Kalofagas - Greek Food & Beyond » Appetizer

Phyllo-Feta Cigars With Agourida & Niagara Ice Syrup Salad Dressing

Peter Minakis — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:28:56 +0000

There’s alot of good things happening with this salad, you’re gonna learn a couple of things, be frugal and fancy all in one dish! The centerpiece of the salad is the phyllo cigars filled with Feta cheese, walnuts and almonds, some lemon zest and ground anise. There’s more licorice flavour echoed in the salad greens as I’ve added some sliced fennel bulb, tossed with salad.

The dressing is where we get creative. Ever buy some grapes only to find that they are so tart that they make your face pucker when you taste them? You want those grapes for what we’re making here…verjuice or agourida in Greek. When one makes a salad you need fat (olive oil) and acid, which is usually vinegar or lemon juice. The acid in this instance is the agourida made from tart white grapes and made by simply plucking the tart grapes off the stems, placing them in a food processor and then straining them. What you’re left with is a tart green-hued liquid called verjuice or agourida in Greek!

So, if life gives you no lemons, make an agourida – same dressing ratios…I like 3 parts oil to 1 part acid and I always add a little mustard to emulsify the dressing. Keeping with the grapes, we’re going for balance in the salad as I’m using a unique ingredient from the Niagara wine region called ice syrup.

Ice syrup was created by Steve Murdza who instead of making ice wine with the frozen grapes he turned them into ice syrup. Much like with ice wine, the grapes are left on the vines through part of the winter and when the temperature hits -8 Celicius, they can be picked then turned into sweet grape juice with the fermentation being bypassed (that’s when ice wine is made).

This salad is about contrasts: crunchy baked phyllo filled with soft Feta cheese, tart agourida balanced by the sweet nectar of Niagara ice syrup. Greek extra-virgin olive oil, walnuts and almonds, sliced grapes and some sultana raisins, ground anise in the cheese filling and some sliced fennel in the salad. I loved this salad and I’m looking forward to making it for family and friends in the near future!

Phyllo-Feta Cigars With Agourida & Niagara Ice Syrup Salad Dressing

(serves 4)

4 sheets of thawed commercial phyllo

1/2 stick melted butter

Filling

4 sticks/batons of Feta cheese

1/4 cup chopped almonds

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

zest of 1/2 lemon

ground anise

Dressing

2 Tbsp. verjuice (agourida)

1/2 tsp. Dijon-style mustard

1/4 cup extra-virgin Greek olive oil

1 small clove of garlic, minced

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives

fine sea salt and fresh ground pepper

garnish

sultana raisins

halved grapes

sesame seeds

Niagara ice syrup

4-6 cups of mixed salad greens, rinsed and spun-dry

1/2 fennel bulb, thinly sliced

Ensure you’re using tart, unripe grapes to make the agourida (verjuice). Rinse the grapes, pick off the stems and place in a food processor and whiz until a purée. Pass through a strainer and you’ve your tart verjuice/agourida.
Take your thawed phyllo out of the fridge and pre-heat your oven to 350F. Cut your phyllo vertically into two, brush each sheet of phyllo and place one sheet on top of the other.
Cut your sticks of Feta to about 1 inch smaller than the width of your phyllo and place near the bottom of sheet. Sprinkle the chopped nuts above the cheese, grate some lemon zest and sprinkle some ground fennel. Now fold the bottom flap of phyllo over the cheese and tuck-in the sides and roll-up. Brush with butter and place on a baking sheet and bake in your oven for about 15 minutes or until golden.
In the meantime, wash and dry your salad greens, slice the fennel and place in a bowl. Place your verjuice, mustard, olive oil in a jar along with the garlic, chives, salt and pepper and place the lid on and shake to emulsify. Taste and adjust seasoning, oil to acid ratio.
When the phyllo cigars are golden, take out of the oven and now toss your salad with the dressing. Cut your phyllo cigar in half on the bias, place on your plated greens. Garnish with grape halves, sultana raisins, sprinkle with sesame seeds and drizzle with Niagara ice syrup.

