Koulouma (Κούλουμα)

It's the start of Great Lent, and the holiday allowed me to make the most of the day. Traditional food marking this event in the religious calendar includes shellfish - no meat or animal protein is eaten on this day.


First things first, taramosalata, using a salty cod roe, freshly processed breadcrumbs from stale bread, lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil.


As bloodless seafood is a mainstay of the day, I cooked some shrimps, in the easiest way possible to let me enjoy the day:  Take some headless shrimp, deveined and frozen. Wash them to get rid of most of the ice, then place in a shallow frying pan with minced onion and a good sprinkling of fresh aromatic herbs (I used Cretan wild greens picked up from my recent shopping trip to the Saturday street market, at the λαϊκή). Heat the pan and cook, straining off the liquids and adding a little lemon juice, a little red wine and some olive oil (and salt) to taste. Cook till the skin is crispy - you will be able to eat the skin too.


The rest of the meal consisted of fresh vegetables prepared as hot or cold salad: freshly boiled beetroot (with the leaves, which Greeks love to prepare as a hot salad), freshly prepared shredded cabbage salad, sliced avocado, freshly boiled potatoes, and some pickled vegetables.


The bread of the day is flat lagana. We buy two differnt kinds, to last us throughout the week. It was the case in the past that this bread went stale quickly, but times have changed - bakers have changed their recipe, and lagana stays fresh longer...


Although the weather looked promising in the morning, by lunchtime it was raining and remained so throughout the day, which cancelled our plans for a walk to the Ayious Apostolous beach which is popular on this day for kite flying. Many people were more daring than us: the beach area was full of kite-flyers.

The meal was finished off with some store-bought halva. The total cost of the meal is much more than what a home-made lunch meal usually costs, the most costly items being 800g shrimps 12€, 150g cod roe 4€, and lagana at 6€ a piece. As we say, it's only once a year.

Kali Sarakosti!

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Nostalgia (Νοσταλγία)

On Clean Monday, my husband bought the lagana bread for the meal I had prepared which we were going to eat with our friends. He bought 4 laganes at a total cost of 12 euro, 2 each from 2 different bakeries, which had opened up especially to sell the traditional bread for the first day of Lent.

I knew we wouldn't get through the lagana bread in one day. I also knew that we would still be eating lagana at the end of the week. You can tell that my husband isn't as frugal as I am. But bread is an absolutely essential part of his meal and he knows bakery bread well. He tends to over-buy... but we don't throw it away, and I sometimes hide it in the fridge to slow down staleness. My husband has been eating bakery bread in Hania for nearly 6 decades, so he is entitled to be a bakery bread snob. Over time, he has changed his preferences for his favorite bakeries; he knows when recipes change or the baker doesn't produce good bread consistently, and he is keen to try a new bakery (which don't pop up like cafes, souvlatzidika and tavernas, because you don't make good bread just like that). Being a bread snob, I know we are in good hands.

But it's different with lagana. Lagana is unleavened bread, so it goes stale much more quickly. It actually hardens to such a great extent that it is virtually inedible. It never lasts longer than 2 days... or so I thought.

It's Friday today, and there is still lagana in the bread box, the same lagana that was bought on Monday. We're still eating it, but this year, I don't have to perform magic tricks to make the lagana soft (eg by popping it in the microwave for 5 seconds). This is the second year I notice this happening. Before that, lagana was too dry to eat by Wednesday after Clean Monday. What has changed?

I remember hearing about lagana for the first time in my first year in Greece, when I lived in Athens. It was the 9th of March, 1992, and I had just returned from Crete, after getting my Greek identity card sorted out here (in the good old days, you had to deal with all your official paper work in the place where your birth was registered, whether it was a big city, a small town, or a minuscule village).

I had bought with me some lettuce and spring onions from my grandmother's garden (they were simply uprooted, with the soil still clinging to the roots: "they keep fresh that way," my uncle told me), a canister of olive oil ("you're only taking a koka-kola bottle's worth? That'll last you less than a week, Maria... ξιάσου (= suit yourself)...") and some fresh eggs, packed in such a way that they would not turn into raw omelette during the overnight ferry trip.

