Greek Recipes

If it wasn't for Tony quietly practicing a few Greek words with my dad in the back corner of my sister's back garden, you wouldn't know the family that gathered together yesterday for afternoon tea was Greek. Both my parents are Greek but my family is not at all traditional. Growing up we didn't speak Greek, we didn't cook much Greek food and we didn't follow any Greek traditions. Adding to this, my mum, Fifi, is fair-haired and fair-skinned which, to the untrained eye, greatly dilutes our credibility as a 'real' Greek family. In fact, as a child Fifi looked a lot like Shirley Temple. Her mum even dressed her to look like the child movie star, as you can see below in the Fifi vs Shirley Comparison Table . I've told you a little about my mum's upbringing in a travelling family, and how connecting with traditional Greek culture wasn't something that came naturally to them. Her father, Nicholas, was a cotton merchant and the family moved from c...

Yaourtíni was a very popular cake during the 80's. I remember my mother used to make it for family gatherings or at Easter. Its very fresh flavor coming from both the yogurt and lemon zest  was something that everyone liked in a dessert especially after a heavy meal.  All that before chocolate became the Queen of desserts and other modern desserts replaced many of the well known traditional ones. Yaourtini is a cake we still serve at the restaurant and I'm sure you will love it too. Greek yogurt (γιαούρτι - yaoúrti) has become very popular worldwide because of its delicate balanced sourness, full taste and of course its thickness, something that makes it easy to use in many recipes, sweet or savory, as a replacement for double cream or other milk creams rich in fat. It's most visible characteristic compared to ordinary yogurt is its density, a result of it being   double-strained.  You can find Greek yogurt almost everywhere, but if you can't, you can strain thi...

It's been a crazy, busy, BUSY week – no time to cook, no time to blog, no time to even pat my cat (sorry Simba!) but in the back of my mind lingered the promise I made to myself that I would make a clashing-coloured blueberry balsamic dressing to try with a green Greek salad this week. Clash the colours did, but yum the salad tasted! I was motivated by last week's Meatless Monday A–Z challenge to cook something with blueberries and I took inspiration from both Sweat the Sweet Stuff's and Oatmeal After Spinning's recipes for blueberry balsamic salad dressing. Mondays are Tony's meatless days, and they are also the one night a week I get to cook and eat a meal with my otherwise meat-eating partner. After participating in Meat Free Week last month, Tony made the commitment to go meat free for at least one day a week, which not only helps towards reducing the need for animal factory farming, but also means we get to spend more time in the kitchen together. Tony cook...

I just had to make another sweet pastry today, after being deliciously inspired by a Morello cherry and ricotta strudel my dad made for Tony and I over the weekend. It's not often you will see my dad making something sweet. At least not since his days as an ice cream manufacturer . For many years he has reigned as King of the Main Meals while his wife Julia has always held the title of Dessert Queen in their household. But on Saturday Takis ventured out of his comfort zone with the desire to recreate something he remembers his mother making when he was a boy – a simple, sweet cheese strudel filled with what ever fruit was in season at the time: figs, cherries, grapes, apples, peaches, pears or apricots, and wrapped in fresh, home-made filo pastry. Home-made filo is something I am dying to make but am just trying to get over the final "it's too hard" hurdle before I take it on. I've always thought making your own filo was one of those things that should be left to...

A short and sweet post today as I'm up to my ears with unexpected freelance work and freaky deadlines this week. Luckily I have these beautiful little sugar pastries to keep me happy! They're so quick and easy to make and although they might not be the most nutritionally-packed things you could shovel into your mouth, they certainly make a good stress reliever! I've very loosely based the recipe of these little cuties on a traditional Greek recipe for "Melitinia" which are small, sweet tarts filled with a soft cheese and baked. My version uses filo pastry, is deep fried, and totally addictive. Lemon and Ricotta Sweet Cheese Pastries Makes about 40 Ingredients 300g ricotta cheese 1 packet of filo pastry 2 teaspoons lemon zest 1 egg, lightly beaten 100g castor sugar 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence Oil for deep frying Icing sugar for dusting Instructions Place the ricotta, 1 teaspoon of lemon zest, egg, castor sugar and vanilla essence in a bowl and mix with a wooden sp...