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© 2012, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

Baked Brie With Roasted Garlic & Cranberry-Mavrodaphne Sauce

Peter Minakis — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:36:59 +0000

One of the surprise hits at Christmas dinner was this baked Brie cheese i paired with cranberry sauce. Brie on its own is always welcome on a cheese plate but when baked it’s even creamier, more of its flavour comes out and it’s great when paired with something savory and something sweet. I’ve always loved Brie paired with roasted whole head of garlic. Usually I smear some of the slow-roasted garlic the Crostini and top with some jam and pop in my mouth. I was going to open a jar of this fig jam I brought back from Greece but I had some cranberries left in the freezer and thought to use them up rather than throw them out.

I made my Cranberry sauce with sugar, whole cloves and simmered them until the cranberries popped and the sugars and started to thicken with the pectin in the berries. I then spiked the cranberry sauce with a sweet fortified Greek wine called Mavrodaphne and finished it with some orange zest and a good squeeze of orange juice. Crostini gets smeared with roasted garlic, baked Brie gets topped with warm cranberry sauce then Brie and cranberry sauce top the garlic and bread. Slip in the mouth and hum with delight then wash down with your favourite sparkling wine.

Baked Brie With Roasted Garlic & Cranberry-Mavrodaphne Sauce

Cranberry-Mavrodaphne Sauce

1- 340gr. package of fresh or frozen cranberries

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of water

3-whole cloves

1/4 cup Mavrodaphne wine (or other fortified red wine)

zest and juice of 1/2 orange

1 round of Brie cheese

some extra-virgin olive oil

splash of sparkling wine

1 head garlic

In a small pot, add your water, sugar, cloves and Mavrodaphne and bring up to a boil over medium heat. Now gently drop in the cranberries and return to a boil then simmer for 15 minutes stirring occasionally. Take off the heat and add the orange zest and juice and allow to cool.
Pre-heat your oven to 300F and slice a baguette into thin slices and brush both sides with olive oil and place on a baking tray. Now take a hold head of garlic and slice off enough of the top to just expose the garlic cloves and place in some foil, drizzle with olive oil and tightly close the foil around the garlic. Place the Crostinis and garlic in the oven and bake the bread until just toasted and the garlic for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, unwrap your Brie and if it came in a wooden container you may bake it in that or use a Brie baking vessel with a lid. Drizzle the brie with olive oil and some sparkling wine and place the cover on and slip into your oven for 20 minutes.
Arrange your Crostini on a platter and carefully squeeze the roasted garlic beside the bread. Place the baked Brie on the platter and pour some cranberry sauce on the baked Brie.
Smear roasted garlic on the Crostini then place some hot Brie and cranberry sauce on top and enjoy! Serve with a Domaine Tselepos Amalia Brut Sparkling White.

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© 2011, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

Sublime, Sexy Walnut-Stuffed Figs

Peter Minakis — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:14:54 +0000

Traditionally, figs get stuffed with walnuts and are laid out to be served among the array of sweet and savory bites during the Christmas season, which stretches out until Epiphany for the Greeks. In other words….that’s when we take down the Christmas tree. These figs are extraordinary, easy to make and they look fabulous on a platter.

What’s sets these apart from other “stuffed figs” is the outer layer, made from water, sugar, ground star anise, cocoa powder, semolina flour, tea biscuits and ground walnuts. This mixture is thick, a little sticky but it’s the “somethin-somethin” that makes these sublime. Aristotle wrote, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” and this was true when making these.

Walnuts are good for you, a healthy snack and sure…taste good. Figs are even tastier, fresh or dried and yes…perhaps even an aphrodisiac. The semolina, tea biscuit, ground star anise and walnut mixture tasted okay and while I was chilling it to firm-up, I was concerned this recipe would be mediocre. That all changed when I assembled the stuffed figs, froze them and carefully sliced them in half to reveal the pretty cross-section of the walnut, fig and biscuit/walnut mixture.

Although the figs are the star of this recipe, walnuts are found in three stages: once stuffed inside the fig, a second time ground in the paste with the semolina and tea biscuits and one more time as the balls of stuffed figs are rolled in (you guessed it) ground walnuts before being complete. Other than placing these in the freezer to set overnight, this is an easy recipe and once you’re going to make over and over. I know I will!

