Melomakarona – Honey-Infused, Olive Oil, Orange and Spice Cookies

Tuesday December 11th, 2018Wednesday February 17th, 2021 aglaia 5 Comments

The traditional, fragrant, old-fashioned Christmas cookies are my favorites! They are vegan because people ate them during the days of Lent that precede Christmas. I have updated my mothers recipe, adding ground nuts in the dough.

You can also use the dough as pie crust, filling it with cooked apples, quince, or to make a lemony tart with Lemon Curd.

Melomaksrona 015 Sa

I think you will find these cookies irresistible. If you manage to save them for later, they will get even better the next days.They keep for up to 1 month so you may want to double the recipe, especially if you bake melomakarona with friends, as we usually do.

Makes about 45 cookies

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Baked Giant Beans with Garlic and Dill (Gigantes Skordati)

Thursday November 29th, 2018Tuesday December 15th, 2020 aglaia Leave a comment

In this, somewhat unusual dish, the beans have a lovely sweet, creamy and garlicky taste, scented with oregano and plenty of dill.

Photo by MANOUSOS DASKALOGIANNIS

I got the recipe from the North of Greece and I particularly love to bake it in the winter, but also all year round, as I am fed up with the common baked gigantes in tomato sauce that all taverns serve.

From my first book The Foods of Greece

Serves 6

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Veal Stew with Quinces (Moschari Kydonato)

Sunday September 30th, 2018Thursday October 15th, 2020 aglaia Leave a comment

This is my favorite winter stew. Quinces are equally delicious in savory and sweet dishes, and Greek islanders cook all kinds of meats with quince.

On Chios, they pair quinces with free-range chicken; on Crete, with lamb; and on Lesbos, with veal. As with most stews I make on Kea, our local veal shank is my first choice; but I also make pork with quince. I give the meat extra flavor by tying the cores of the fruit in cheesecloth and adding them to the cooking broth.

The combination of meat with quinces is not new. In the Roman cookery of Apicius we find similar stews, and quinces have been quite common in old traditional Greek cooking. (more…)

More Fig Jam Experiments

Saturday August 18th, 2018Saturday August 18th, 2018 aglaia 6 Comments

After reading about the aromatic and complex fig jam we created three years ago, scroll down for a description of the plain, chunky new version Costas and I made last week.

Figs purple & green S I used to not particularly like fig jam; seemed too sweet and one-dimensional. But we always have too many figs so, a few years ago, for the first time, I decided to create my own different version of this jam, adding equal amounts of figs and lemons –my favorite fruit– making a Fig and Lemon Jam. I thought it came out quite nice, but Costas wasn’t impressed. He loves sweets much more than I do, and he longed for the thick fig jam his mother used to make in Volos, Central Greece. Fig Jam 2 bowl S Figs: Preserving Summer’s Bounty —the piece I did for the Atlantic in 2009 will tell you more about this luscious fruit! (more…)

A Pie-like Stuffed Bread with Broccoli

Sunday February 25th, 2018Thursday March 8th, 2018 aglaia 1 Comment

As it often happens with my garden’s vegetables, I forgot to cut the broccoli when it was still hard and firm. Now it had opened and was soon going to fill with tiny yellow flowers, but I knew that this didn’t mean it wasn’t still delicious. I separated the stems from the very tender tops, and cooked them in boiling water for about ten minutes; I added the tops and cooked for another four minutes, then drained everything through a fine colander.

There was quite a bit of green mash at the bottom of the colander, from the over-ripe florets. I diced the stems, added the green mash and decided to use it as stuffing for breads. I was inspired by Scacciata con i Broccoli, a Sicilian stuffed focaccia from Catania originally made with the purple, very flavorful broccoli that was once the only kind we had in Greece. (more…)