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. 

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.

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.

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. 

Meatballs and tzatziki- Meze time!

In Greek cuisine, there is a special category of dishes, that we call ‘meze’ or ‘mezedes’ in the plural.

Mezedes  are an endless list of ‘little somethings’’ you want to eat with your beer, ouzo, or wine.

A Meze is not a main course but the great variety usually offered in a house or tavern, ends up being a full meal.

To make meatballs many people use half pork-half beef ground meat; others use lamb ground meat. We always use only beef at the tavern and everyone seems to like this version. It is also the kids’ favorite; I remember when I was a kid whenever I didn’t like lunch my grandmother would always make meatballs especially for me.

Meatballs are ideally matched with fried potatoes and tzatziki.

Green beans, a summer classic!

Laderá in Greek means braising vegetables with olive oil (ládi) to taste.

These dishes are mostly cooked in summer when there are many fresh vegetables, but also because of the heat, light dishes are most enjoyed.

Green beans is the most classic ‘’oil cooked’’ dishes.

All over Greece there are many local varieties of green beans that differ in size and shape. Of course, there are frozen green beans,all year long in the super market, but I believe that vegetables should be consumed fresh when they can be cultivated outdoors in the right season. 

Green beans are always cooked with onion, tomato and parsley, while the quality of olive oil defines the final taste. Extra virgin olive oil gives to vegetables a light and really superior taste.

The most suitable and popular side dish for vegetables is cheese, - feta or any other local cheese, such as graviera or kefalotyri.

Ode to tomato – Kayanas

“The street filled with tomatoes, midday, summer, light is halved like a tomato, its juice runs through the streets. (….)

The tomato offers its gift of fiery color and cool completeness.

Pablo Neruda   “Ode to tomato”





Every summer I look forward to harvest the first ripe tomatoes in order to make kayanas with the right taste.

That magnificent combination of tomatoes and eggs is my favorite main course for the hot summer days. It is also nice over toasted bread as an appetizer in a summer lunch, or as a rich sauce for pasta.

Kayanas can be seasoned with oregano, basil, mint or garlic but please only one of them; tomato has to be the King of flavor.

This food reminds me of my childhood, when my mother used to cook it with tomatoes from our garden. I could eat that every day for the whole season!