In terms of cookbooks, there was little happening on the Greek front, other than practically every wife being given a Tselementes book upon being married. Vefa came around and explored Greek cookery further, gathering recipes from all regions of Greece, releasing booklets specific to the seasons or type of course. Vefa was also the one who first appeared on Greek TV with her cooking segments on a morning show. Her popularity grew when she broke out and hosted her own show dedicated to just cooking.

having a coffee with Vefa Alexiadou

Today, if  you turn-on your TV set in Greece you’ll see a cooking show on every channel (even English food celebs dubbed in Greek) and all these Greek food celebrities in part owe a bit of gratitude to “kuria Vefa” for opening the doors wide for their celebrity. As someone as passionate about Greek as I am, it was an honour to meet Vefa over a coffee last Spring but it was a privilege to be invited back to her summer home in Halkidiki when I returned for my summer vacation.

I traveled south from my family’s summer home on a very hot summer night, kinda’ sticky if I recall. I finally arrived in the town where Vefa’s summer home is but I was a little lost. All one has to do is ask which way to kuria Vefa’s home and EVERYBODY knows where she lives! I found the home, was greeted like a relative who was way overdue for a visit and treated to the infamous Greek philoxenia at “Vefa’s House”!

Sani Beach, Halkidiki

We chatted more about Greece, the Greek food scene, recipes and beautiful Halkidiki. We sat and chatted over a light dinner which ended with a light, refreshing Halva I’d never had before. Halva in Greek cuisine can mean it’s made from sesame paste, from corn starch and the most widely common being the semolina halva. Semolina halva begins by making a syrup, often with spices like cinnamon and clove added with some citrus peel.

The coarse semolina is toasted in either butter or olive oil (the latter used during Lent), nuts are added into the mix and finally the syrup is added to the semolina to form a grainy paste that is place in moulds and inverted on a platter and chilled until serving. What set this Halva apart from others was that the prominent flavour here was lemon and the semolina is just slightly toasted, keeping the colour light (as opposed to the usual beige). On that got day, the Lemon Halva was the perfect light dessert accompanied by a cold glass of water.

Lemons are still in season and this gives you another dessert idea that requires less than 30 minutes preparation. It’s easy, it’s light, the pure lemon flavour with the lightly toasted semolina is only nudged with a pinch of ground cinnamon an a splash of vanilla. The real flavour in lemons (and citrus) is the zest and peel and in Lemon Halva, it really shines. Vefa, you’ve done it again!

Lemon Halva (Halva Lemoniou)

(serves 10)

Syrup

4 – 4 1/2 cups water

2 cups sugar

peel of 2 lemons

fresh grated cinnamon to taste

Halva

1 cup melted unsalted butter or extra-virgin olive oil

2 cups coarse semolina

1/2 cup blanched chopped almonds and pine nuts

splash of vanilla

zest of 2 lemons

squeeze of lemon juice to taste

extra chopped nuts for garnish

candied lemon peel for garnish

1. In a medium pot, add the water, sugar and lemon peels and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium and simmer for 5 minutes then remove from the heat. Remove the lemon peels, add your ground cinnamon and reserve. Don’t throw those peels out – thinly slice (julienne) and toss in sugar, pinch of salt and shake off excess then allow to dry on paper towels. Good for a couple of weeks in a sealed container.
2. In a large pot, add your butter or oil over medium heat and once hot, add your semolina and stir with a wooden spoon for about 5-6 minutes or until lightly toasted. Now add the nuts and stir to amalgamate and lightly toast, about 2 more minutes.
3. Now add the reserved syrup, some vanilla extract and stir over medium-low heat until the syrup has been absorbed and the semolina no longer sticks the sides of the pot and doesn’t stick to the spoon.
4. Take off the heat and add the lemon zest, a squeeze of lemon juice (to taste) and place a towel over the pot and place the lid on (prevent a crust from forming). Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before placing in a large mould (you could use a Bundt pan) or individual serving moulds.
5. Grease the moulds with oil or cooking spray and spoon in the Halva, pressing it in with a spoon. Carefully invert on a plate/platter and you may have tap and slighty bend the mould for the halva to free up. Cover and chill, serve cool to room temperature with a coffee, cold water or a digestif.

*This recipe  and many more Greek desserts can be found in Vefa’s book, Elliniki Kouzina: Zacharoplastiki

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My dad was in the kitchen cutting up potatoes, onions, peppers and it looked like he beat me to the side dish. My dad loves potatoes and he really loves this dish as it also contains peppers and it’s also on the spicy side with some hot peppers or Boukovo usually tossed in the mix. He simply adds peppers, tomatoes with potatoes and tosses in tomatoes, a little bit of carrot and some bay leaves and throws them in the oven. My Greek friends from northern Greece will recognize this dish with their family’s own “touches” but you’ll recognize it.

