A couple of months ago I bought a nice cooking book while I was waiting to take the flight home to London from Athens Eleftherios Venizelos airport. Courgette Boreki looked like a nice book with traditional recipes and easy way to cook them.
However, when you are talking about cooking something traditional means that you need to have also the necessary ingredients. Every time I was reading one of the recipes I was always thinking something like “yeah right mate, let me see you trying to find myzithra cheese in Central London.”
Unfortunately that’s the way it is, no matter how much you try you will never be able to find the necessary ingredients every time so you will have to improvise. To be honest that’s almost what I do all the time but it brings results, well most of the times…
The following recipe is my own version of a Cretan dish called boreki without phyllo pastry. As i said ideally for this recipe you need to have Mizithra cheese but we cant have everything, so we improvise.
Courgettes Boreki with some Beer …
COURGETTE “BOREKI”
2-3 potatoes
1-2 courgettes
300-400gr of Mizithra Cheese or Ricotta
A bit of mint
olive oil
salt and pepper
a few slices of tomato (optional)
METHOD
Its pretty easy to be honest.
So you peel half of the potatoes, cut them in really thin slices and place them on the bottom of a deep oven baked pan.
Do the same with the courgettes and place them on top of the potatoes. Then take the cheese and spread it evenly over the courgettes.
Sprinkle with the mint.
Repeat by placing the remaining courgettes on top and potatoes and sprinkle with olive oil and salt.
Wrap it up with a baking foil on top and cook it in the oven for about 1 hour and a half. 20-30 minutes before its done remove the baking foil so the courgettes and potatoes become a bit brownish like a pie.
If for some reason you think its quite dry you might add some water or slices of tomatoes on top .
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.
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.
Its Sunday, you wake up at around 13:00-14:00, you have a headache because last night you drink too much…again…and you just want to eat something. But you don’t have your mother there to help you? So…what do you do? Yeah yeah I know you call pizza hat or dominos or whatever… no!
You cook the following easy recipe making use of everything you have in your fridge!
Here is a recipe out of nothing. Let’s suppose you have the following basic things in your kitchen. The basic ingredient is the oven potatoes and lemon. From there on we just add..
So..
INGREDIENTS FOR OVEN POTATOES WITH LEMMON
3-4 big potatoes medium sliced
1 small red onion
1 small green pepper
2 spoons of English mustard
Olive oil
2 lemmons
Salt, Pepper, Oregano
1 spoon of butter
INGREDIENTS FOR OVEN BAKED FETA CHEESE
One big slice of Feta cheese
2-3 slices of tomato
1 chili pepper
2 slices of green pepper
Oregano
Olive Oil
Aluminium foil
So how we do it?
-slice the potatoes and put them in a big baking pan.
Add on top of them salt pepper and a lot of oregano
Put 2 spoons of English mustard and spill them around the potatoes as much as you can.
If you want you can do the same with a little butter. It will great better sauce
Use your hands to stir them all together and move the sauce all around.
Put it in a pre-heated oven . Let them cook for 35mins with a baked foil on top of it so they wont get burn.
After 35 min remove the foil and let them cook for 35 more minutes. Test them with a fork to see that they are soft
For the Oven Feta Cheese
Put the big slice of feta in the middle of the aluminium foil
Add the sliced chili pepper on top
Then the tomato, and then the sliced pepper
Add oregano and olive oil.
Close the aluminium foil from the top but without pressing it on the ingredients on the top.
Put it on the oven for 15 minutes. Removed it and served it hot. The feta cheese should be slightly melting.
Its difficult to write about the following dish as anyone that has been to Greece or is Greek knows about it. The following bean soup is called “Fasolada” in Greek and it is one of the most famous dishes in country and one of the most healthy ones you can find.
Trying to pronounce it can be a little bit difficult, but then again most of the recipes over here i guess would make you feel the same.
Fasolada -and not mousaka– has been often characterized as the national food of Greece. There are many stories behind that. One of it is that before German occupation of 1941 but obviously afterwards, Greeks didn’t have much money to eat and meat was rare and only for privileged people. So many greeks had Beans as a basic part of there menu.
Nevertheless, Fasolada has its roots also in ancient Greece where there are mentions about it.
Our Fasolada Soup
In Athens, every year they celebrated god Apollo on the fourth month of the Athenian calendar which most probably would be around …end of September with end of October in our times. In order to celebrate his presence they were cooking bean soup for him.
Why especially bean soup?
Well, when Thiseas according to ancient mythology, went to Crete to kill Minotauro he stopped in the sacred island of Dilos to make a sacrifice (Olive which was considered sacred…) to Apollo in order to help him and come back alive. However, Thiseas coming back to Athens after killing Minotauro didn’t had anything on his boat to give to Apollo.
Most probably they ate everything…
So Thiseas ordered his crew to gather beans that was left and offer them to Apollo in the temple of Dilos. The result? Athenians and later on other Greeks were always cooking bean soup at that time!Whatever story you choose doesn’t makes a big difference. The main point is that it is one of the most traditional dishes of the country.
The recipe is really simple but it takes a lot of preparation in order to succeed the proper taste.
Add some Feta cheese on top and your greek bean soup is ready
How do you make the Greek Bean Soup (Fasolada) ?
500 gr of medium beans
3 carrots sliced
2 medium onions sliced
2 celery sliced
1 tomato juice can
1/2 cup of Olive Oil
Salt/Pepper
Method
Boil the beans in pot for 35-40 mins and then strain them. Slice all the vegetables . Add in the pot the Olive Oil, as well as the vegetables and stir them really good as they start to sizzle.
Pour the tomato can and stir it good so it can mix with all the other vegetables. Then we add the half cooked beans and we pour a bit of boiled water so it can cover all the ingredients.
Cover the pot and continue to boil for 30-40 mins.
Add salt and water as well as Olive oil to make the bean soup more juicy. Serve it with Olives or pickles.
Is Fasolada Healthy?
It is
the dish of the Greek culture and tradition. A trademark of the Greek diet
which is extremely nutritious and
topical due to its low cost choice.
Like
all legumes, it is a very good source of plant protein in our diet. It is not
compared to the protein of meat and animal food, but when combined with foods
such as rice it is very close to it. It contains
significant amounts of insoluble and soluble fiber that contributes to lowering
blood cholesterol levels and good functioning of the gastrointestinal tract.
It is
also an excellent source of vitamin B1, which is also called thiamine, and
plays a role in our better mental function.
Adding
vegetables and spices, such as celery, carrot, significantly increases the
vitamin content of an antioxidant such as carrot. According
to the principles of the Mediterranean diet, legumes such as beans and lentils
should be consumed at least once or twice a week. And for those who cook them
we advise not to overdo it in the oil and add it to the end of the cooking or
even raw after boiling.
A cup
(172 g) of cooked beans contain:
Calories:227
Carbohydrates:40.8 g
Totalfat: 0.9g
Vegetablefiber: 15g Is excellent source:
Iron(3.61mg),
Magnesium(120mg),
phosphorus(241mg)
Flavic acid (256mcg)
and good source:
Zinc (1.93mg),
thiamine(0.42 mg),
niacin (2mg).
Still anot so well-known feature is their high antioxidant content.
