Coconut ravani- coconut semolina cake

 

   Sometimes I wonder what makes something traditional in cooking. I suspect it is a combination of factors: local ingredients, eating habits  and  sometimes our ability to incorporate into our own tradition methods and ingredients that come from other countries with different cultures or even a  different climate.
      This flexibility probably keeps traditions alive within generations and endlessly produces more traditions. A good example is spices. They are now widely used all over the planet in all cuisines. Who can imagine pastry making without vanilla? Such ingredients seem to have been in our kitchens since the day we started cooking our food.
      That’s how my grandmother used to make her delicious coconut ravani cake, - without ever wondering what coconut ( καρύδα in Greek) had to do with Greece. We usually make this light dessert when the weather gets warmer because it smells like summer and it’s the very best partner for coffee on hot summer days. Enjoy!! 

Stifảdo - chicken and baby onions stew

      My father liked hunting with my uncles on the winter weekends when hunting was permitted; so we often had wild rabbits and birds for special meals at home. 
     The most common and delicious way to cook game in Greece is  stifảdo (στιφάδο). This is a meat stew with baby onions. Since most people, including myself; don’t  like hunting,  stifảdo can also made with beef, rabbit or any kind of poultry hunted down at your local butchers
      Baby onions keep their shape during cooking making for a nice presentation and giving  a sweet taste to this dish. Adding a teaspoon of tomato paste gives a warm rich color to the sauce.

Fakẻs soupa - lentil soup

     Legumes are an important part of the Greek diet. Lentils (fakẻs in Greek) are usually cooked as a soup with carrots and garlic and are traditionally served with a drizzle of olive oil and vinegar.
     I remember lentil soup was a Tuesday dish in my home and, as you know, kids don’t usually like legumes. So my grandmother would make omelet for me with my mother hesitating to agree, - thinking  that I would become spoiled. So I was almost ten years old when I first tasted my mother’s lentil soup. We were on summer vacation with my cousins who loved lentil soup and they convinced me to try it. Since that day I have never argued about this dish. Actually I really like lentils a lot, so why don’t you try them for yourself?

Tsourẻki, Easter sweet bread

        


  This year, Greek Orthodox Easter is on Sunday April 15, a week after the Catholic Easter. 
          During the “ Holy Week" preceeding Easter, my grandmother would make the Easter cookies and sweetbreads. You can imagine the aromas of vanilla, butter, orange zest, and mastic, spreading all over the house and my anticipation to taste everything coming out of the oven. Unfortunately, I was forbidden to touch anything until Sunday because dairy products and eggs were not consumed during the “Holy Week”. So I had to watch all these goodies being wrapped in colorful transparent plastic wrap to keep them fresh and pretty, before half of them would be given to friends and relatives for Easter.  This entire “patience test” didn’t serve to make me any more religious!
         The sweetbreads my grandmother used to make are called “tsourẻkia”.They were once special Easter sweet breads, but nowadays they are made in every bakery in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean world all year long because they really do deserve to be enjoyed every day.  
         The following recipe ALWAYS works but you have to be patient because the dough has to rise twice before baking, three times if you count the starter. 

Arnảki me aginảres - Lamb stew with artichokes

    Artichokes (aginảres in Greek) are the most tasty and unique vegetable of Spring. These flower buds can be found fresh only at this time of the year and the list of recipes to cook them is endless.

    Globe artichokes are cultivated worldwide but the ‘wild’ variety, although they are smaller and have thorns, have been preferred in Greece since ancient times. They cost double the price of Globe artichokes because of their wonderful taste. Wild artichokes are more difficult to find in the market but in the island of Tinos they are widely cultivated, marinated in olive oil, and sold canned,  -  a great meze.

    In Greece we also make a very nice vegetable stew with artichokes, broad beans and peas, all of which are in season at the same time.  

   Since Easter is getting close, one of our favorite traditional festive dishes is lamb stew with artichokes ( arnảki me aginảres). This dish combines lamb, (the Greeks’ favorite meat); with artichokes, fresh herbs, greens (in this case fresh green onions and dill), and olive oil, -  all producing a real taste of Spring.

    To be honest, fresh artichokes are a bit messy to peel. On the internet you can find videos and plenty of information about that process, but always remember that frozen artichokes will work fine; we use them often, especially when fresh ones are not in season.

                                                          

                                                              Wild artichoke

Youvarlảkia – Rice Meatballs (soup or not soup)

       Youvarlákia are meatballs made with ground beef, rice, and herbs. They are cooked in stock and then thickened with avgolẻmono sauce. Avgolẻmono is the most characteristic Greek sauce and consists of whole beaten eggs with the addition of lemon juice. This is added carefully to the meatballs just before serving to give taste and a velvety texture to the final dish.