This roast potato dish isn’t as dry as your usual roast potatoes with some sauce still evident in the pan and ideal for dunking bread into it. This dish is reminiscent of Patates Yiahni or Bloum Patates…both stewed potato dishes cooked on the stovetop. This dish is similar to both but all the cooking is done in the oven. Patates Plaki would be a more accurate description. Plaki dishes are oven-baked dishes and pieces of boiled lamb, veal or chicken can certainly be placed on the potatoes and baked together for a complete dinner. Fish Plaki is another popular Greek dish.

A dish like this makes for a wonderful vegetarian main course or an “all in one” dinner with the addition of a protein of your choice. This is a hearty dish that’s best suited to the cooler months as there’s chiili flakes (Boukovo) in the mix but not too much to blow your head-off – just enough to warm you as the days shorten and evenings grow. Patates Plaki – my kind of comfort food.

Patates Plaki (Πατάτες πλακί)

(serves 4-6)

6 large Yukon Gold (or other yellow potatoes, peeled and quartered)

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2-3 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 medium onion, roughly chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, sliced

1/2 green bell pepper, sliced

1/2 carrot, halved lengthwise then sliced

1 large ripe tomato, passed through a box grater (or 3/4 cup vegetable cocktail)

1 tsp. sweet paprika

1 tsp. Boukovo (chilli flakes)

2 bay leaves

1 cup hot chicken or vegetable stock

1-2 tsp. coarse sea salt

1 tsp. fresh ground pepper

1 tsp. dried Greek oregano

Pre-heated 425F oven

1. Pre-heat your oven and set the rack to the middle position. In medium-sized deep baking dish add the potatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, carrot, grated tomato, paprika, bay leaves, ground pepper, Boukovo, oregano and toss to coat. Add the hot stock, mix well and taste and add salt to taste and more ground pepper and stir-in.
2. Drizzle with olive oil (be generous) and place in your pre-heated oven for 45-50 minutes or until potato-tops are crisp but there’s still some sauce in the dish.
3. Carefully remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving. Good crusty bread is recommended for dunking.

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This is not a difficult dish to prepare and the despite the list of ingredients for this recipe, they complement and lift the lobster flavour. The lobster lends a hand to the sauce and the sauce helps the lobster along. The hardest part about preparing this dish is dispatching the lobster – yes, you’re going to have to kill your meal. The best fish or seafood is the freshest fish or seafood and when it comes to lobster (or crab), you should always begin with a live one.

You don’t have to have a saganaki vessel to pull this dish off but live lobster is a must: the meat is succulent, tastes better and the liquid and shells will make the sauce and overall dish tastier. I’ve added some heat to this dish with the addition of a moderately hot banana pepper but you can adjust the heat in this dish to your liking. There’s also a roasted red pepper that I blistered on top of my gas stove to get that nice smoky flavour in the dish.

This dish contains Greek extra-virgin olive oil, some orange zest and thinly-sliced fennel, white wine and Metaxa – the Greek brandy. I’ve used some tomato paste diluted with water as it’s now October and those ripe, sweet garden tomatoes are but a memory. If you have good tomatoes or make this in the summer, grate 2 large tomatoes into the mix or some good jarred pomodoro will do the trick too!

There’s no need to oversell this dish – it’s one of the tastiest I’ve created in awhile and it begs for good, crusty homemade bread to dunk in. Beyond slice bread for toast, I make my own bread at home at you can try making some at home too! Go on, get going and make some bread because you’re gonna want to mop-up all the sauce in this sublime Lobster Saganaki.

Lobster Saganaki (Αστακος Σαγανακι)

(appetizer for two)

2 Tbsp. butter

1 live lobster ( 1 1/2lb.)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 scallions, sliced

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 chopped sliced or chopped fennel

1/2 roasted red bell pepper, cut into ribbons

1 mildly hot green or banana pepper, sliced

1/4 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup seafood or vegetable stock

splash of Metaxa brandy

2 Tbsp. of tomato paste

approx. 2 tsp. orange zest

cold butter or heavy cream (optional)

