He arrived home late to find me plunging leaves of chard and baby kale into a tall pot of boiling water. He dropped his bag and swooped in to steer me in the direction of small triangles instead of one big pie. He promised elegant, elongated lines if he could fold. And when the tanned triangles emerged from the oven, it was clear we’d been after the same thing all along: shatteringly crisp pastry that leaves a smile on your face and shards with an oily sheen on your lips – wrapped around a punchy filling.
That was the night we finally agreed: make the pastry less to taste the filling more. There’s long been a back-and-forth: Brandon pushing for a high ratio of pastry with individual handheld pies, me pushing to showcase hard-earned flavour in the filling with a single blanket of pastry covering a deep pie dish. This time we met in the middle: many miniature parcels but fewer layers of phyllo.
We started calling them ‘spannies’ (pronounced ‘spunnies’) though they’re definitely not trying to be anything more than a little savoury snack inspired by seasonal greens. And this is the season when, thanks to the rains moving in, chard leaves become lush.
On Friday we were slicing a juicy Ananas Noire tomato, now we’re reaching for our socks and noticing March Lilies. The sudden arrival of these luminescent-pink, trumpet-shaped blooms clustered on top of a stalk never fails to amaze us – as if someone arrived in the middle of the night and stuck them straight into the ground. As Mutti (mum) reminded us, it is ‘the flower that says goodbye to summer’.
The pastry
With these little pastry triangles, texture is as important as taste: it’s all about getting the right ratio of filling to phyllo.
A single strip of phyllo pastry that’s 7cm wide and filled with 15ml (one tablespoon) of filling makes one triangle that provides all the sensory pleasure of a delicately crisp, golden coat, while still allowing the filling to shine.
It errs on the side of minimal so there’s no risk of too many phyllo sheets stacked up in a thick surrounding layer that remains pale and seemingly parbaked.
If you prefer the security of a second 7cm wide strip on top of the first before starting to fold, we’ve done the testing and it does work, we just think in this case less is more.
(Remember to brush the bottom strip with olive oil and line up the edges exactly when placing the second strip on top.)
Some other points worth noting:
To allow each triangle to get good colour and crisp up, leave enough space between them when baking – around seven on a baking sheet that’s roughly 40cm x 30cm.
Spunnies have a bad habit of bursting at the seams (or at least through their thinnest part). To avoid this, start at a lower temperature (165°C) and once they are in the oven, turn up the heat (175°C). They don’t mind baking lower for longer.
If the pastry is properly crisped on the first bake, they reheat well. Once the triangles are fully cooled, store them in an airtight container and reheat the following day. Arrange on a baking sheet and slide it onto the middle rack of the oven. Set the temperature to 175°C and allow them to heat up with the oven for about 20 minutes or until re-crisped and warmed through.
The filling
Depending on what leaves we find, we might look to push up the sweetness with fully caramelised onions to balance out any bitterness in the greens. In that case, we would use equal weights leafage and brown onions and enough salty feta to play with the sweet.
If we find a milder, softer leaf and glossy bundles of spring onions at the market, we might go with one and a half times the onion grammage in leaves, split the onions between spring and brown, pull back on the feta and add some garlic.
You could add fresh herbs, or leave them out if you forget to pick up parsley. Or use a bunch of leeks instead of onions. The back-and-forth now plays out with the feta in that I like to discover chunks of it melted in my spunny, while Brandon prefers it crumbled throughout. Enjoy making them your own.
The leafage | 350g–400g leaves only Swiss chard, spinach, or a mix of greens (ribs removed and stems plucked off) – like a combination of chard and baby purple kale. Adding some just-harvested beet or turnip greens to a base of Bright Lights chard will also add complexity.
The onion | 350g–400g
This is around two brown onions, but you could use a combination of brown onion and spring onion or leeks, cooked to any degree from sweated to melty soft to fully caramelised.
The cheese | 180–200g
A full-flavoured, quality feta, drained and blotted dry. I break it into big-ish pieces because I like finding nuggets of melted cheese on biting into a Spunny, whereas Brandon likes it finely crumbled so it acts like a seasoning throughout.
The binding | 100g–125g Ricotta For a juicier, looser filling we use smooth ricotta to bind but no egg – you could use an egg if you prefer a more set filling.
Plus
Herbs for the filling. If fresh bunches of flatleaf parsley are available, add around two tablespoons, finely chopped, for the quantities above.
2.5ml (half a teaspoon) sea salt added to the onion for seasoning.
Extra-virgin olive oil: about 60ml (quarter cup) for caramelising the amount of onion above + extra for brushing the pastry.
Season with two to four garlic cloves, finely chopped, and added in the last five minutes of onion cooking, or a grating of nutmeg or a grinding of white or black pepper.
Sesame seeds are optional and thanks to Tal Smith and her mother, Hava Saban. When working with Tal on her cookbooks, she told me how Hava sprinkled sesame seeds on all her pies and bakes. I gave it a try and never looked back.
500g frozen phyllo pastry (one box usually contains 2 x 250g rolls), defrosted but refrigerated.
The making
Add 60ml (quarter cup) extra-virgin olive oil to a medium pot over medium heat. Add two large brown onions, finely chopped, and 2.5ml (half a teaspoon) sea salt, stir well, replace the lid, turn the heat down to somewhere between low to medium- low and caramelise for one hour (take the lid off after the first 15 minutes and stir regularly during the last 30 minutes).
Fill a large pot with water and bring to the boil. Add 350g chard leaves, put the lid on and as soon as it’s back up to a boil, remove the lid and cook until tender but still green. Drain the chard in a colander and once it has cooled, squeeze as much of the water out of the chard as possible. Place the chard on a board and chop finely.
Stir the chard into the onion with 125g smooth ricotta, a grating of nutmeg and a grinding of white pepper. Fold through 200g feta, drained, and broken into large pieces.
Preheat the oven to 165°C with the rack in the middle.
Key point: when not busy with the phyllo, keep it covered with a damp tea towel, so it doesn’t dry out.
Unroll a 250g roll of phyllo pastry and cut a 7cm wide length of pastry. Brush the strip with extra-virgin olive oil.
Imagine a square outline at one end of the strip. Now place 15ml (one tablespoon) of filling in the corner of that imagined square area furthest away from you. Fold the unfilled corner of that ‘square’ up along the diagonal to make a triangle. Then fold that triangle up and over onto the rest of the strip. Keep folding the filled triangle up and over onto the strip, making sure to be precise in lining up the edges, until the end of the strip.
Place on a baking sheet, brush with olive oil, and sprinkle with sesame seeds if using. Repeat until the filling is finished.
Place a baking sheet of Spunnies onto the middle rack, close the oven and after 10 minutes turn up the heat to 175°C and bake for another 15 minutes or until the Spunnies are golden brown. Eat while still warm.