       When you have no time to cook two dishes for a meal, Youvarlảkia can be the best choice. It can be served either as a hearty soup in winter or as a main dish anytime, - especially in summer when the weather is hot and soup is not a good choice. We then cook youvarlákia with half the amount of stock in order to end up with a thick sauce. This version of the dish is usually served with fried potatoes.

Wild asparagus made it clear; Spring has come!

Yesterday, under the olive trees, we found the first wild asparagus of the year.

What a treat! Have you ever tasted wild asparagus? That is not something you wouldn’t remember!. Their taste is superb. . In Greek they are called σπαράγγια-sparảgia and in my opinion, wild ones are ten times better tasting than cultivated ones.

In the mountains you can find native wild asparagus from late February to late April. As I read on wiki, wild asparagus are found all over Europe and Asia as native plants, so look out for them in scrubland, roadsides, and river valleys near you. Their shape is much thinner than the cultivated variety and their color is green or purple.

The most common way we cook them in Greece is in omelets. You can also make nice risottos or simply cook them for a minute in boiling water and serve them strained with olive oil and lemon.

Galaktoboúreko, time for dessert!

         

          Some traditional desserts are so popular that there are pastry shops specializing in making only that special one; they often have long queues with customers waiting to buy their favorite. One of those desserts is galaktoboúreko.
          Galaktoboúreko is a traditional dessert made with phyllo pastry crust and filled with semolina custard. Butter and vanilla give to the cream its wonderful taste. 

          Galaktoboúreko was traditionally made at Easter. But it is so tasty that no one could wait until Easter to enjoy it, so now you can find it all year long. Every home cook and pastry shop has its own version of this dessert. Everyone uses different proportions of the same ingredients. The quality of the butter, orange or lemon zest, the thinness of the phyllo pastry, and  the baking time are a few of the  secrets leading to different unique results. It’s not difficult to make. All you’ll need is phyllo pastry from a Greek or Middle Eastern food store and friends to enjoy it.

Lagảna bread and taramosalảta , Shrove Monday’s specials.

              Shrove Monday is the day after Carnival and the first day of the Orthodox Great Lent which lasts for forty days until Easter. Like any other festive day, Shrove Monday has its own traditions. Adults love it for the food and children love the flying of the kites.
              In Greek it is called “Clean Monday” because we don’t eat meat, dairy products, and only certain types of fish are traditionally allowed. All the bakeries in  the country bake only one kind of bread, lagána, a very tasty flat oval bread sprinkled with sesame seeds. It is such a pity we can find this bread only once a year. 

             In every town there are open air festivals for the flying of the kites, - where everyone is served fasolada, baked butter beans, lagána bread and taramosaláta. Taramosaláta is a cod roe spread made with the roe, bread crumbs, olive oil, and lemon. It is not fishy at all; it tastes rather like mayonnaise with shrimps.  White taramá is the best quality cod “caviar” but red taramá, a mixture of roes, will work fine. 

Risόgalo, rice pudding with mastic

       Mastic (μαστίχα -mastiha) is a white crystal-like resin obtained from the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus ) which grows only in the southern part of the island of Chios. It is a widely used natural flavoring in Greek cuisine, especially in pastry, and has been granted a Protected Designation of Origin status. Attempts to grow mastic trees even in northern parts of the same island were unsuccessful!!

Mastic gives flavor to crèmes, puddings, beverages, sweet breads and it is used the same way you would use vanilla. Our favorite mastic flavored pastry is tsoureki, a sweet Easter bread resembling brioche, and the most characteristic Greek dessert, kaimaki, is ice cream made from full cream scented with mastic.

A nice way to become familiar with the mastic flavor is to try this creamy rice pudding.

Fresh pasta, without eggs- Striftᾱdia or Makaroones

My grandmother used to make fresh pasta for her eight (!) children, twice a week. Actually each of my grandmothers had eight children.

 Her fresh pasta was made without eggs. Eggs were used only in dry pasta. All the taste would come from the fresh homemade butter and the mizithra cheese served with the pasta. Every family in the country side used to have their own goat’s milk in order to make butter, feta and mizithra cheese for their domestic needs. Of course they also had their own flour for bread and pasta and they would buy only those things they couldn’t produce themselves.

When industrial pasta became widely available people stopped making fresh pasta because of the cheap price and the lack of effort involved. That was the time my grandmother stopped making fresh pasta too. I had the chance to taste her pasta only once - at a family gathering many years ago when my uncles asked her to revive their childhood memory. I still remember that taste: simple, very tasty, and heartwarming food. I make this pasta a few times every year; it’s easy to make and everyone will love it.

In the Peloponnesus, this pasta is called “striftᾱdia” which means “twisted pasta”. When made in the Aegean islands of Karpathos and Kasos it is called “makaroones”.