I recalled the foods of the day that my mother would prepare on Kathara Deftera in our Wellington home. Although it wasn't a holiday in New Zealand, there were a few years when we did not open the fish and chip shop on Mondays, which was perfect for celebrating Kathara Deftera (that didn't last long though: when the Chinese opposition sold his shop and it was bought by another Greek, both shops opened every day). I bought some olives, pickles and beans from the supermarket across the road, and I also popped into the bakery to buy some of that bread. I was surprised to see the lagana as I had never even heard of it before, and felt quite grateful to be experiencing Clean Monday in a quintessentially and veritably Greek fashion that year, unlike my parents, who were in New Zealand and would never come back together to Greece since my permanent move to Greece.

The lagana was crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. I liked it very much. It went well with my oily salad and supermarket buys. I think I had some of my uncles' wine too (in a koka-kola bottle, of course). I didn't eat all the lagana in one day. I thought I'd keep some for the next day too, because I had heard that this bread is only sold on Kathara Deftera.

The next day, I prepared another salad (I remember eating salad all that week), which I would eat with the lagana. Alas, the lagana had hardened, and it was not easy to chew, even more so the next day. I asked my landlord about this, and she told me that this was normal. Lagana does not contain any raising agents, therefore it goes stale. There is a special reason for this, as a friend recently explained:

"On Clean Monday people look far more relaxed, probably in the absence of meat... 'lagana', the special bread for the day, shares the same root as the word 'lagnos' which means relaxed and not suppressed. For this reason, I suppose on this day children share a kite-flying experience. I remember a few priceless attempts to construct our own rocket-like kite that would reach the deep space or the neighbors' mystery backyard! Still I praise this holiday for its simple, cheap, healthy menu variety and activities that even those with difficulties can follow up." 

When there is so much to enjoy, you don't wait for the bread to rise. In the afternoon of my first Kathara Deftera in Greece, I recall walking to Filopapou Hill with friends, for the traditional kite-flying event, another custom of the day. (I must dig up my photos - I am sure I will find one of that sunny spring day in Athens.)

Lagana and white wine - it's still 'fresh', even today (the photo was taken last night).

But lately, for at least two years now, maybe even three, I notice that lagana stays soft. I can't tell you why, nor can I tell you if it's a good thing or not. (I suppose they are baking it with yeast nowadays.) All I can tell you is that things have changed. I'm glad lagana doesn't go so stale so quickly any more, but I can't help feeling a nostalgic sadness over this change of affairs. I suppose it is in our interests, but I still feel cheated. Life has changed, and it really is getting better (the wine is definitely better than that of the past), but those old days were good too, at least in their time.

The past is a different country; they do things differently there.

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Peppers (Πιπεριές)

Peppers are great in the freezer: you can freeze them whole (especially good if they are hot small peppers like chilis - they slice well too), or as shells (for filing in various ways, eg yemista in Greek cuisine), or in strips to add in stews (I like themin this form for my weekly soupy bean or lentil stews). We had a good run of peppers this past summer, and only recently cleared the garden of the last pepper plants. There are only so many peppers you can use and freeze, and I stil had plenty left over.

So I set about making a pepper sauce, from an idea that I got in a Greek blog: I let cook till soft some chopped peppers, onion, garlic, herbs and spices, with some sugar, vinegar and tomato paste (as we are now clean out of tomatoes which didn't do so well in our garden this year for some reason). This pepper sauce makes a great addition to stews and soups, adding a stronger flavour similar to the way stock gives an extra punch to them with a vegetarian twist.

But as you can see, there were still quite a few peppers remaining in my store, so I had to think up of another way to use them: what about a spicy muhammara?! Muhammara is a fantastic spicy party-winning dip, made primarily with red roasted peppers and ground nuts, that can be eaten with crispy snacks like toasted bread and carrot sticks. In some ways, it's very similar to the Greek eggplant dip (melitzanosalata). But it's also fantastic as an accompaniment to meat and fish; I made it to go with Saturday's meal of fried sole fillets which were on special at the supermarket, at €6.34/kg.

