Greek Recipes

              Shrove Monday is the day after Carnival and the first day of the Orthodox Great Lent which lasts for forty days until Easter. Like any other festive day, Shrove Monday has its own traditions. Adults love it for the food and children love the flying of the kites.               In Greek it is called “Clean Monday” because we don’t eat meat, dairy products, and only certain types of fish are traditionally allowed. All the bakeries in  the country bake only one kind of bread, lagána , a very tasty flat oval bread sprinkled with sesame seeds. It is such a pity we can find this bread only once a year.               In every town there are open air festivals for the flying of the kites, - where everyone is served fasolada , baked butter beans , lagána bread and taramosaláta. Taramosaláta is a cod roe spread made with the roe, bread crumbs, olive oil, and lemon. It...

       Mastic ( μαστίχα -mastiha) is a white crystal-like resin obtained from the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus ) which grows only in the southern part of the island of Chios . It is a widely used natural flavoring in Greek cuisine, especially in pastry, and has been granted a Protected Designation of Origin status. Attempts to grow mastic trees even in northern parts of the same island were unsuccessful!! Mastic gives flavor to crèmes, puddings, beverages, sweet breads and it is used the same way you would use vanilla. Our favorite mastic flavored pastry is tsoureki, a sweet Easter bread resembling brioche, and the most characteristic Greek dessert, kaimaki, is ice cream made from full cream scented with mastic. A nice way to become familiar with the mastic flavor is to try this creamy rice pudding. Serves 4 80gr rice for risotto 1 cup (250gr) water 5Tsp sugar 2 ½ cup (600gr) milk 1 ½Tsp corn flour A pinch of crushed mastic (1/6tsp) A pinch of salt Place the...

My grandmother used to make fresh pasta for her eight (!) children, twice a week. Actually each of my grandmothers had eight children.  Her fresh pasta was made without eggs. Eggs were used only in dry pasta. All the taste would come from the fresh homemade butter and the mizithra cheese served with the pasta. Every family in the country side used to have their own goat’s milk in order to make butter, feta and mizithra cheese for their domestic needs. Of course they also had their own flour for bread and pasta and they would buy only those things they couldn’t produce themselves. When industrial pasta became widely available people stopped making fresh pasta because of the cheap price and the lack of effort involved. That was the time my grandmother stopped making fresh pasta too. I had the chance to taste her pasta only once - at a family gathering many years ago when my uncles asked her to revive their childhood memory. I still remember that taste: simple, very tasty, and heart...