The Greek Food

A Blog about Greek Food and Greece

  • Chicken Tagliatelle in the oven

    Chicken Tagliatelle in the oven

    The following recipe is a classic one  that can be adapted to any kind of meat I suppose and still produce a really tasty dish. Chicken with tagliatelles or “xylopites” as we call them in Greece was one of my favourite dishes when my mother used to cook it for me back home.

    So from time to time I still try to cook it depending on the mood and of course whether I have the right ingredients. Which means, going to the super market, or the local butcher, buying, bringing them back home under the rain etc etc ….

    Yeah, trying to cook is not an easy task, it would be much easier if I was ordering a pizza….BUT…not if you have something like that as a reward! Ok enough talking nonesense…

    Drums!!

    CHICKEN WITH TAGLIATELLES

    • 500gr with tagliatelles
    • 2 chicken legs or as much as you need
    • 1 teaspoon of olive oil (and a little bit more..)
    • 1 finely chopped onion
    • 1 can of tomato juice
    • ½ cup of red wine
    • Salt, pepper
    • Grated Feta cheese

    METHOD

    Add salt and pepper to the chicken on all sides. In a boiling pot put a little bit of oil and sauté the chicken for some minutes until it becomes brownish Then add the chopped onion and stir.

    Add the wine and let the fine smell come into your nose…mmmm….nice..!! Add the tomato juice (if you want you can add some fresh tomato also) and water until it covers the chicken. Let it simmer until the meat is tender. Then remove the chicken and leave it in a plate.

    Add the tagliatelles (or the pasta of your choice) to the liquid and let it boil. Put the chicken on a baking dish and add the pasta when its ready. Add the liquid also just be careful not to spill it outside. Don’t worry the liquid will evaporate in the oven. (hopefully!)

    Throw on top the grated feta cheese and cook it in the oven for 30minutes. If it is need stir the pasta a little bit while its in the oven so its not burned.

    Remove it from the oven and enjoy!

  • 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.

     

     

     

  • Sea Bass with lemon and potatoes

    Sea Bass with lemon and potatoes

    [dropcap]W[/dropcap]ell, I always would like to see that here in England we enjoy summer every year with lots of clear nice sunny days but everyone would know how much I would be lying. Unfortunately sun wasn’t good on our side in the last few weeks in London but the moment that changed, we remembered how summer should be.

    In Greece summer is always combined with good fish. On the last time I was in the local market I got large sea bass to cook. I have to say that having a big sea bass its not an easy task to cook but its sure worthwhile.

    Well, so how do you do it? Hmmm… I guess there are different ways but usually I love putting the fish in a foil and baking paper to cook it. It makes the fish cooked really nicely and keeps all the flavours and taste.

    The following is a simple recipe I think that anyone can do and cook a nice fish without a lot of trouble as the only thing he needs to do is …leave it on the oven!

    OVEN BAKED SEA BASS WITH LEMON

    • 1 sea bass
    • 1 onion chopped
    • 2 cloves of garlic
    • 1 bunch of parsley
    • 2 teaspoons of olive oil
    • 2 lemons
    • 1 baking foil
    • salt and pepper

    Take the sea bass and wash it and clean it properly.  Put as much salt and pepper you would like inside and outside the fish.

    In a big bowl add the onions, garlic cloves as well as the olive oil and the lemon juice. Create mixture that you pour on top of your fish and let it soak in it.

    Cover the fish with the baking foil and cook it in the oven for around 30-40 minutes on 180c. Times always vary depending the oven.

    For the potatoes

    • Cut the potatoes in small pieces and place them in a baking pan
    •  Mix in a glass the juice from the second lemon that has remained together with olive oil a teaspoon of mustard, oregano and water. Stir them really good and spread the sauce on all the potatoes and mix them using your hands
    • Place them on the oven.

    Ideally you should place them on the same time and time it correctly. Usually it takes 30 minutes for the potatoes –if they are cut on small pieces

    Add the parsley on the end when you serve it.

     

  • Pasta with Feta-Tomato and Capers

    Pasta with Feta-Tomato and Capers

    Having pasta is not something of my speciality but I try to have one every now and then as they are really easy to make.  Despite that I never had the chance to have pasta that I would really enjoy to make it to the blog.

    Well, the last time I tried to cook pasta I tried the following way which was much better than I expected. As one friend told me, pasta is nice cause you can add what you want and it still work.

    I like past -as most of us I guess- as it is really easy to cook and fills your stomach when you are hungry. So here is a recipe I did with pasta and which I think can be really nice during summer. The important thing with that is that you can make it with really basic ingredients.

    Forgive me my Italians friends, I know that its not a proper Italian pasta recipe…but I did my best  in mixing Italian and Greek flavours

    Ingredients for pasta with tomato and capers

    • Pasta, your choice
    • 2 spoons of capers
    • 20 tomato cherrys cut in half
    • 2 fresh onions finely chopped
    • 300 grs of feta cheese
    • Olive oil, Salt Pepper

    How to make it

    Make the Paste, the normal way as you do.  Drain them and leave them aside

    Place the pasta on deep bowl and add all the ingredients including the feta and the cherry tomatoes. Make sure you mix them quite well.

    Serve by sprinkling a bit more of olive oil on top and a bit of olive oil

    Its Ready!

    Pasta with feta cheese and tomato
    Sprinkle a bit more of olive oil and you are done!

    Dont like pasta? how about trying this aubergine stew with capers?

  • Chicken wrapped with aubergines

    Chicken wrapped with aubergines

    Sometimes I come to think about how all the foods have similarities and are kind of the same. You don’t need to have any special knowledge rather than huge imagination to change the ingredients and from one dish to create a whole new one.

    For example I remember when I did that recipe with the towers of aubergines and I realise how similar to the following it is.  You add one ingredient and maybe…re-arrange the others and you have a completely new dish.

    Aubergines are always popular to Middle East and so in the following recipe play an important role even if the chicken helps also a little bit…

    So the basic idea is to create some small wraps with aubergines that we can add inside the chicken or whatever we can…

     

    Sizzle the pieces of chicken in a pan and add Salt and Pepper. In the same time slice the aubergines as thin as you can and add them in a pan on the oven while you have sizzled them with olive oil. Leave them in the oven for a bit to become softer.

    As the chicken is cooked then remove the aubergines from the oven and try to make the small wraps, using a toothpick. Pour the tomato juice on top and add any seasoning  you would like and place them back to the oven. Ready!

    *On some of them when I was preparing them I added pieces of feta cheese which made it even better.  Be creative and try more!