I recently had the pleasure of catering an evening of Greek & Mediterranean nibbles on the occasion of a client’s 50 birthday. I was instructed to make appetizers, perfect for people who want to stand and mingle or sit and chat. The challenge with a small bite menu is that there are usually twice the [...]
One of my favourite fish is monkfish or angler fish. In Greece they call this fish peskandritsa and it usally is big, it’s fugly but it’s versatile and delicious. If you’re the type that doesn’t want to fuss with pin bones, no worries. Monkifish is large, triangular with the the body tapering as you near [...]
Greeks have been preserving the Summer’s bounty for ages – anything from sun-drying tomatoes, pickling, curing olives to even meats. In Florina (where my parents come from), you can see red shepherds peppers air-drying outside of homes in the late summer warm and breezy air. These dried peppers can then be re-hydrated in hot water [...]
There’s a Constantinople dish from around 1900 called Gioulbasi. Traditionally, a leg of lamb is studded with garlic and stuffed with pieces of sharp, aged Greek cheese. The meat is wrapped in parchment paper and slowly roasted until the meat is fork-tender, aromatic and about to fall off the bone. In mainland Greece there are [...]
Forgive me for stating the obvious but there’s no such thing as Greek nachos but I can assure you lots of Greeks enjoy Tex-Mex flavours and that when I saw Bittman’s take on Greek-Style Nachos…I wish I thought of it first! It’s not a stretch of the imagination that one can think of using baked [...]
There are still lots of eggplants in the markets here and this year’s crop has been sweet with very few having the usual bitterness one finds in eggplants. Not all eggplants are the same: the usual big purple ones often have some seeds and bitterness and one sprinkles salt on the exposed flesh to draw [...]
Here’s a dish my Dad loves to make: it combines three of his favourite foods: potatoes, peppers (with some heat) and kebapia – what folks in Florina call Soutzoukakia. Kebapia are usually grilled on open pits at one of the many tavernas in the region serving up an array of meats. The weather has gotten [...]
I’m sharing more inspiration from my summer vacation in Greece and again, from my parents’ corner of Greece, Florina. The folks in this area love their peppers and the appellation product known as “Piperies Florinis” begin to appear in the markets in August. Travel around the towns of Florina and you’ll see these peppers (here [...]
Had a chat about some food the other day (what else is new) and I was being asked questions about some Greek foods that I casually replied to. Some people go “gaga” for what Greeks make in the kitchen as if it were some mysterious culinary secret. I still get questions on how to make [...]
This past summer has been a tough year for those trying to grow tomatoes around Thessaloniki and here in Halkidiki. I can’t speak for the rest of Greece but many homeowners complained of a cold Spring followed by an unrelenting hot summer and a bug that would eat the tomato plants from inside out. My [...]
