I try to have in my cupboard pre-baked puff pastry so that I can whip up a delicious, simple dessert with the season’s best fruit.
Two pieces 13.5-inch X 11.5-inch (34X30 cm) (more…)
Baking
Our Traditional Olive Oil, Vegan Cookies
Greeks don’t need to substitute and invent intricate vegan cookies, as the most common ones we make at home, or buy at the bakeries all over the country, are usually baked with olive oil instead of butter.
I got the recipes from my mother and grandmother and I only slightly tweaked them.
Both most favorite cookies –the Koulourakia with Orange, and the dark deep-flavored Moustokouloura Cookies, were baked using olive oil and no eggs.
Americans and northern Europeans are not the only ones loving their crunchy, fragrant cookies. Greeks usually accompany with cookies their coffee in the morning or afternoon. (more…)
Moustokouloura: Grape must cookies
Much like Orange Koulourakia Cookies, you can get moustokouloura (grape must cookies) in the bakeries and in many homes all over Greece all year-round these days. They are made from grape must, the juice of grapes that is used to make house wine, something that used to be done in most parts of the country.
The cookies are deep-flavored and delicious. The grape must is boiled down to become thick petimezi (grape molasses) an pantry item in most traditional homes. Syrupy petimezi is diluted with an equal amount of water to make the cookies.
Grape must cookies, right, and Orange Koulourakia, left.
The sweetness of the petimezi determines their taste, as moustokouloura have no additional sugar. Commercial moustokouloura are usually large, but the homemade ones are smaller.
See also the Ginger and Grape Molasses cookies, my variation of the Ginger Snap ones.
To get 2 1/2 cups traditional petimezi (grape molasses) you need to simmer for about 1 hour or more 2 ½ kilos (5 pounds) grape juice. But to achieve the taste of my favorite island moustokouloura, made in August with the local fresh grape must, or with thinned down petimezi (grape molasses), I boil ordinary grape juice with sultanas and/or currents, and the result is great (see Note).
Makes about 3 dozen large cookies (more…)
Orange Koulourakia Cookies
Scented and flavored with plenty of orange jest and juice these are our family’s take on the traditional Greek recipe.
We don’t need to substitute and invent intricate vegan cookies, as the most common ones we make at home, or buy at the bakeries all over the country, are usually baked with olive oil instead of butter.
Makes about 65 pieces (more…)
Savory Cake (or quick bread) with Olives, Cheese, and Pine Nuts
This is a quite lovely meze-cake to enjoy in the garden, accompanied by crisp white or rose wine in the first sunny spring days. On this olivewood stand that I asked our friend, the brilliant wood-carver Panos to make for me the cake looks even more sumptuous. The basic idea comes from Les Cahiers de Delphine, the always interesting weekly newsletter.
Of course, I made quite a few changes, using local green olives instead of the black from Provence, and scallions, instead of the chives that are not available here. As I always do, I substituted olive oil for the butter, and grated aged graviera cheese for the parmesan, I increased the amount of pine nuts and sunflower seeds and added rosemary which gave a lovely aroma to the cake.
I baked it in a pan with a hole in the center, but you can of course use a loaf pan, or a simple round 8-inch pan. This meze cake is best slightly warm, or just cooled.
At least 8 generous appetizer pieces (more…)