Many Greek dishes, especially soups and stews, are made with a sauce based on two ingredients, lemon and eggs. It is called avgolémono, and it provides the dish with a light texture and a pleasant zesty flavor.
As we have mentioned before in our blog, Greeks have a strong love for legumes. We eat them in every possible way, in soups, mashed up or even baked in the oven! Legumes are among the best protein sources and in difficult periods they used to be eaten as an alternative to meat. Greeks have never abandoned their habit of eating legumes even when times went better. It is typical of us to eat at least once a week such a dish. Legume soups are very popular this time of the year, when days get colder and dark rainy clouds cover every inch of our blue skies. Soups made from beans, lentils, chickpeas or even black-eyed peas are on our daily menu.
The type of meat you’re most likely to find on a Greek table is lamb. Lamb meat dominates the majority of meaty dishes that are considered staples in Greek cuisine. Best known staple is our Sunday roast, a dish that our moms would make at least two Sundays a month! A dish that everyone in the family would relish and appreciate and one that we always love to prepare. It doesn’t need many ingredients, just a few but essential ones, mostly it needs time in order to get the meat roasted perfectly.
One of the most attractive features of Greek cuisine is the fact that it stands somewhere between the eastern cuisine and the western one –eastern meaning mostly that of Asia Minor and the Middle East, western meaning cuisines from different European countries. Geographically speaking Greece stands on a crossroad that connects Europe with Asia. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that our cuisine has been influenced by both sides while on the same time we have kept our culinary idiosyncrasies.
Using olive oil in sweets, cakes and desserts has become very popular lately. Its presence adds a fruitier taste and gives a smoother texture to the dough- if we’re making one. It’s essential that we use olive oil of the best quality. By doing so we obtain unique taste and flavor.
This is the time of the season when apples are at their best. They’re fresh, firm, sweet and juicy, extremely delicious and last but not least they come with a natural waxiness. This is also the time for a wonderful , luscious cake , wrapped in the sweet and with light acidity flavors of our favorite fruit. The extra advantage of this cake is that olive oil is used instead of butter. It has a different texture, it’s healthier and it gets better day by day!
Samos is an island situated in the eastern Aegean Sea, less than 2 Km off the coast of Asia Minor. It is an island well known not only for its exceptional natural beauty, but also for its history that goes back to the ancient times. It is a mountainous island (as most of the Greek islands are) but it also has a rich vegetation due to the abundant rainfalls that shower the island in winter. Therefore it comes as no surprise that in the ancient times the island’s name was ‘’Hydrele’’ meaning ‘’Rich in water’’.
