Charcoal-Grilled Octopus, Marinated

Thursday April 14th, 2016Friday May 21st, 2021 aglaia 1 Comment

This is a much anticipated dish, always part of the various, seasonal meze we serve during the welcome dinner for our Kea Artisanal guests. It is quite easy to prepare, as you can blanch the octopus and keep in the marinade for up to 4 days in the refrigerator.

Just before serving heat the broiler or fire the BBQ and grill briefly over very high heat, just to caramelize the skin. Alternatively, you can grill the octopus on a non-stick skillet or stove-top grill, lightly coated with olive oil.

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Serves 6-8 as meze

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Olive and Onion rolls in Orange-Olive Oil Pastry (Eliopita)

Thursday March 17th, 2016Saturday May 20th, 2017 aglaia 3 Comments

The original recipe was given to me many years ago, by Zoe Evangelou; the recipe was revised by Vali Manouelides, while later I came up with the idea to make bite-size eliopites, as by cutting the roll into thin slices the stuffing often falls off.

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See below my new variation for rolls and pies made with the yeasted Yellow Spicy Bread Dough.

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Makes about 60 meze bites (more…)

Tarama Spread (Taramosalata) or Smoked Herring (Rengosalata)

Monday March 14th, 2016Monday March 14th, 2016 aglaia 1 Comment

Fortunately, now we can get good quality carp roe –a far cry from the salty and tasteless, red-dyed one– so you can choose to make either taramosalata, or the more smoky-pungent rengosalata, using herring eggs, if you find them, or just the smoked fillets for the spread.

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Mine is not pink, but light green, as I use almost the entire, juicy scallions from my garden. The recipe evolved from my mother’s rengosalata –smoked herring or kipper spread– the meze she always served on Kathari Deftera (clean Monday), instead of the more common taramosalata.

An official holiday, Clean Monday marks the end of the Carnival and the beginning of spring. It is probably the continuation of ancient pagan feasts that have been incorporated to the Christian tradition. People eat outdoors —even if the moving feast happens on a cold February day— they fly kites, consume lots of wine and ouzo, and dance until sunset. See MORE here, and also in my previous post about some of the food I had prepared, and if you like, read a more extensive account about the customs and roots of this unusual Greek feast, and also about the lunch I had organized at the Oxford Symposium inspired by Kathari Deftera.

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Spinach, Herb and Feta Skillet Pies (Gözleme)

Wednesday March 9th, 2016Sunday March 13th, 2016 aglaia 2 Comments

Adapted from Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts

Skillet pies –tiganokouloures or tiganopsoma in Greek, and gözleme or saç böreği in Turkish— have become our everyday project these days. Read more HERE.

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Next to the popular markets in Istanbul, and in most other Turkish cities and villages, there is usually a lady preparing gözleme. She sits on the floor, rolling phyllo (or yufka, as it is called in Turkish) on a sofra – a large, low, round wooden table. Next to her burns a makeshift charcoal stove with a piping-hot saç griddle, a large concave drum blackened and shiny from years of constant use. With these humble instruments she creates the most tempting street food the market has to offer. The large, half-moon-shaped pies are made to order. Sheet after sheet of thin phyllo is rolled with the help of a long rod in less than a minute. She spreads either a mixture of greens, herbs and fresh salty cheese, or just dabs of creamy cheese with hot pepper and some dried or fresh mint. The gözleme are briefly toasted on both sides atop the saç, then folded or rolled and handed to the customer to devour on the spot. Gözleme is soft, sometimes the dough is not even fully cooked; eaten piping hot, these super-fast pies are very popular and there is usually a line of people waiting patiently to enjoy their treat.

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My version of a delicious skillet pie inspired by gözleme is easy to make, provided you can roll phyllo. Unfortunately, the frozen commercial kinds cannot be used. In some parts of the US fresh yufka sheets are available. If you have a pasta machine it is easy to make your own thin phyllo strips and to create rectangular or square gözleme. They may look different from the traditional pies, but they will be equally delicious, as they toast to crispy perfection.

See also my dessert version, Skillet Pies with Chocolate and Nuts.

Serves 6

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Savory, Spicy Cookie Rings or Breadsticks: Ka’ak

Saturday December 26th, 2015Tuesday March 30th, 2021 aglaia 3 Comments

“Ka’ak has the texture and crunch of a breadstick, but it is ring-shaped and has a crimped edge. A staple of the Aleppian pantry, ka’ak is usually offered to guests when Aleppian Jews serve coffee or tea,” writes Poopa Dweck. These, for me are the best bread-dough savory cookies; a little different and more fragrant than the very common Greek ones.

I adapted Poopa Dweck’s recipe for the dough I make increasing the amount of flour to 7 cups, as I work it in the KitchenAid. I also add whole wheat, not just all purpose flour; and of course I use olive oil instead of the ‘vegetable shortening’ the recipe suggests.

With the same, spicy and delicious dough, I make a pie-like stuffed bread with broccoli; you can also stuff the bread with a spanakopita-like mix of spinach, scallions, and herbs.

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I had no sesame the first time I made ka’ak so I substituted sunflower seeds. Both my husband and our friends who tried them couldn’t stop eating them, and they disappeared fast. For the second batch I used both sesame, as well as poppy seeds and ground walnuts, but also sunflower seeds again, which seemed to complement ideally the cookie’s flavor and crunch.

For about 64 cookies

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