Mucus-y okra with chicken

Ah ah ah!
Forget what I have said so far! This is the most summer-y dish ever!!!
Ok, apart from whatever consists of zucchini!

Mucus-y okra with chicken

Take 1kg of okra and put them as they are into a bowl with salt and vinegar and let them rest in peace for 2-3 hours.
You have to do this, otherwise you'll find yourself eating the okra-mucus!

Take 2 chicken breasts and cut them into cubes. Fry them in a casserole with 2 tablespoons of olive oil until they change colour all around. Add 1 chopped onion, 2 tomatoes julienne, 1 tablespoon of tomato paste and a bit of chopped parsley.  Salt and pepper. Add enough water to cover the food and let it boil.
Just 3 minutes (ok, if it's 5 minutes, it's not a big deal... chill!) before your chicken is done, add the okra and stir it for 3-4 minutes.
Then, transfer the food to an oven pan and bake it in 220o C until -well it's classic now- it "drinks" all its water and only its juices with the olive oil are left (around 20-30 minutes).

Make sure you stir the food 2-3 times during the baking so as to avoid your okra to turn black.

Enjoy!!!

Octopus with pasta

How about cooking a small cute octopus for today?
It smells sea with a touch of the earthy bahar (allspice)!

Octopus with pasta

NOTE
Your octopus has to be frozen and then de-frosted in order not to be hard to cook. So even if you have a fresh octopus, put it in the freezer for one night and defrost it and cook it the day after.

1. Wash and clean the octopus, dry it nicely and the put it alone as it is in a casserole in medium fire. Let it release all its water and then let it drink it back.
2. Take it out of the casserole and cut it into small pieces.
3. Fry 2 chopped onions together with the pieces of the octopus. Add 2 tomatoes julienne, 2-3 leaves of laurel, 3-4 grains of allspice and a bit of pepper. Add enough water to cover the food.
4. Meanwhile, boil the pasta (preferably, I use the small macaroni with the hole, like in the picture) as advised in its package.
5. Add 2 tablespoons of the boiling water of the past into the casserole with the octopus.
6. Your octopus is ready when it has "drunk" all the water and only a thick sauce is left over.
7. Mix the pasta into the octopus and enjoy it with the glass of white wine.

Enjoy!!!

Greek sushi with grape leaves and rice (Sarmadakia)

The ultimate grandma delice! That when you visit her during the summer, it's the first thing that she will offer you to eat.. It requires love and tenderness to be prepared and a real technique in rolling the leaves.. A ha! it's not an easy task for everyone! It's nice to be confident, but keep it for another time, sweeties! he he..

Greek sushi with grape leaves and rice

So here we go:
100 grape leaves (leave aside around 10 leaves)
1 bunch of fresh green onions (around 7) - chopped in small pieces
3 handfuls of dill or fennel
4 cups of rice (Karolina or type for risotto)
3/4 cup olive oil
Salt, Pepper

In a casserole, heat up plenty of water. No need to boil it. Then take the leaves, 5-8 at time, and pass them from the warm water. Take them out with the big spoon with the holes and let them aside to cool.

Mix all the rest of the ingredients together.

Take each leaf open it nicely and put in the middle of its back side a teaspoon of the rice mixture.
Take the right side of the leaf and fold it upon the rice. Then do the same with the left side. Roll it once or twice and continue to fold the right end and then left end. Roll again until you have a smallie and cutie leafy roll! Continue with all the leaves.

Last, in a deep casserole, lay down the 10 leaves that you had left aside in the beginning. Lay your rolling around, and on the top of them in a tight way between them. Season with salt and pepper and pour a bit of olive oil and the juice of 1 1/2 lemon. Add 3 1/2 cups of water for every cup of rice that you have added.
Cook them in medium fire until they "drink" all the water.

TIP
Put a plate on the very top of the rollings so as to avoid them having them dancing and swimming in your casserole while boiling.

Serve with a Greek yogurt dip and enjoy!!!

PS: For questions and queries, ask for my grandmother's phone number. Thank you!

Sarmadakia

Enjoy!!!

Meat with eggplant

Take 1kg eggplants, cut them into cubes and put them into a big bowl with plenty of water and salt. We do this to un-bitter the eggplants.
Boil the meat  (1 kg of veal shoulder or neck, cut into pieces) untill it becomes tender.

