Chicken and Spinach Strudel

  
I promised my needlepoint stitches this recipe from our Christmas lunch. If you have ever made any Greek dish with filo dough you will be fine to handle making this. If not, just practice a few times rolling these individual strudels and soon you will be making nice tight rolls with nicely folded edges.
One box of frozen fill dough comes with 30 sheets of pastry, enough for six strudels. So this recipe is enough for six because you really can’t keep filo dough that is leftover.
You can put anything that is not too wet as a filing. I make this one by cooking all the ingredients separately and mixing them together right before filling.
3 boneless skinless chicken thighs- cooked and chopped

2 lbs of fresh spinach or 3 boxes of frozen chopped spinach

1 large yellow onion chopped and sautéed 

1 large package of fresh mushrooms, sliced and sautéed 

Nutmeg

6 oz. feta cheese, crumbled

1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese

Salt and pepper
30 sheets of fill dough

1 stick of butter melted
Thaw the filo dough.
If you are using fresh spinach, sautée it it in a big pan without adding any water. Just put the leaves in a pan on medium heat and keep turning them over with tongs until they are wilted, about three minutes. Squeeze out any liquid from the spinach. Grate some fresh nutmeg over the spinach and salt and pepper. If you are using frozen, just prep it according to the package, but really squeeze the water out.  
In a big bowl, mix together the spinach, cooked chicken, onions, mushrooms and two cheeses. Salt and pepper the whole thing.
Unroll the thawed filo and unroll it carefully not to break it and cover the sheets with a damp towel.
Working on a cutting board carefully pick one filo sheet up and lay it flat on board. Using a pastry brush cover the sheet with melted butter. Pick up another sheet and lay it on top of the first one and brush the top of that sheet with butter, repeat until you have five sheets in the stack.
Spoon one sixth of the filling onto one end of the short side of the filo dough making sure it is about one inch in from the edges. It should be a log about two inches wide. Fold up the short side on the end of the log and start rolling it up folding in the sides as you roll. It should look something like a big egg roll. Brush the outside with butter. I like to wrap each strudel in a separate piece of foil and freeze them individually if I am not baking them immediately. 
If you want to eat them that day, lay strudels on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and crispy.  
If you freeze them, unwrap while still frozen and place on the foil lined cookie sheet and let them thaw for an hour before baking the same way.