The Greek Food

Category: Blog

  • Back from Inca land

    Back from Inca land

    Coming back from holidays and for a new year, I don’t think its possible to start with anything else rather that what did I ate during holidays… 🙂

    Well, it wasn’t Greek and you to excuse me for that… I am planning to visit my country again this year during Easter to taste roasted lamb and magiritsa from the hands of the one that is approving every recipe that is on this blog….my mother.

    This year I spent my Christmas holidays travelling in Peru and tasting the local delicacies around Machu Pichu, just to have an idea of what the Inca’s were eating at their time. Together with my friend after doing extensive research in all the local restaurants, trying the best and the worst plates we came to the following result. Ceviche and the chupe de camarones are the best dishes you can have.

    Well, Lomo saltado was pretty cool also buuuuuuuuuuuut anyway….i promised to write only for two..

    Ceviche is being offered almost in all the restaurants of Peru and its fair to say that with the addition of roasted guinea pig, it’s the national food of Peru. From the little I managed to learn with my… non existent Spanish… Ceviche is closely related with Japanese cuisine but also due to the fact that peru… well, its full of the pacific ocean.

    Ok, but what does it contain?

    Ceviche

    • 1 pound raw shrimp (unpeeled)
    • 2 tablespoons olive oil
    • 2 tablespoons butter
    • Juice of 1 lime
    • 1 large onion, chopped
    • 3 cloves garlic, minced
    • 2 tablespoons jarred aji amarillo paste (or 1 aji amarillo pepper, seeded and minced)
    • 1 tablespoon aji panca paste
    • 2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
    • 1 teaspoon cumin
    • 1 teaspoon dried oregano, or 1 tablespoon minced fresh oregano
    • 1 packet of Goya seasoning with achiote
    • 3 cups seafood or chicken stock
    • 1 1/2 pounds medium yellow potatoes
    • 1 1/2 cups frozen peas
    • 3 ears of fresh corn, or 2 cups frozen corn kernels
    • 1 12-ounce can of evaporated milk
    • 1 cup crumbled queso fresco cheese
    • Salt and pepper to taste

     

    You know its like eating sushi… but really spiced up! The sauce from the lemon and lime, I have to admit was magnificent.  I don’t think I will be able to ever make it here in London but I think I’ll try at some point.  However, I have already promised myself that I will cook at some point the next dish. It was one of the traditional dishes in the city of Arequipa that you must try. I was foolish enough to think it was just a starter that I order another one… but I ate both of them nonetheless.

    Chupa de Camarones is a soup that is originally made with crayfish although you can see it also with shrimps. As you can see in the picture with crayfish, it’s enormous and together with all the other ingredients it becomes a mouth-watering dish. As far as I saw you need to have the following ingredients.

     

    Chupa de Camarones

    • 1 lbs crayfish (or shrimps)
    • 3 eggs, cracked and beaten in a bowl
    • 1 lb potato, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
    • 1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
    • 1/4 cup long-grain white rice
    • 2 ears of corn, cut into 1-inch chunks
    • 4 cups water
    • 1 cup evaporated milk
    • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
    • 2 tablespoons olive oil
    • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
    • 1 teaspoon oregano
    • 1 teaspoon salt
    • few drops of hot sauce

    Well…. Don’t know if the ingredients are correct but will test them at some point.  Peru was a fantastic place to visit and strongly recommended for holidays. Greek Food is really good, but its always good to have an open mind (and stomach) for anything else 🙂

     

     

     

  • Happy 2013!

    Happy 2013!

    Its funny but I look back at the previous articles and already this blog has reached on his second year…going for the third. I have managed one way or another to reach to 97 different recipes and counting… I never expected that when I first started but as I realised there is always a new recipe, always something that you have missed or you wish to try.

    In the end of the day I realised how nice is to cook something nice that will relax you from the stress of the day.  Honestly I came to realise how creating a new recipe and creating a new dish can make you happy.

    Ofcourse I am not claiming that I am creating new recipes, I am just copying mainly the recipes of my mother and trying to remember what she was giving us when I was still going to school. Nevertheless for me that is still creating something new… as I never before had cooked gemista or sea breams or even just a stake.

    That is the idea of that blog and basically passing the knowledge and the experiences of a non-professional cook that is still learning by the way…

    And by those things we reach to Christmas, where I wont be in London as I managed to arranged to further  away again this time of the year. So, i will not try to make again one of the typical sweets that my mother was doing during Christmas but …oh well, maybe next year.

