A Blog about Greek Food and Greece

Okra with chicken
Cooking Okra was a no-no to our house in London for a couple of years as my brother was never really fond of them. Cant understand the reason to be honest but on the other hand when i was younger the only thing i could eat was stakes or souvlakia.

Okra, when you cook them fresh they usually remove a slimy liquid which was exactly what my brother didn’t like. Other rumours say that he was just bored of them as my mother was cooking them all the time during summer months. My father on the other hand really loved them as they had exactly what he liked.

A good combination of vegetables and meat with a lot of sauce so he could use his bread and mix it with the sauce.

Continuing with our recipe, at one point I managed to cook that dish as I missed it –as many other greek traditional dishes that my mother used to cook. So, even if I didn’t managed to find fresh okra around here and I got frozen ones, I think it they were really tasty. Basically, i think it was the reason why my brother loved them again as they were not releasing the same kind of slime, as the fresh ones.

Obviously, for me, okra as with any vegetable its better to have them fresh. Nevertheless, if you don’t then you go with the next best option.

Okra with chicken casserole Recipe

Our chicken casserole with okra in red sauce

INGREDIENTS
- 300-400gr of Chicken breast cut in cubical parts. (or whole chicken if you want..)
- ½ kilo of okra
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tomatoe juice can
- Salt/pepper
- Olive oil
- 1 vegetable stock cube
METHOD

Ideally if the okra’s are fresh, you need to cut the top hard part from the okra, but..as we said allready… we are lazy and we have bought frozen okra’s so we skipped that part. In a big bowling pot we put a bit of oil and we add the onions and garlic until they get a bit brownish.

Add the chicken breasts and stir continuously. Add the tomatoe juice Continue stirring Add salt and pepper

Add the okra and fill it with water until it covers all the ingredients. Add the vegetable stock cube

Let them boil for 35-40 minutes. Always be careful that the water isn’t vaporized completely. When the okra’s are soft then remove them from the heat.

You can serve them with a bit of parsley if you want. The same dish can be done without the chicken and it can be a really tasty vegetarian food.
May 9, 2012
Greek Fava: Simple and healthy
The following dish is something that stuck to my mind especially after the Jordan trip where I tasted in some local starters.

Fava was something like soooo many other dishes that I hated when I was young as it looked to me as tasteless. Well, as you get older I guess you automatically discover its taste…

Alternative recipe with Octopus

Looking around the internet I discover that there quite a lot of recipes with fava that they use to cook in countries of northern Africa and Morocco. I am guessing that I will have to explore this matter even further on the following days and try different combinations with that.

Nevertheless, my first effort would always be the same way as my mother used to cook all the time to me back in the days when I was in Athens. According to the typical Greek Style Fava, the food needs to be mashed and its simple and healthy in the same time.

So …lets do it!

GREEK FAVA INGREDIENTS

INGREDIENTS
- ½ kg fava (yellow lentils)
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 smaller onion also chopped
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Oregano
METHOD

Rinse the yellow lentils under water In large pot add the lentils and water until they are covered and start boiling them.

Add a bit of olive oil. Remove and froth that appears with a spoon When it starts boiling add the 1st large chopped onion and continue to boil for 1 hour making sure that almost all (2/3) of the water has been absorbed.

-ideally if you have a food processor you should add the fava over there and blend until the cream is created. If you are just like me… and you don’t have…then you continue to boil and press a bit until the lentils are melt creating a creamy –mustard like- sauce –

Serve the fava, adding a table spoon of olive oil on top (just sprinkle it with the olive oil), oregano, parsley and chopped onions.

Additional you can add some capers on top.

Our Fava is ready
May 2, 2012
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.

April 18, 2012
The best Magiritsa Easter Soup
The following dish was one of my favorites during my childhood, and to be honest it is still one of my best dishes, the famous Magiritsa soup. I try to cook it almost every Easter now that I live in the UK and it was one the first dish that I ever made and managed to surprise my friends as they thought it was too difficult to make.

It’s not difficult to prepare Magiritsa soup but it is quite time consuming I have to admit. During Christian orthodox Easter, Christians need to fast at least 7 days before Great Saturday when according to religion Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead.

So every time me and my family were fasting for one week without eating meat and anything related to that and were going to the church on Saturday to celebrate Jesus Christ resurrection. After that, the first food that we eat is the so called, –magiritsa.

Obviously, there are many more options in the table and we should mention the traditional red eggs as well as the greek tsoureki bread.

Magiritsa is a soup that has different kind of meats inside combined with rice. It’s pretty straight forward to make but requires a lot of preparation. As I am in London for almost 8 years, I have had the opportunity to make magiritsa a few times as some of my Easter holidays were spend here. So I will give you my version of the soup as I am doing it here.

Our Magiritsa is ready for Easter Saturday!

Just an important note however before we get going. The dish in some of its versions in Greece, has beef or lamb intestines. Nevertheless, that is something really hard to find over here so I do not use them on this instance. Either way it is an important part of Magiritsa when this is cooked in Greece.

The main part of the soup is called “sykotaria” which consist mainly the lamb offal. Different people add as many as they can find or simply like. So here is the recipe for magiritsa while in the same time you can see one the first blogs i did last year for cooking roasted lamb, another typical Easter dish.

MAGIRITSA EASTER SOUP INGREDIENTS
- 500gr liver lamb
- 250gr liver beef (Not necessary but I add also for extra taste)
- 250gr lamb diced
- 1 lamb heart (Not necessary)
- 1 cup of red wine
- 3-4 lettuces depending on the size
- ½ kilo of onions
- 1 big bunch of fresh dill
- 1 tea spoon of Olive Oil
- Salt/Pepper
- 1 cube of vegetables
- 1 tea cup of rice
- For the Egg-lemon sauce
- 2 eggs
- Lemon juice from 11/2 lemons
So, ideally we need a big pot to boil all that stuff- get the biggest ones you can find.

HOW YOU COOK MAGIRITSA
- Add the tea spoon of oil and increase the heat. Add all of the different parts of meat you have and stir it well until most of it (if not all) becomes brownish.
- Continue stirring by adding the chopped onions
- Add the cup of red wine and let it for another 2-3 minutes. Smell the wine as it evaporates.
- Add enough water to cover all of the meat and at least 2 cm more.
- Continue by adding the chopped lettuce and stir it until it gets soft and mixes with the meat.
- Continue with the cube of vegetables and add salt and pepper as much as you like. Bring it to a boil for at least 45 minutes. Taste regularly the meat and add water if you feel its necessary. Remember it’s a soup!
- After 45 minutes add the fresh dill and the cup of rice and continue boiling it in a more medium heat until the rice is ready
Just before you serve them you should add the egg lemon sauce called in Greek “avgolemono” (egg-lemon)

Take a spoon of hot soup and begin to slowly add to the pot with the mixed eggs with the lemon juice. Slowly though. Repeat and add another spoon of hot soup. Slowly.

Stir this mixture a bit (shake the pan round with your hand) to be mixed and then begin to slowly pour in the pot where you have your Magiritsa while stirring the soup with a spoon.

Enjoy!
April 10, 2012
Oven Baked pork stakes with tomato and Paprika
The following is a recipe that i was told by i a friend and i can see is a really popular way to make pork.

Well there are many ways too cook a steak and I always try to mix things up some times in order to create different kind . The following is a nice recipe for cooking pork steaks in the oven while keeping them soft and tender.

Even if frying stakes are a little bit more tasty I believe, when you do them in the oven is healthier and it can be really tastefull if you get it ready. The biggest problem is to manage and keep the juices in..i think, but we have a sollution for that!

So for the following recipe…we will need..

OVEN BAKED PORK STAKES WITH TOMATO

INGREDIENTS
- 2-3 medium sized pork stakes
- 1 tomato sliced
- 1 red or green pepper sliced also
- 1 chilli pepper chopped
- 1 onion chopped
- 2 garlic cloves sliced
- Olive Oil
- Salt , Pepper
- Paprika
METHOD

Put the pork stakes in the Oven pan and add as much as salt and pepper you want. Add a lot of paprika on all the sides of your stake. I found out recently how nice paprika goes with the stake, so personally I add as much as I can.

Add olive oil all over the stakes and a little bit of water if you feel it’s necessary so they won’t be dry. On top of the stake add 2-3 slices of the chilli pepper. Then throw all over the pan the chopped onions and garlic.

Put one or two slices of pepper in each of your stake and add one more slice of tomato on top of each stake. The juices from the tomatoes as you cook the stakes will fall down to your stake keeping it juicy and adding to the taste. Cooking it for around 45 minutes depending on how you like your stakes.
April 4, 2012