If you can’t make fresh pasta, try the butter, onion,  and mizithra combination with cooked dry pasta to experience  the taste of this traditional dish. It is ideal when you have no time to make a sauce.

Baked giant beans and cabbage salad with mustard-yogurt dressing

              Beans are widely used in Greek cuisine. Small ones are used for soups and salads but those bigger in size are ideal for cooking in the oven. When I say bigger I really mean “giant beans”!!! Giant beans (also referred to as ''elephants'') are called butter beans in English and are cultivated mostly in northern Greece because they thrive in cooler mountainous regions. 


              They would look funny in a soup but many recipes for baked giant beans have been invented all over the country according to each region’s eating habits. The most common version is to bake the beans in tomato sauce with carrots and celery. This is the version commonly found in houses and taverns; other versions with spinach or sausage are found in northern Greece where the climate calls for spicy food. Giant beans are also a classic meze for ouzo.

               Cabbage with its natural sweetness adds taste to many winter dishes but raw cabbage makes very nice salads too, - with sliced orange, apple, and mayonnaise or with just a nice mustard dressing like the one I present here. In Greece we often eat cabbage-carrot salad with only extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice added. 

Kokkinisto - comfort food in Greek.

I’m sure there must be typical Sunday family meals all over the world with dishes that in English are called ‘’comfort food’’ because they are family favorites. In Greek we don’t have the term “comfort food” but we call a family’s favorite dishes ‘’Sunday dishes’’ probably because Sunday is the only day families manage to gather and have lunch all together.

 I remember Sunday family meals usually had our favorite food cooked with love by moms or grandmas and served informally in the kitchen or more formally in the dining room. My favorite Sunday dish had always been kokkinisto and, as far as I know, it is many other kids’ favorite too. Kokkinisto means “made red” and it is meat, in our case beef, cooked in tomato sauce. This dish is usually served with fried potatoes, (this must be the reason kids love it) spaghetti, or with other traditional pasta like chylopites (little squares of pasta) and grated mizithra cheese. On the island of Corfu this dish has its own special name, ’’pastitsada’’ and it is served with macaroni.

Merry Christmas!!! with our favorite cookies

Christmas is everyone’s favorite time of the year. I enjoy it mostly for the food! Many savory dishes and desserts are made only during the Christmas and New Year festivities. This makes things interesting but it is a pity we can’t enjoy them throughout the entire year.

In Greece we have two favorite cookies which are found in every single house as well as every pastry shop in the country. We just love melomacarona and kourabiedes!! There is no such thing as Christmas without these cookies.

Melomacarona are egg free cookies scented with cinnamon, clove and orange. After baking they are immediately dipped into thick honey syrup that makes them irresistible.

Kourabiedes are very simple to make, since they are made only with flour, butter and sugar and are scented with vanilla and brandy or rum. Very good quality butter gives these cookies their characteristic taste and aroma. In Greece we use goat or sheep’s milk butter both of which have a very intense aroma, but any good quality milk butter will do.

 Every home has its own version of these cookies. For example, in melomacarona some use only flour, whereas we use both semolina flour and all purpose flour. Semolina flour helps the cookies stay crispy and syrupy inside, but the choice is yours.

I hope you will enjoy them both. Merry Christmas!!!

Quince, a fruit for gods!!!

Quinces have been used in Greek cuisine for thousands of years. Ancient Greeks used to call them ‘’apples’’ and they used to combine them with meat in savory dishes or in simple desserts like baked quinces stuffed with honey and almonds’’.

In mythology quince was the fruit dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite (Venus)  and the ‘apple’ given to her by Paris in the famous beauty contest.. Plutarch tells us that Solon (a lawgiver and poet) suggested that brides bite into a slice of quince before they met with their husbands to ensure  a memorable and pleasant first kiss!

Nowadays we still use quinces in cooking, in festive dishes with pork or beef or in desserts the same way you would use apples.

The following recipe is a ‘’spoon sweet’’ which is quince cooked in syrup. It is the simplest way to preserve fruits and then use them in pastry. Quinces make a very tasty preserve with a vibrant red color that matches perfectly with yogurt, cheesecake, or as it is.

Kolokythopita- Savory Pumpkin Pie

In Greek cuisine pumpkin is mostly used in savory or sweet pies (kolokythopita), but there is also a preserve - a ‘’spoon sweet ‘’ - as we call it, made with pumpkin and honey that in Rhodes island is called ‘’retseli’’.

In the countryside almost every house has pumpkins even if only as a decorative plant on fences. Neighbors are competing to show who has the biggest pumpkin every year or who has the greatest production.