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

2 Tbsp. Greek basil

salt and pepper to taste

1. You’re going to have to kill your lobster just before cooking it so place it in the freezer for 20 minutes so that the beastie becomes dormant before you dispatch it. Place a cutting board inside a roasting pan and lay your lobster on the board. Using your butcher’s knife, stick the knife into the head, about an inch behind the eyes and now cut the lobster in half (lengthwise). The lobster is now dead but it will still move a bit. Now twist off the tail, claws, knuckles (do this over the pan so you can collect the liquid).
2. Place a skillet on your stove-top over medium-high heat and add the butter. As soon as the butter has melted and stops foaming, add ALL the lobster pieces in the skillet and sauté until the shells just turn red then remove and reserve. Now add the olive oil, scallions, garlic, fennel, roasted red pepper and hot pepper and stir. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes or until the veggies have softened.
3. Now add the tomato paste and stir in then add wine, stock, Metaxa, reserve lobster liquid and orange zest and stir in. Bring up to a boil then reduce back to a simmer and cook for about another 5-6 minutes. If you want your sauce thicker, simmer a little longer and this is moment where you will adjust flavours (with any of the other ingredients) and you likely will not need any salt.
4. Add the lobster pieces into the skillet and cover. You want the lobster to gently finish cooking through – adjust heat to a medium-medium low and cook for another 5 minutes or until tail meat is fork-tender.
5. Add one or pads of cold butter into the sauce and swirl-in or add a splash of heavy cream. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and fresh basil and serve with lots of crusty homemade bread. The sauce should not be left behind!
6. Serve with a Gerovassilou White from Epanomi, near Thessaloniki.

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Many Greeks and Turks had to return to their home countries and Xanthi (along with much of northern Greece took in many Greeks of Asia Minor and the Pontian Greeks who lived along the Black Sea. Xanthi was one of the exceptions where some Muslims did not have to return to Turkey and they have been living alongside Greeks peacefully.

When in Xanthi, I was priveleged to have my friend Chef Stella Spanou to show me around town and one of the stops were at her friend’s rural guesthouse just outside Xanthi. I arrived at Kokkymelon on the day that this family-run operation were harvesting and stomping on their grapes…yes stomping. Not with any machinery but their feet. Boots were worn of course. I’ve gone to many wineries but this was the first time I had ever witnessed a wine harvest by way of stomping on the grapes.

To those that haven’t made wine before, here is what I witnessed: the grapes were harvested then dumped into a machine that removed the stems from the grapes. The grapes dropped into a large round container, made of stone and mortar that resembled a well. There was a spout at the bottom and then boots were slipped on and the stomping of the grapes occurred. The grape juice (also known as must) began pouring out of the spout and buckets were transferred to the large vat where fermentation would take place.

The real flavour in wine come from the skins and then next step was to extract every last ounce of juice and flavour from the skins then they are simply dumped back in the vineyards as compost. Fermentation begins almost immediately from the sugars in the must and the magic of wine making began.

It’s hard work and I now have an even greater respect for those that make wine. Don’t water down that wine with club soda, Sprite or ginger ale…taste the wine for what it is and remember that alot of work went into making that wine you’re drinking. Chef Stella and Eleni (Kokkymelon owner) were in charge of cooking for us all and one of the dishes that appeared at the table looked like a bean salad. Looked I said. After sitting down I got down to sampling all the dishes and I finally got around to tasting the bean salad and I was floored by how delicious it was. I asked for the recipe but Eleni nor Stella had it – it was made by the grandfather of the family.

This family were Pontian Greeks and the beans were actually pickled beans…a toursi (in Greek) and known as “stipa” in Pontic dialect. The grandfather described rubbing coarse sea salt into the vegetables and allowing them to stew for a few days before being jarred and pickled. I’ve  taken some of my own family’s method of pickling vegetables and after waiting 20 days to finally taste these  – I can say that I’ve achieved almost the same bright flavours as those pickled beans on that warm, lazy Saturday in Xanthi.

Like with any pickling, sterilize your jars, keep everything clean and you’re halfway there. I must also underline that you should remove the green stem/root from your cloves of garlic. They can turn the clove of garlic green and although it’s not dangerous it’s just not visually appealing. The Hosafi was one way of preserving Summer’s goodness and pickling vegetables like this Fassolakia (Beans) Toursi is another wonderful method of food preservation – still carried out by Pontian Greeks. This is traditionally opened up and served as part of a meze offering – wonderful with Ouzo or Tsipouro with anise.

