Greek Recipes

The Lenten fasting season has started. In our house it was marked by Mr K asking, "do you know how to make fassolada?" During Greek Orthodox lent, you are supposed to supposed to avoid animal products (meat, dairy, fish) until Easter. The only animal products allowed are shellfish, octopus and calamari. Tahini is used as a source of fat. The traditional fasting rules also do not allow the use of olive oil and wine during the week and only on the weekends one can consume them. As such, many stovetop dishes are cooked, which usually have lots of legumes, wild greens, vegetable and pasta or rice. Hence Mr K's question, about the all important fassolada - a hearty soup with lots of beans and vegetables. I was a bit confused about where to start with making fassolada. All the books I had read and recipes I had collected on our recent trips to Greece suggested that fassolada was made with white beans. Mr K was fairly insistent that it was made with chickpeas. Luckily, I had pla...

Fava with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of lemon & dried oregano Each year with the approach of Lent, Greeks all over the world prepare for the Easter celebration by fasting for a forty day period. The greater part of this fast consists in abstaining from meats and animal by-products including dairy foodstuffs like eggs, milk and butter. Coincidentally, this fasting period (called Sarakosti or 'forty days') arrives at just the right time to help us shed some of the extra weight we have put on during the winter months! Of course, it is always a challenge to come up with appropriate foods that are both tasty and varied, but thanks to the wide range of Greek gastronomic specialties this period can be anything but monotonous. Fava is essentially a yellow split-pea purée and it is especially popular on the Greek islands, particularly Santorini (or Thera) and Crete. On Santorini, fava is an important element in that island’s cookery, and it is eaten year round as a...