Greek Recipes

 I visited the northern Greek province of Macedonia. We stayed for several days in Thessaloniki where we admired and sampled the sights and tastes of the beautiful port city. This recipe was inspired by that visit. My Chocolate Tsoureki - Click to Enlarge Image Tsoureki is essentially a Greek brioche style of sweet bread. The flavours of this bread consist of a hint of orange combined with mahlepi and a subtle essence of mastic (mastiha). It is usually made at Easter and is a universal element in the celebration of this most important holiday of the Greek calendar. Such braided breads are an ancient tradition among Greeks. The inspiration for this variation on the traditional tsoureki came from the storefront window of one of Thessaloniki’s best known bakeries, Τερκενλης ( Terkenlis ), which has been serving up its famous pastries since 1948. Today, Patisserie Terkenlis has several locations, mostly in Thessaloniki, with two shops in Athens, one of which is located at the...

My Greek Christmas bread in all its glory. Click to Enlarge Image. The many centuries-old custom of the Christopsomo or ‘Bread of Christ’ is a universal Christmas Greek food tradition. Today, all over Greece and throughout the Diaspora, Christopsomo loaves will be baked and set aside for the breaking, which depending on where you are from in Greece is performed at either Christmas Eve dinner or lunch on Christmas Day. This bread is a sweet yeast bread, and is characteristically decorated with the symbol of the cross which is usually embossed overtop of the loaf with two dough strands that intersect and divide the bread into four segments. Other standard decorations include walnuts in their shells and sesame seeds (white and black). More elaborate designs are also traced on the surface of the loaf in some regions of Greece, as in Crete, where ornate symbols are carved into the surface of the bread. Usually these symbols are associated with the livelihood of the family. For instance, ...

Tsoureki… Greek Easter Bread Yesterday, in preparation for the Greek Orthodox Easter (or Pascha ) celebration, I made the traditional braided Greek Easter Bread known as tsoureki . I baked three loaves, one for my wife and I, one for our goddaughter, and one for our godson. As is typical, along with the bread, I dyed a dozen hardboiled eggs red. There is nary a Greek home anywhere on the planet that will not have these two elements present in the Holy Week to come. Easter is the most important religious celebration in Greece , and the customs and practices related to this period of the calendar are as diverse as the topography and regional differences within Greece . Yet, the dyed eggs and the plaited bread are universal. The reason we braid the tsoureki is to symbolize the Resurrection of Life that comes with springtime. The wedding of this symbolism to the Orthodox Christian Calendar and the figure of Jesus Christ is not a coincidence. The tradition of plaiting bread is old; ...