Pickled Green Beans – Φασολακια Τουρσι (Στίπα)

(makes 3 medium jars)

approx. 2 lbs. of runner beans, strings removed

1 bunch of baby carrots, trimmed and well-scrubbed (cut in half if too long for jar)

14-15 stalks of Selino (European celery) (look for Chinese celery at Asian markets), halved then roughly chopped

9-10 small whole chillis

10-12 cloves of garlic, green sprouts removed

Pickling Liquid

3 medium-sized mason jars

1 1/4 cups white wine vinegar

1/4 cup pickling salt (or coarse sea salt)

4 cups water

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1. Sterilize your mason jars. Click here for an easy to understand run-down.
2. Remove the strings from your beans, wash/scrub your carrots and trim the end where the greens were, wash your “selino”, chillis and peel and remove the sprouts from the center of the garlic.
3. In a large pot, add your water, salt, vinegar, oil and bring to a boil. Now add the veggies and as soon as the water returns to a boil, count and boil for 4 minutes. Remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon and transfer to a bowl and toss until well-mixed.
4. Place a jar sideways on your work surface and fill it up with as much vegetables as you can, leaving an inch free in the jar. Use a ladle to fill the jar with the hot pickling liquid and repeat with the other jars. After 5 minutes check to see if more liquid has to be added into any of the jars.
5. Using paper towel, wipe the rim of the jar of any excess liquid. Place seals on all the jars and tighten the metal screw bands. Within a 1/2 hour, press your finger on each lid to see if a seal has bee made. If a seal has not been created, read this and review your process and try again with a new seal on the jar.

If you’re thinking of visiting Xanthi, I encourage to spend an evening or two at the guesthouse where I spent this Saturday at – Kokkymelon. It’s family-run, traditional, quiet, fresh air with the back drop of green plains and mountains. The River Nestos is nearby as well as the sea and the city of Xanthi is about 20 minutes away by car.

Enjoy the slideshow below from my day at the guesthouse “Kokkymelon”.

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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.

I’m avoiding the traditional step of frying the eggplants – instead baking them to soften then proceed with stuffing them with onions, tomatoes and peppers and once again placing them in the oven and finishing them with a slices of one of my favourite Greek cheeses, Metsovone. This cheese comes from the town of Metsovo located just 90 minutes west of Thessaloniki (with thanks to the new Nea Egnatia highway that takes you through mountains ) in the province of Epirus. Smoked Metsovone is a cow’s milk cheese with some sheep’s milk in the mix and just to take a whiff of these cheese is to fall in love with it. To eat it   – you may swoon…faint! Get the connection?

I loved the pairing of Imam me (with) Metsovone as I loved smoked eggplant and one of my peeves is when someone makes Melitzanosalata without charring the outside to impart that smoky flavour. It’s a must for me and although I don’t blacken the eggplants here, the smoked Mestsovone marries well with eggplant and the slices of Mestsvone melt over the eggplant, offering it a blanket of smoky goodness that will seduce you – you will want more!

Sadly, Metsovone is not found in stores here in Toronto but a good smoked Gouda will work well here.

Imam me Mestsovone (Ιμαμ με Μετσοβονε)

(serves 4-6)

6 medium-sized eggplants

1/4 cup olive oil

4-5 medium onions, sliced

1 red or green bell pepper, seeded & sliced

4 ripe tomatoes, passed through a box grater or 2 cups tomato puree

2 tsp. of dried Greek oregano

1 tsp. of fresh thyme

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

10 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

5-6 whole allspice berries (bouquet garni)

salt and pepper to taste

extra-virgin olive oil for finishing

slices of Smoked Mestvone cheese ( or smoked Gouda)

Pre-heated 375 F oven

1. Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise and cut a slit along each without piercing the bottoms. Add a good amount of salt in a large bowl and place the eggplants inside to soak for 5 minutes then drain and pat-dry.
2. In the meantime, in a large skillet, add your olive oil over medium high heat and then add your onions, peppers and bouquet garni of allspice then reduce to medium and cover. Simmer for 10-15 minutes or until softened. Season with salt and pepper and continue to simmer until thick and chunky. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Remove the allspice and add the garlic, oregano, thyme and chopped fresh parsley and stir-in. Adjust seasoning and reserve.
3. In the meantime, pre-heat your oven and drizzle a little oil over each eggplant and lightly season with salt. Place on a baking sheet and cover with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes or until the flesh of the eggplant is fork-tender.
4. Remove the eggplant from the oven and carefully open-up the eggplant (they should look like canoes) and spoon in the vegetable mixture evenly. Drizzle each eggplant with extra-virgin olive oil, cover again with aluminum foil and place back in the oven for 30 minutes.
5. Remove from the oven, uncover and place the smoked cheese on top of each eggplant. Return to the oven and bake until the cheese is just melted. Remove from the oven and serve hot.
6. Serve with some good crusty bread pair with a Glnavos Aperios Chora Red from Epirus.

NOTE: My approach to preparing Imam here differs from my more classic Imam Baildi. There is also a third method, the more traditional one where the eggplants are fried for about 3-4 minutes to soften-up before being stuffed. There are many approaches to cooking and you may choose whichever method you like.

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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.