Category Archives: Around the Greek table

Happy Easter!

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We’re in the middle of the Holy Week, a few days before Easter Sunday. This implies a bundle of preparations that need to be done. A thorough and meticulous house cleaning, dyeing eggs in a bright red color, baking tsouréki – a kind of sweet bread  flavoured with  mahlepi and kakoulé- and baking a huge amount of our traditional Easter cookies. Greek Easter cookies are extremely delicious and tasty but there are two key factors that distinguish them from any other cookie. First of all, the use of fresh butter made from sheep’s milk and secondly the use of baking ammonia as a leavening agent. While the cookies are being baked, the house fills up with the beautiful scent of the butter and the strong odur of the ammonia which of course cooks off during baking. This ingredient is essential in order to obtain the wonderful crispness of the cookies. And as Greek women say “There’s no Easter cookie without ammonia”!

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Artichokes alla políta

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There’s no doubt that spring has already sprung in Greece. A mild winter gave its place to a splendid, warm and bright season. If anyone believes that summer is the best season to visit Greece, well honestly, they have never been here in springtime!  The countryside and the islands as well, are greener than ever, wild flowers colour the scene and orchard trees are blooming sending waves of freshness and delightful scent.

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Halvás

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There are some basic differences between Roman Catholic Easter and Orthodox Easter, one of which is that we don’t always celebrate the same date. There are years when the dates coincide, and there are years when they are celebrated a week apart. Or even five weeks apart, like this year! Hence the fact  that Catholics (and Protestants of course ) celebrated Easter on the 31st of March , whereas we Orthodox Christians  are obliged to wait till the 5th of May – fair enough considering that hopefully the weather will be perfect!  In the meantime, we’re in a 40-day period during which we fast.  The fasting period began on the 18th of March (”Katharí  Deftera” our Mardí Gras) and  will end the midnight before Easter Sunday.  Fasting the Orthodox way means no meat, no fish, no dairy, no eggs.  That leaves us with a bunch of vegetables, legumes, fruit and some sea food to eat… But what about pastry? How do we cope with our need, our desire for something sweet, for a dessert? In today’s post we’ve got a typical example of a Greek dessert, totally suitable for the fasting period. It’s called ”halvás” and it’s sort of a semolina and olive oil pudding.

 

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Granny’s Greek lentil soup

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One of the main characteristics of Greek cuisine is the abundant presence and use of  legumes with beans, lentils, chickpeas, fava  beans and broad beans being  the most common ones. Greeks eat legumes at least once a week , mainly in the form of a soup. But we also find them baked, mashed or in salads as a main ingredient.  Today we’ ve got an all time favourite , which is considered  as  a staple of our cuisine.  Greek kids love it, and believe it or not it’s hard to find one who’d say ‘’no’’ to a bowl of lentil soup, especially if it’s made by their dear granny!  (Actually it’s even harder  to say ‘’no’’ to a Greek granny!).  It seems that our dearest sweet  grandmothers  know very well that lentils are a good source of iron, hence their insisting on cooking this soup for their grandchildren so often!

As such, Greek lentil soup is simple and easy to make.  To be honest, simplicity is the key ‘’ingredient’’ in Greek cuisine in general. But  what makes this soup extremely tasty is the final touch: a splash of good quality vinegar when finally cooked!

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March 25th

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Welcome to our blog! This is the first of a series  of posts that will introduce you to Greek cuisine and help you to discover how healthy, delicious, tasty and exciting it is! But there’s going to be more! In our posts we’ll take a good look not only at Greek gastronomy on the whole but also at the elements that define it, the most prominent of which is the olive oil.

So, let’s see what’s cooking for today, a very special day indeed for us Greeks!

One of Greece’s two National Holidays is held

 on the 25th of March. It is the day on which we celebrate the beginning of the revolution in 1821 against the Turkish oppression, a revolution  that  led to the independence of our country some years later.

Coincidentally the 25th of March  is the same date with the religious feast of the Annunciation, meaning that on this day there are two celebrations going on in the country. Religious feasts in Greece are always connected to specific dishes, and it happens that this day calls for fish. But not any fish! It calls for cod. Salted cod! And it gets to be  accompanied with our  very special ”aioli” the so called ”scordaliá” (scordo meaning garlic in Greek).

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