This dish instantly takes me back to Thessaloniki (and Greece) – just this past May. I stayed for about a week at my favourite uncle’s place, “Theo Mitso”. My uncle saved his drachmas, built a wonderful new home in the suburbs and surrounded the family with a lawn, gardens, olive and varied fruit trees. In [...]
In Greece, there are many souvlaki and gyro joints all over the country and on nearly every corner. Then there are tavernas, small eateries that specialize in grilled meats that go beyond souvlaki and gyro, serving pork chops, biftekia, sausages, lamb chops, whole roast lamb on the spit, kokoretsi and kontosouvli. Kontosouvli another rotisserie offering [...]
Many of you have visited my Recipe Round-Up for Lent and I hope that I’ve helped you find some interesting dishes to break-up the monotony of the usual Lenten fare. We’re fast approaching Greek Easter and preparations are already beginning in my household! Greek Easter is centered around lamb or goat and the whole day [...]
One of the most recognized Greek foods has to be the Souvlaki. i.e. cubes of meat skewered and grilled over glowing embers. The most common souvlaki you’ll find in Greek eateries is pork but you’ll also find chicken, lamb and beef versions. The other popular Greek street food has to be the Gyro: slabs of [...]
Here in Toronto, we’ve experienced the first real cold days (and evenings) where one just wants to tuck in at home and read a book, watch a movie or look back at photos of warmer times…summer in Greece. I find the act of looking through summer photos by the sea, swimming, long, drawn-out meals with [...]
This past summer saw me travel to both Greece and Turkey: neighbors, once foes, current rivals and friendly neighbors. Confused? There’s a lot of history between these two nations and to this day, ripples from the Ottoman Empire are felt in Greece (some good, some bad). Greece and Turkey also share some similarities when it [...]
This dish is rich, definitely decadent with it’s unashamed use of bacon and inspired by a recent visit I had at a Japanese (Izakaya) bar here in Toronto. The most outstanding appetizer of the of two nights I spent at Izakaya was this dish made of scallops and enoki mushrooms wrapped in slab bacon. Presented [...]
I’ve been enjoying this method of preparing chicken for years now. I have yet to find anyone not like it…what’s not to like about moist chicken with crispy skin? Beer can chicken works as such: open a can of beer, drink about 1/3 of the beer, you may add add aromatics into the beer like [...]
It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged about Manouri cheese and I promise not to allow this lapse of cheese to occur again. Cheeses are an integral part of Greek cuisine: we have Feta for salads or at the table with olives and bread, we have a wide array of firm sheep’s milk cheeses served at [...]
If you’ve ever eaten pork steaks then you can relate to my enthusiasm for this cut of pork. A pork steakette is cut from the pork butt, a square piece of meat that’s attached to the shoulder. The pork butt (also known as the Boston butt) comes from the shoulder (not the pig’s rear) and [...]