      Fighters who led an outlaw existence in the mountains during the War of Independence (1821-28) were called Kléphts. They were rebel bands forced to hide in the forests.  To survive they had to forage for whatever food was available. Often this meant stealing sheep, or goats from the villagers in the area.  Having an open fire over a long period to cook their meal would have betrayed their position to the Turks, so they would dig holes in the ground, for the coals , get them hot, then wrap the meat and cover the package with clay or dirt to slow cook it without the tell-tale smoke or aroma.   It was delicious and today meat that is baked sealed in a container (or wrapped in baking paper) is still called kl é ftiko – or stolen meat!       Traditionally Kléftiko is made with lamb or goat meat along with kefalotyri cheese, potatoes or other vegetables wrapped all together and baked for at least two hours. I personally prefer lamb...

Last week I jumped on the Meatless Mondays A–Z bandwagon, hosted by Heather over at Better With Veggies . It's a great system she's got going to encourage people to experiment using a different ingredient each fortnight. Last week we started with A for Avocado . Recipes are submitted using Heather's linky tool and are displayed on the Better With Veggies blog for others to peruse and be inspired by – it really is a wonderful way to discover new recipes and meet other bloggers. Each ingredient is featured for two weeks. The first week is for those adventurous enough to create  something using that ingredient (you can read about my little "adventure" last week with avocado dolmades  here ), and the second week is an opportunity to cook something using that ingredient that is not necessarily your own recipe. For the second week, participants are encouraged to use one of the recipes submitted in the first week, and I've chosen to adapt a gorgeous, baked, stuffed...

Writing about my dad's hommus recipe the other day reminded me of another specialty dish of his. Beautiful, big white beans slowly baked in a tomato-based stew with carrots, onions, celery, bay leaves and thyme, served with scatterings of roughly chopped parsley. These flavours are about as Greek as they get and the aroma throughout the house when a combination like this is stewing in the oven just makes me want to lie down on the kitchen floor and levitate to Greece. See? I was levitating when I took this photo. Along with many other boat-loads of Greeks escaping the turmoil of Egypt in the mid-1950s, my dad Takis arrived in Australia with his new wife (my mum) Fifi in search for a better life. Settling in Melbourne, Takis worked hard from day one, covering the gamut of job opportunities on offer in the lucky country at the time, from insurance and sales to electronics and food manufacturing. But it was the food industry for which Takis would develop a passion, and the following ...

Grape leaves have been used in Greek cooking for millennia. In ancient times they were also used for medicinal purposes to stop bleeding and inflammation and to reduce pain. These days they are most commonly used to make a well-known Greek appetiser, dolmades, which are grape leaves stuffed with rice, onions and herbs, and sometimes with pine nuts, mashed broad beans, lentils or meat. I recently discovered a fun new challenge on the Better With Veggies blog – Meatless Mondays A to Z . Every Monday fortnight an ingredient is selected, beginning with a letter of the alphabet, and participants are asked to create a vegetarian recipe using that ingredient. So starting with "A", the first ingredient is "Avocado". I thought it might be fun to participate in the challenge so for the last few days I've been thinking about what Greek dish I can come up with that would be acceptable with avocado. Everyone says you're not supposed to cook avocado. Why? Because it goes...

      It may sound strange that a product from the North Atlantic Ocean like salted cod  became the key ingredient of one of the most famous traditional dishes in Greece. Bakaliáros (cod) was first imported to  Greece  via England at the end of 19th  century at the same time the famous and  tasty Greek black and sultana raisins were being  exported to England.  Quite a fair trade I would say. Salted cod became available to a  wide range of the population especially in the mountainous regions of the country where  fresh fish was difficult to find before the invention of fridges. Salted cod actually came to be called  ''mountain fish''.       In the Peloponnese especially around the port city of Patras where sultanas were (and still are) cultivated, salt cod became the base of many creative dishes. The most simple and the most famous of all recipes is fried cod  served with  skordaliá , a potato...