Kitchen Equipment.
A lot of Greek cooking is hob based. In the old days most housewives wouldn’t have had an oven at home. Anything that needed baking or roasting would be sent to the local baker (foúrnos) . This is still done to this day in villages and on islands; the result of course is very different, however baking at home still gives excellent results.
Pans
For most casserole and hob cooked stews and casseroles it is important to have a wide shallow casserole pan. As these dishes are not ‘stewed’ so much as ‘braised’, it’s always preferable to restrict the amount of cooking liquid. My preferred pan is this
Gadgets
I love my food processor – in fact I have two! A little one for finely chopping an onion or some herbs or making breadcrumbs. The big one is the stalwart for chopping larger quantities.
However a little caution needs to be exercised when using these gadgets for pureéing. Somehow they incorporate a lot of air; in some dishes, mayonnaise for example, this is just what you need. However for pureéing vegetables i.e. potatoes, the added air is just too much. Food processed potatoes become gluey and a bit unpleasant. The same happens with, say tomato sauce. For this type of thing the essential gadget, the ‘Mouli Legume’ is, maybe a bit ‘old school’ but believe me, indispensable.
Mouli – Legume
This is a very traditional piece of european kitchen equipment . It is fantastic for any sauce or vegetable that not only needs to be pureéd but also strained. It is indispensable,I think, for processing vegetables to thicken a soup, or for finishing off a soffrito based sauce.
It is the perfect way to process vegetables and pulses for some types of vegetable fritters (see recipes).