Sublime, Sexy Walnut-Stuffed Figs (Σύκα Γεμιστά με Καρύδια)

approx. 20 dried Greek figs

20 walnut halves

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. ground star anise (using Ouzo or anise flavoured alcohol will soften the mixture, making it harder to handle)

1/3 cup fine semolina flour

2 Tbsp. cocoa powder

1/3 cup ground Petit Beurre tea biscuits

1 1/4 cup ground walnuts

approx. 3/4- 1 cup of ground walnuts for coating

Place a medium-sized pot on your stovetop with the water and sugar and bring to a boil then add the ground star anise and semolina and take off the heat and stir for for a minute then add the ground tea biscuits and walnuts and stir-in. Allow the mixture to cool and place in the fridge for two hours.
In the meantime, snip the stems off your figs (discard) and gently open the top of each fig with your finger and then squeeze a wlabut half in each fig.
When the ground walnut/bicsuit mixture has cooled (hardened), grease one hand with vegetable oil and place a heaping tablespoon of the mixture (yes it is a little sticky) in one hand and flatten it then place a fig in your palm and enclose it with the mixture in the form of a ball. Now roll each ball in the reserved ground walnuts and place on a large plate/platter.
Cover and place in the freezer overnight or until ready to serve. To serve, remove from the freezer and carefully slice each stuffed fig in half and place in decorative paper cups and serve.

* You may cover and refreeze any leftover stuffed figs but I doubt they will last long.

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Batzos Saganaki

Peter Minakis — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:00:39 +0000

One of the cornerstones of Greek cuisine has to be it’s cheeses…varied in taste, texture and many offerings coming from all parts of the country. I brought a cheese from Greece is called Batzos – not Batsos (Greek slang for Police/Cop). Batzos come from northern Greece and more specifically from central to western Macedonia (Naoussa to Kastoria) and northern Thessaly. Batzos gets its name from the Vlach word for the mountain huts in which this cheese used to be made in and it’s also a PDO-protected product (since 1996).

This is a firm cheese, a little spongy and porous, made of sheep’s or goat’s milk and briny with a back-end tang on the palate. It has a colour that ranges from egg-white to yellow. The cheese is in essence a Kefalotyri (salty) that’s shaped like a large head after being strained in cheesecloth then it’s sliced into slabs and place in metal containers with coarse sea salt sprinkled in between each piece and topped with the whey ( or a brine).

Batzos is often enjoyed in the style of “saganaki”, that is to say it’s fried in the two-handled vessel and often flambeed with Tsipouro (local eau de vie) or brandy and finished with a good squeeze of lemon. Fried cheese is enjoyed by most Greeks and those who patronize Greek restaurants order this favourite all the time. You won’t find Batzos here in Toronto but it’s certainly avaialable in Thessaloniki and surrounding regions.

Batzos Saganaki (Μπάτζος Σαγανάκι)

1 piece of Batzo 1/2″ inch thick

1 generous Tbsp. of olive oil

all-purpose flour for dredging

optional for flambe: 1/2 shot glass of Metaxa (brandy) or Ouzo

wedge of lemon

Pre-heat a heavy-bottomed skillet (a cast-iron pan works very well) to a medium-high heat. Place your slab of cheese under running tap water then dredge in all-purpose flour. Shake off any excess flour.
Add your olive oil to the skillet. Add a sprinkle of flour into the pan to test if the oil is hot enough. As soon as it sizzles, add your cheese to the skillet and sear for a couple of minutes. Carefully flip the cheese with a spatula and allow to sear for a couple of minutes on the other side.
Turn off your heat source and carefully carry your cheese saganaki to your table and pour the brandy ( or Ouzo) over the cheese and ignite with a lighter. Move your head back, shout “OPA” and squeeze the wedge of lemon over the cheese.
Serve immediately with crusty bread, some Ouzo on ice.

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© 2011 – 2012, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

Greek Christmas Recipe Round-Up

Peter Minakis — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 11:50:34 +0000

I decided to organize some Christmas dishes for you to consider when you’re planning your Christmas, holiday and New Year’s menus. These are some options divided simply in savory and sweet categories. Eat when you drink, drink when you eat and reach out and invite someone extra to the table. You’ll feel good!

Savory

Loin of Pork Stuffed With Prunes

Phyllo Cheese Triangles (Tyropitakia)

Baked Brie With Roasted Garlic & Cranberry-Mavrodaphne Sauce

Roasted Pork Shanks With Crackling (Crispy Skin)

Slow-Roasted Pork Belly

Slow Prime-Rib

Roasted Cornish Hens Stuffed With Goat Cheese & Figs

Roast Leg of Lamb

Whole Roast Turkey

Pork Belly & Quinces

Roast Pork Belly & Potatoes