Sweet pumpkin pie is made with the addition of raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, and, of course, sugar, and it is dusted with icing sugar after baking. This pie resembles apple pie and is served as a dessert.

In the Peloponnesus we make a savory pie with feta cheese and this is one of our favorite winter dishes. You will notice that we use dried pasta in this pie, giving the pie extra taste This way the pumpkin juices are absorbed instead of merely being discarded. We use chylopites  which are small squares of pasta. You can use any kind of dried pasta but flat shaped pasta works and looks better. In northern Greece people prefer to use rice instead of pasta in this pie.

Fanouropita- Lost and found!

Religious traditions often influence the eating habits of a nation. In Greece, Orthodox tradition has influenced our cuisine to such a degree that even those who are not religious keep the traditions. Family memories and customs keep them alive but, mostly, it is the pleasure that traditional food offers.

 Fanouropita is a cake made on the 27th of August,- St. Fanourios Day. It is also made every time we have lost something or when we want to make a wish about something, - for example, good health or a new job. We used to make Fanouropita often at home because it’s a nice cake with coffee (Okay, we would make a wish from time to time!).

Fanouropita is an egg and dairy free cake and according to tradition only 9 ingredients must be used to make it. Others believe that 12 is the correct number. I will give you the 9 ingredients version I know and also a twist with syrup to make it as a dessert.  Even if you haven’t lost anything, don’t lose the chance to make this!

Lahanoriso - cabbage, a huge flower bud!

“To eat a nice cabbage, you have to wait until November” my grandfather used to say. Cold weather makes cabbages really sweet. In Greek cuisine cabbage is a basic winter vegetable because you can’t grow many things in your garden at this time of the year. It gives its special character, taste, and sweetness to many different recipes.         

It matches ideally with pork or beef in dishes like ‘’staffed cabbage leaves’’ (dolmades) or pork and cabbage fricassee. It makes nice salads chopped finely with carrot or boiled in water and served warm with olive oil and lemon. But my favorite dish with cabbage is lahanoriso; with carrot, rice, celery and olive oil, a simple, tasty and filling food.  My mother has been making this dish often in winter maybe because we always had cabbages in our garden at this time of the year. My favorite side dish for lahanoriso is fried potatoes, but if you would like to have a rich winter meal, a nice sausage would be ideal.

Fasolada - Our national dish!

   Most tourists who visit Greece, are familiar with popular dishes like mousaka or souvlaki but probably no one knows that fasolada  (bean soup) is actually considered to be our national dish!  Why such a humble food?  

   In the old days when meat wasn’t available to everyone, beans were the main source of nutrients. As late as the Second World War, thousands of people survived thanks to soup kitchens offering fasolada. Nowadays, fasolada is a favorite winter dish and there is even a special day, - Shrove Monday -when everyone eats fasolada at home or in open air festivals where we also traditionally fly kites.

     Many varieties of beans have been cultivated in Greece since the 16^th - 17^th century. The fact that beans can be easily cultivated in various soil qualities, helped to spread them all over the country. Kastoria in northern Greece is a place where some of the tastiest beans are produced from local varieties. In our tavern we use beans from the area of Ancient Feneos here in the Peloponnesus. They are also famous and really nice.

Small white beans are used to make fasolada together with carrots, onion, celery and tomato. This soup is served with side dishes like taramosalata and olives. 

Galatopita - Milkpie

The four basic ingredients in pastry are sugar, eggs, flour, and milk. There are endless variations and proportions in which these four ingredients can be mixed to become different desserts. Nowadays there is a great variety of special pastry ingredients but in the old days people had to use their creativity, four basic ingredients, and maybe some spices and natural flavorings to make different desserts. Such a simple dessert in Greek cuisine is Galatopita (milk pie), a sweet baked cream with ingredients found in every house

My grandmother had goats in our cottage house and galatopita with goats milk was often on the menu.

The ideal combination to flavor a Galatopita is vanilla in the cream and some cinnamon to dust the pie just before baking. There are several variations to make this pie, like using semolina flour instead of all purpose flour, pie crust or fyllo as a base or simply flavoring it with lemon zest instead of vanilla.

Galatopita

Serves 4-5

500gr milk

100gr flour

80gr sugar

2 eggs

¼ tsp salt

vanilla flavoring to taste

cinnamon to dust the pie  

Combine in a saucepan sugar and half of the milk and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, in a bowl beat together the eggs, vanilla, salt, remaining milk (250gr) and flour until it becomes smooth. Gradually pour half of the hot milk into the egg mixture, whisking to combine. Scrape the egg mixture back into the pan with the remaining hot milk and cook over low heat, whisking constantly until it is thickened. Then pour the thickened mixture into a 20cm round greased pie pan and dust with cinnamon. Preheat the oven to 180˚ C and bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown.