pie to bake in my second oven at the same temperature. While the spanakopitas take 55 minutes to an hour to bake, I gave the pie half an hour, which was enough.

What resulted were oblong spirals, not perfectly round as I'd have liked, but this was the first time I was doing them. A more experienced chef/cook who's made hundreds of these could do it without so much as breaking a sweat, I'm sure.

Besides filling and phyllo, I had a lot of butter left over from brushing onto the thin sheets of pastry. I took some and sauteed 2 zucchini with sliced garlic until they were cooked, and then finished it with lemon juice. No added salt since the recipe uses salted butter. That served as my side dish, because you always have to have one. I had plenty of melted butter leftover and kept it to use for future recipes.

Despite being a production to make, the Spanakopita turned out deliciously! Would I do them in a spiral shape again? Maybe if I was feeling fancy or brave enough. I'd love to visit Greece one day and try a Spanakopita like this from a street vendor. Otherwise, I think I'll stick to turnovers or a whole pie I can slice. One of my British friends is married to a Greek woman, and I sent him the pictures of my Spanakopita to see if she'd approve of how I did them. I'm told she exclaimed Νόστιμο, which means "very tasty!" in Greek.

If you want to make this recipe for Spanakopita yourself, you can find it in Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide.