The Greek Food

A Blog about Greek Food and Greece

  • Hot chickpea soup recipe with lemon

    Hot chickpea soup recipe with lemon

    Writing for this blog now for almost a year I have tried to focus always in recipes that were always different. After a while I liked the challenge of cooking something that I haven’t eaten for a while or that someone never believed that I could cook.

    Other times it was curiosity and the fact that I wanted to taste different things. Couple of weeks ago it was the first time that I remembered to make the following chickpea soup. My mother was cooking it a lot when I was young and it was one of the favourite dishes of my father. Obviously for me, at that time I hated it. It is however a recipe that a Greek mother does often I think so I had to include it.

    So I decided to try and cook the same soup, just to see why I hated it when my mother was cooking it to me. The problem was that I haven’t eaten chickpeas for so long that I couldn’t even remember how they tasted. When the soup was made, I didn’t know if the chickpeas were really ready…or that’s how they should taste …

    Nevertheless, the recipe is pretty simple so its pretty difficult to go wrong. Also, I enjoyed it and so did my brother who was once again my “guinea pig” as in most of my experimental dishes. So.. here we go!

    Ingredients for Chickpea Soup with Lemon

    • 500gr Chickpeas
    • 1 onion sliced
    • 1 garlic clove sliced
    • Chili flakes
    • 1 tea spoon of cumin
    • Salt/Pepper
    • 1 lemon

    METHOD

    Let the Chickpeas in a bowl of water from the previous day to soak. iIn a big pot add some olive oil and then add the onions and garic. Stir them around and add a spoon of butter.

    Pour hot water until the middle of the pot and add vegetable stock cubes. Add the chick peas and bring it to boil for 10-20 mins. Then let it simmer until chickpeas get soften.

     Add salt pepper and olive oil while continuing to boil in low heat for half an hour. Serve while adding some lemon.

    Enjoy!

  • My Greek Souvlaki recipe

    My Greek Souvlaki recipe

    Anyone that has been to Greece , always comes back and talks about –THAT- specific food, that which was like a kebap but not exactly the same. That food where you could find it everywhere but still could be so different in the way it was made.

    That …is souvlaki, the fast food dish that you have to try when you are in Greece. Reading along on the internet about souvlakia and opinios from different people I really liked the following that Jamie Oliver wrote in his blog regarding souvlaki.

    “We Brits often think of kebabs as a guilty pleasure. But, having seen the love and attention that goes into preparing a proper Greek kebab, I can assure you there is nothing to feel guilty about. It’s all about quality ingredients and fresh zingy flavours.”

    I couldn’t agree with him more on that. After living for 8 years in London I think the basic difference on the Greek Souvlaki is the attention that the cook puts and the distinct flavours that can come out of it depending on how you prepare it.

    As every dish, every Greek has a different way to make a souvlaki changing the recipe a little bit more than the others and still keeping it original.

    Souvlaki Pita Bread with Pork
    Adding potatoes rather than lettuce to my Souvlaki

    I can’t say that one is more right than the other but there are some basic rules I would say. In my opinion the traditional souvlakia are always being made with pork and tzatziki. Despite that there are different variations depending on the meat that you use (chicken and mustard or different kind of sauce etc) . Nevertheless, the main essence is that the results that comes in is a beautiful mix of flavours ideal for a Sunday barbeque or… any kind of day together with beer 🙂

    GREEK SOUVLAKI RECIPE INGREDIENTS

    • 800gr of pork fillets
    • 1 medium onion chopped
    • Thyme
    • 2 garlic cloves cut
    • 5 spoons of olive oil
    • 5spoos of vinegar from white wine
    • Salt/Pepper
    • wooden sticks for the souvlakia
    • 3 tomatoes in thin slices.
    • (optional) some lettuce chopped
    • (optional) potato chips

    Tzatziki Sauce

    • 3 cups Greek yogurt (around 350gr)
    • 2-3 garlic clove, minced
    • 1 large English cucumber, diced (the long, skinny ones)
    • 1 tablespoon salt (for salting cucumbers)
    • 1 tablespoon fresh dill (or both, depending on preference) or 1 tablespoon of fresh mint, chopped (or both, depending on preference)
    Greek Souvlakia
    The all too traditional Greek Souvlakia

    Method

    • In one small oven pot we add the vinegar and the thyme and add the sticks to marinate a bit so they dont burn.
    • We remove any white fat that our pork fillets might have with a good long pointed knife. Its important as if we dont it will remain hard no matter how we well we cook it
    • Cut the pork in nice cubes of around 1 cm each
    • Take the deep pot and add inside the meat.
    • Cut the onion in slices of various sides and add it also in.
    • Add any more seasoning you might want at this point.
    • Now add, the olive oil, 5 spoons of vinegar, salt and pepper and  mix them all together. You will notice that the pork will start to become more whitish because of the vinegar.Leave it on the fridge for 20 more minutes.
    • After it marinates, take the meat and add it to our wooden sticks one by one until each one has around 5. (give and take..)
    • Grill them, until they have a nice color and they are tender.
    • Serve it together with pita bread that is already grilled.
    • Add the tomatoes, tzatziki sauce and  some chopped lettuce if you do wish.

    Check here how to make tzatziki

    Ok, to be honest you can change the order in the end but the result remains the same. Ideally in the end you eat it with your hands like a wrap. Hope you enjoy it!

    If you do prefer i have embedded a nice video where you can make the same recipe but on a pan.  Its a bit more heavy but faster.

  • Creamy mushroom soup

    Creamy mushroom soup

    The following recipe I have done it for some time now and always forgot to have a picture for the blog. It became such a usual dish for me that I always forgot to find some time to write recipe.

    The following mushroom soup is one of those dishes that you always want to do when you don’t want to spend so much time in the kitchen but still have something healthy and nice.

    A really love mushrooms and try to use them in different kind of recipes from time to time. So you will see me adding them in dishes.  My original love for mushrooms brought me to search for the following recipe that I cook regular now.

     MUSHROOM SOUP

    • 1 kg white mushrooms
    • ½ onion, grated
    • ½ glass dry white wine
    • 200 g. butter
    • 1 chicken cube
    • 1½ liter of hot water
    • 3-4 tsp. flour for all uses
    • 150 ml cream
    • 3 tsp. tablespoons chopped parsley
    • Salt and pepper

    Mushroom soup
    The creamy mushroom soup is ready

    Method

    • We clean with a damp cloth the mushrooms and then mash half the amount of them in the blender and cut into slices the other half.
    • In a deep pan pour half the amount of butter, let it warm up well and saute the slices and trimmings of mushrooms and grated onion.
    • Add the white wine, lower the temperature, stirring from time to time and close with a lid until the mushrooms are tender.
    • Fill with hot water and add the chicken stocking cubes, stir until dissolved and continue cooking for 5 minutes.
    • In a glass, add flour, add 4-6 spoonfuls of water and with a fork stir until becoming a thin slurry.
    • Pour the diluted porridge to soup and continue cooking until the soup thickens, stirring with a whisk to avoid clotting.
    • Finally, add the cream and the remaining butter and stir to obtain our shiny soup texture, color and flavor.
    • Serve the soup in dishes garnished with chopped parsley.

     

  • Grilled Sea Bream with Lemmon

    Grilled Sea Bream with Lemmon

    Whenever I think of Greece the first thing that comes to my mind is the sea and the beautiful fishes that are inside. You cannot imagine holidays in Greece without being in the sea or having some sea food in a tavern by the sea.

    That’s why I always try to cook different kind of seafood while I am in the UK as it is something that reminds me a lot of my country.

    I have tried different kind of recipes from time to time like cooking the mussels with red sauce or salmon but I believe one of my favourite fish dish around here is the sea bream. I like this kind of fish as it have lots of meat inside and you can easily remove the bones.

    I bet there are different kinds of recipes for that but I prefer something much more simple when it comes to eating a sea bream. Very very very simple..

    INGREDIENTS  GRILLED SEA BREAM WITH LEMON

    • 1 Medium sized Sea bream
    • 1 lemon
    • 1 table spoon of parsley
    • 1 table spoon of fresh parsley
    • 1 glass of white wine
    • 1 table spoon of butter
    • Salt and Pepper
    • 1 red onion sliced
    • 2 cloves of garlic

    METHOD

    • Put a lot of salt and pepper on the sea bream and the juice from half a lemon approximately to it.
    • Add the onions and garlic inside there belly and place them on the grill at 200c.  Sprinkle Olive oil on top and let them cook for 20 minutes changing them sides every 4-5 minutes.
    • Towards the end pour the wine on top and add the table spoon of butter letting it slowly melt all over the fish.
    • Serve by sprinkling the parsley all over it.

    Enjoy!

  • Spyros stuffed mushrooms with Feta

    Spyros stuffed mushrooms with Feta

    I am getting happier when I receive recipes from friends who tell me things they tried and foods they cooked for themselves.

    The main reason is because I always get inspirations from there foods to try new things and maybe change some small details depending on how I prefer it. In addition to that I have more goodies to share with you on this blog.

    Well, this is the recipe from Spiros as he has sent it to me recently. As he was the first from my friends in UK to get a Phd, his recipes are highly important 🙂

     STUFFED MUSHROOMS with Feta 

    • 5-6 Big Portobello mushrooms
    • 1 onion
    • 1 lemon
    • Around 500 gr of Spinach thinly cut
    • A small block of Feta cheese
    • 2 small tomatoes cut in small pieces

    Place the mushrooms in to a pan sprinkle them and grill them on the high mark for around 30 minutes.

    Try to cut the edges from the mushrooms and mix them with the finely cut onion.  Put in a pan, a bit of olive oil and add them in medium heat.

    In the meantime place the mushrooms in to a pan sprinkle them and grill them on the high mark for around 30 minutes.

    Stir them well until the onions become golden and the mushrooms release a bit of there juices. Add the spinach and stir around nicely, it will remove a lot of water, keep boiling it until it evaporates.

    Just before the water from the spinach evaporates, add the lemon juice ,the small cubes of feta and the chopped tomatoes.. Stir a bit more until the feta melts a bit without loosing its form. Add some pepper, you shouldnt need too much salt

    Place them into the mushrooms and sprinkle the with a bit more of lemon if you like and they are ready.

    Enjoy!