    Enjoy the Christmas and Happy 2013.

  • For the Greek grandmothers

    For the Greek grandmothers

    Greek GrandMothers

    You know looking about the fame of the Greek food around the world there is always a conversation regarding the Greek mothers and how they like to cook enormous amount of food for their sons, daughters or in general who ever makes the mistake to come to their house for lunch, dinner or just drink coffee. You are to a point where you cannot eat anymore and are begging for mercy while you are watching the Greek Mother to continue bringing more and more food out of her kitchen.

    Despite that no one ever gets to think about that there is something even far greater and more dangerous (in terms of amount of food that she can deliver) than the Greek Mother… The Greek Grand Mother!

    So you see, whenever I spend holidays in Greece I always try to visit my grandparents one day for a coffee. They are leaving in a nice house outside Athens near Rafina which makes it a nice small trip especially during summer.  Despite that, I never do make the mistake to go for lunch as I know that I need to spend the next few days trying to digest the food.

    Never? Well, I did go this time for lunch…

    Me, my brother and one good friend decided to go to my grandparents’ house and check how my grandfather was and whether my grandmother still had the skills to cook enormous amounts of food in few minutes.

    They are not called grandmothers for nothing…  They are the ones that taught the Greek mothers how to cook so definitely they have enormous amounts of food stored everywhere for those moments when there grandchildren are coming.

    I will not come to special details about the cooking procedures but I was extremely surprised about the speed and the way that she managed to cook a whole baking pan of chicken thighs, pork chops, greek salad, some ntolmadakia, saganaki shrimps and some other things that she had already stored in her magic cellar somewhere around the house.

    Greek grandmother cooking

    Obviously, everything was followed by fruits, and ice cream and a little disappointment in her face that we didn’t managed to eat all the three tons of food that she managed to prepare in just under an hour… as my brother fall asleep for 1-2 hours trying to digest the food.

    I just wanted to make that blog in order to remind you this. Every time you are in Greece and you see to a small old lady in the corner (usually in black) sitting, make no mistake, she has the abilities to prepare food for a whole army faster than Usain Bolt can run the 100 meters…

    Love

    GrandSon 🙂

  • Trying the port wine in Portugal

    Trying the port wine in Portugal

    [dropcap]I[/dropcap] have been away for the last week traveling as much as I can. Unfortunately the weather in UK has been so bad that you need some days off somewhere sunny in order to get back to normality and remember how summer must be.

    I was looking for a place to combine it with sun, good food and nice sea for scuba diving. So after a lot of consideration and double checking on ticket prices, Portugal was the place.

    My trip involved Porto and Lisbon, the capital and the second biggest city of Portugal. Arriving in Porto I thought I would see a big city. Well, it was a big city but it wasn’t one that you will get lost at it. It manages to keep its character and you think it’s a small village rather than the second biggest city of the country.

    A big part for that plays the river of Douro that splits the city in two and gathers all the life of the city around its shores. There you can find all the bars and restaurants you want and have a nice glass of wine under the sun next to the river.

    You can understand by getting into the city that the river divides the city also to the side that consumes the wine, and the side that makes it as there are lots of signs indicating the winery’s that you can see them from far away. On the southern side of the city you have Vila Nova De Gaia where all the important wineries have their offices. You can easily go there and they will show you around and explain how they make their wine, that special Port wine. Obviously you can taste the wine from each winery for 3€-5€ in most of them which combining with the sun can be heaven. Trust me i managed to go to three of them and then it was pretty difficult to find my way home…

    I tried Taylors winery and Burmester… amongst others.. Yeah Yeah  I know, Taylor’s is an English name, that’s what I thought also when I first saw that sign in Porto. Nevertheless, it is one of the oldest winery’s and one of the best I have ever tried. Then again, if i want to be honest, i would love any wine over there under the hot sun…

    As far as food is concerned I should speak about A GRADE (Rua de S. Nicolau, 9), one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten behind the church of St Nicolau near the river

    Obviously the food was great and you should try any of the fish plates they have but it’s the family atmosphere that makes it so special. The father is on the bar and the mother is cooking right just next to you. They only have 4 tables inside so you will always feel that you are in a family food party rather than a restaurant. So you will get extra attention always with a smile.

