Greek cooking

Green Savory Biscotti with Olive Oil, Yogurt and Nuts

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In the winter or early spring, when the garden is full of greens, both cultivated and wild, like the ominous-looking juicy nettles, I often bake green bread and crunchy paximadia that are quite striking and exceptionally delicious!

They are an almost guilt-free snack, and Costas eats them with his coffee in the morning or after lunch; I often serve them with all kinds of salads and spreads as part of the meze; they complement ideally all kinds of apetizers, like Tarama or Smoked Herring spread, Tyrokafteri, and also the festive Liver Pate with Pistachios.

 

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Makes enough biscotti to fill TWO 3-quart jars
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“Tomato Salad” Bread

aglaia 1 Comment

I like to vary and experiment with my breads and savory biscotti using, instead of water, pulps of greens and/or vegetables like squash.

In the summer I make this flavorful flat bread using leftover tomato-onion-and-caper salad. We liked it so much that we wanted also make it in the winter, when vine-ripened tomatoes are not available, so I use a combination of sun-dried tomatoes with some of the usually flavorful cherry ones (See Note).

 

 

 

Yields 2 laganes (focaccia-like flat breads)

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MAGIRITSA –Easter Lamb Soup

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Magiritsa is traditionally made with the parts of the lamb not used for spit-roasting. Remember that Greek Easter lambs are very small (about 24 pounds). In the classic recipe, all the innards –heart, lungs, and so forth– go into the pot, but they do not really contribute to taste. The flavor of the stock comes from the boiled head and neck, and the soup gets its distinctive taste from scallions, fresh dill, and egg-and-lemon sauce. There are lots of different magiritsa recipes.

Adapted from The Foods of Greece.

 

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A friend described to me the one her family prepared in Halki, a small island in the Dodecanese. In her family’s version, no innards are used because, on Halki as on all the Dodecanese islands, people do not roast the lamb on a spit, but slow roast it in a wood-burning oven, stuffing the cavity with rice and chopped innards. In Halki’s magiritsa, many lamb’s heads were boiled to make a very tasty stock. The heads were not boned, but as they cooked for many hours, even the bones softened. Each member of the family got one head and ate it with the broth. No scallions or dill were added to that unusual magiritsa. (more…)

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