Meat with eggplant

In a deep casserole, fry the pieces of eggplant in 2 table spoons of olive oil(make sure that you have drained the eggplants by simply squeezing them in your hand). Add the pieces of meat, 1 chopped onion, 2 green peppers in thin slices, 2 grated tomatoes, 1 glove of garlic into thin slices as well, a handful of parsley, pepper and salt. Now for the salt, you gotta try it because if you remember your eggplant has already been season with salt when we put it in the bowl with the water. Try it and sprinkle accordingly.
Add enough water so as to cover half of the food (half and a bit more) and let it boil for about 15 minutes.
Transfer the food as it is with all its juices into an oven pan and let it in the oven at 220o C until it "drinks" all of its juices and only the olive oil gives a nice texture to your ingredients!

Enjoy!!!

Eggplant Salad

Since you loved that much the meze with eggplant, I'll be nice and thoughtful so as to give you an alternative way to luxuriate of this lovely summer veggie!

Eggplant Salad

Take a big, white eggplant, wash it, put it in an oven pan as it is and bake it until it becomes soft (remember the fork!)

Take the eggplant out of the oven and let cool enough so that you can peel its skin off. Let the stalk for decor..your sweet eggplant will look like an imposing queen with her hat (no comments!).
Place the eggplant on a plate, cut it in square pieces like chess style; add on the top chopped 1 onion, 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, salt, pepper, 1 handful of parsley, 1 glove of garlic into thin slices, olive oil, and vinegar.
How beautiful with all these colours!!! And it is an absolute yum experience!

Enjoy!!!

Dessert with semolina (Halvas)

Halwa in arabic means sweet.." anti halwa" is actually a very common phrase that men use to flirt with girls (innocent!)

Then in turkish that will be halva and then the Greeks took it and transformed it into this delicious, light desert!

Halvas

Ingredients

1 glass of olive oil

2 glasses of semolina

3 glasses of sugar (not 

4 glasses of water

1 cinnamon stick

3 carnation sticks

200gr nuts 

Cinnamon powder

Procedure

In a casserole, put the olive oil and the semolina and keep stirring them together till they get roasted - for 20-30 minutes (a very delicious smell will cover the air.. not the smell of burnt but the smell of the roasted deliciousness!). Let it aside. 

In another casserole or pot, add the water, the sugar, the cinnamon stick and the carnation sticks. In medium fire melt the sugar. Don't make syrop.. we don't need syrop. We just want to melt the sugar!

In the casserole with the semolina, add the nuts and roast them for 1-2 minutes. 

Then pour the sugar/water mixture into the casserole with the semolina and stir thoughly until it makes a sound like "floup floup" and small bubbles come out on the surface. Then after a 4-5 minutes, remove from the fire (when the bubbles become big and threatening.

Spread the mixture in and oven pan or in different types of coupe pate and let it cool!

Season on the top some cinnamon powder and here you have a quick and delicious desert!

Dessert with semolina

Enjoy!!!

Potatoes in the casserole (yiahni)

Potatoes yiahni is again very easy to prepare and it can work as a side dish as well!

Fry in a casserole a chopped onion with one cut green pepper into 2 table spoons of olive oil. Add the potatoes that you have previously peeled off and cut into pieces. Stir them around for 4-5 minutes until they take a nice crust from the outside.
Add two grated tomatoes, salt, pepper, a bit of sugar and oregano or peppermint. After 2 minutes add enough water to cover the potatoes and let it boil. Right before the potatoes are done, stir them carefully with a wooden spoon so as they don't stuck at the bottom. The juice that is left has to be thick (and not watery, like in the photo).

Enjoy!!!

Potato Pie with peppermint

Well, well.. today I have an alternative way of making a pie. Just to specify that a pie can take different kind of forms.. as long as there is the regular fillo-stuffing, it's called pie! It can be small and looking like triangle, it can be round, it can be square, it can be open, closed, semi-open..
Here, I used the so called Cypriot pies, they look like the Lebanese pies with the little pocket.

Potato Pie

Ingredients
10 Cypriot pies
8 medium size potatoes
Salt, Pepper, Olive oil, Peppermint (dry or fresh)

Procedure
Boil the potatoes into plenty of salted water until they become soft (try them with a fork).
Let them cool, and when you feel comfortable to touch them, peel them off.
Squeeze them with the potato squeezing gadget or, if not available, with a fork. Make a nice puree, add the olive oil (approximately 2 table spoons - you gotta try and see if you need more), the salt, pepper and peppermint. Mix them nicely and set aside.

Take the Cypriot pies steep them carefully so that they don't break. Steep them inside-out, but don't soak them wet. We do this, because as they are already prepared and ready to eat, they will be more sensitive in the oven that we are going to put them later to complete our pie. So if they are wet, they won't get burnt.

Lastly, spread some of the filling around the pie, and inside of it if you want, and then roll it around itself.
Continue with all the pies. Set the rollings into an oven pan. Spatter some water on the top of the pies, make some small holes here and there with a fork and bake them for 20 minutes at 180o C.

Enjoy!!!