    Personally I had the cod and the mix salad which was great but I have heard that I should have tried the octopus in the oven. Well, next time I will. All in all, it was a great restaurant to try something local without a lot of fuss.

    Travelling down to Lisbon my main target was to make some scuba diving on the shores of Sezimbra which is a little bit more to the south.  Making scuba is a magnificent experience and if you haven’t done it I highly recommend it. Diving and enjoying the underwater life over there is an experience that is hard to explain.  I am still waiting for the photos from the dive center…hopefully ill have them soon…

    Lisbon on the other hand is as beautiful as they say, a huge city that you need days to explore on its full. The castle even if its not one of the biggest I have seen but it has been there for a while, against all kinds of enemies. Also the views that you get from there of the city are simple staggering.

    One of the must see places in Lisbon is the monastery of Jeronimos which is simply huge and a magnificent achievement that has been declared a UNESCO national heritage.  Don’t miss it as well as getting lost on the streets of Alfama.

    The Alfama district of Lisbon is the place of the city where you can go and walk endlessly in small streets and find hidden pasteries waiting for you. I am not sure if at the time when I was over there they had any sort of celebration but the locals had a constant party. The people made their backyards restaurants where you could taste local food and listen to live music.

    All in all Portugal was a great country to be with so many things to see that you need certainly more than 6 days… Coming back to London I was always thinking the sweet combination of the port wine with the cod that I tried in Porto but that’s how holidays are.

    The good old rainy weather of London welcomed me back to reality.

     

     

     

  • Travelling to Jordan

    Travelling to Jordan

    In the last few years I have been fortunate enough to make quite a few trips around the world, knowing the people and the countries. I had the opportunity to travel in countries like Morocco, Costa Rica and quite a few Europeans.

    This year I managed to spend some days during Catholic Easter in Jordan where I had the opportunity to visit a lot of the places over there.  When I first said to my friends that I will spend five days in Jordan the first reaction that I got was something like, ”But Why?”.  I guess most of the people that I was announcing the trip never really believed that Jordan can offer anything to the traveller.

    I wasn’t planning this trip either to be honest but it was something that came a little bit unexpectedly when a friend of us suggested it to me and my brother.  We took the opportunity and said yes almost instantly and…off we went!

    Jordan is a 5 hour trip with the plane from London and its next to Israel, widely considered one of the safest and stable countries in middle east. The main thing you will get in terms of scenery is a lot of mountains and dessert but they are impressive.

    The people are very friendly and they are training everything they can to make your staying more enjoyable. Nevertheless I have to say that as in most Muslim countries, they always are trying to sell you something… anything 🙂  . So in shops, it’s always allowed to look but always you have to bargain. Its not as bad as other places… but it’s a characteristic of most of the Muslim countries that I have visit until now.

    Last but not least, even if it’s a beautiful country, is not the cheapest you will ever visit. For example, Petra, is a magnificent site in Jordan and truly one of the wonders of the world. Despite that paying £45 more or less for that just to get in…is a bit too much.

    But let’s speak about food!

    Every time when we go to a different country we take a loooot of time trying all the different plates we can find.  As Jordan is a country that was invaded in the past by Romans, and Greeks , I could easily find a lot of similarities to the dishes.

    Jordanian cuisine has been affected from a lot of different societies during the ages and has developed to one with dishes that have a really clear taste. The dishes don’t have a lot of spices but are using a lot of different vegetables and sauces.  Obviously chargrilled meat, olive oil, and the use of tomato in the dishes are really common.

    What really impressed me was the way they cooked us dinner in a Bedouins camp that we passed one night in Wadi Rum dessert on the south of Jordan. What they did was to build a big hole in the dessert and insert a barrel inside it. Inside the barrel they had put on the lower side the food and insert on the top side of the barrel hot coals for the fire. They covered it with sand and let it slow cooked for several hours. In Greek Food history this type of cooking is called “kleftiko” (translated: the thief’s way).  According to that the thieves in Greece during around 1800’s who lived in the mountains, when they stole a

    sheep and they wanted to cook it, they did it with this way as no one could see the fire from far away in the mountains. So they could cook it without being seeing by the police that was hunting them.

    It was funny to see it being cooked in front of me as it was being said and reminded me of the similar recipe I did quite a while ago. I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing there must be a similar story for that in Jordan also among the Bedouins.