You know the frustration. You’re in your local supermarket – the one that you have been going to for years – the one that you can navigate perfectly in your sleep, the one where you can find each type of pasta, or rice, or whatever, with your eyes shut. And then one day, the powers…
Tag: meze
Inventions and Innovations – Kataifi Melitzanópita – Aubergine Kataifi
Forget splitting the atom or realising that the Earth wasn’t flat – who was the bright spark that invented bread? We all know about Einstein and Fleming and there are those who think that Steve Jobs and Tim Berners-Lee changed the development of Mankind – but who invented bread? I mean where would we be…
Friendship and Flowers – Stuffed Courgette Flowers – Anthoús
Yesterday I cooked stuffed courgette flowers – anthóus. Not an easy dish to make in England. It is hard to come by the perfect, golden, courgette blooms – unless you grow your own, or maybe have a tame allotment owner, ready to relieve their prize vegetables of the flowers. The other day, though I…
5th July 2015 – Simple food for complex times…
You will have to excuse me for having been a bit quiet of late. To be honest, I have been uncomfortable prattling on about lovely Greek food when the country is going through such a difficult time. I have really felt that it would be totally frivolous and flippant. I am not going to…
Greek Food Myths No. 1 There’s no such thing as hummus!
As a sort of ‘Reality Check’, I feel I’m duty-bound to de-bunk some ‘Greek food myths’ and the first one is hummus – it’s one that really drives me nuts! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HUMMUS. OK, I can hear you all running to your fridges and checking that your pot of hummus is…
Back to Basics -The Ultimate Tzatziki
Why a recipe for tzatziki, you may ask ? Everyone knows how to make that….. Or so they think! I may be considered to be a bit obsessive about authenticity in cooking but I am of the opinion that if you are going to do something, do it properly! There is nothing easier to prepare…
‘Fainting Imam’ – Audacious Aubergines
There is a story the goes back to the days of the Ottoman Empire, that an Imam ( a kind of Muslim priest ) ate a wonderful dish of baked aubergines prepared for him by his wife, and immediately fainted – blown away by the amazing flavours. Another, slightly more cynical, ending to the story…
‘Giant Beans’ – Yígantes
One of the classics in the repertoire of Greek dishes is the gloriously named ‘giant beans’ – or ‘yígantes’. This wonderfully simple dish of oven-baked butter beans is never served as a main course on its own; it is always served as a side dish, or as one of the staples of the mezé selection….
All frittered away – the art of vegetable keftedes
Part of the magic of Greek cooking, is the ability of most housewives to take a relatively uninspiring ingredient and with artistry and skill, turn it into a delicacy and a treat. This comes, I suppose, from the fact that, in the past in rural Greece, there was not a lot of meat around –…
A Recipe From Nisyros – Revithokeftéthes.
One of my favourite recipe ‘discoveries’ was made on the gorgeous island of Nisyros, a couple of summers ago. We were on holiday on Kos, late in the ‘season’ – at the point when there are fewer tourists, the weather is cooler and the sun is hanging just that bit lower in the still perfectly…
kouzina 