The muhammara recipe I used mentioned pomegranate molasses, which I didn't have (I used a little cider vinegar mixed with some home-made grape molasses, which we call 'petimezi' in Greece), but I topped it off with some pomegranate seeds which gave the muhammara a bit more texture.

I always find it a challenge to use up ingredients or preserve them in unusual ways. These two little projects kept me busy at the weekend.

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Lentil stew (Φακές)

If you read Joanna Kakissis' recent views of Greece, you will find that Greece is on the brink of collapse:

"The postcard image of modern Greek pride is a rich, full table of grilled lamb, sharp cheeses, eggplant casseroles, olive oil-drenched tomato salads, and honeyed desserts -- of happy families toasting each other. It's not people fighting over free cabbage, staring into bare refrigerators, or gathering throwaway oranges at open-air produce markets. It's not free lentil stew. The future, all of a sudden, has started to look a lot like the past."

But cabbages are now out of season now, and you will be hard pressed to find them in your local λαϊκή (street market), as I discovered when I took a friend to the Saturday market in Hania recently. The article continues with some tired old cliches of Greek life in recession and there are also some other inconsistencies in this article, which are annoying to read, from the well-informed Greek food blogger's point of view:

"Those who still have their jobs, even if they've seen their incomes plunge by a third or more, consider themselves lucky. But they no longer stock up on pork chops and imported Gouda cheese, as they did in better times. They eat out less too... There's also a bestselling cookbook, Starvation Recipes, based on tips from Greeks who survived the famine of World War II. (Sample: Save bread crumbs from the table in a jar to eat later.)"

Stocking up on pork chops was never really the norm in Greece. Most Greeks have never needed to do this because few own freezers large enough to do it. Besides, fresh meat, heads, tails, gizzards and all, is always readily available in the fresh meat counter of almost all supermarkets. Greeks are generally not the stock-it-in-the-freezer-and-cook-with-it-for-the-next-month-or-so kind of race.

And what about this 'imported Gouda cheese' business? Forgive me for my mean thoughts right this minute, but does Ms Kakissis realise that 'imported Gouda cheese' is actually the cheapest cheese on the market? It's HALF THE PRICE of the well-known Cretan graviera (for example), which is made locally in my case! I actually buy it for kids' sandwiches and pizzas - it costs LESS than the most common cheese in our house, which is mizithra!

Kakissis mentions that Greeks eat out less now. Isn't that what happens in most other places when a crisis hits home? It's nothing new, nor is it a very Greek-crisis concept. Even our summer tourists are doing this at their hotels, or on the beach: they buy so much sliced bread, ham and cheese (the imported stuff, of course) at the supermarket, that the shelves need to be restocked constantly. The book she mentions made a bit of noise when it first came out, but few would believe it was being used, as might be insinuated by Kakissis' article, as a base for Greek home cooking. It's just an interesting book, as are Jamie's and Nigella's - they make great coffee table books.



The opening discussion of Kakissis' article serves to remind me that there is a crisis in Greece which I can't see because I don't live in Athens. The only thing that Kakissis' article deals with properly (which is actually the main theme of her article) is lentil stew (φακές). They are a Greek favorite, eaten all year round, very simple and cheap to make, and always enjoyed by both Greeks and non-Greeks who try them at a Greek's home. And this is generally the only place where you will find them, because few tourists know about φακές. It is rarely available at restaurants because, as Kakissis writes in the title of her article, lentils are associated with austerity, aka poverty.

I made lentil stew yesterday, on request. My husband was tired of eating his garden-grown goodies: zucchini, eggplant and peppers. "Too much fresh food, Maria" he complained, "my stomach is growing stems". So I made φακές which we had with some mizithra cheese, raw onion, some left over kolokithokeftedes (zucchini patties) and the ubiquitous fresh bakery bread, without which my husband cannot sit down at any meal time.

Now that is a sure sign of hard times: when there was not enough to eat, and bread acted as the main part of a meal, which was served with a meagre portion of a saucy dish. The bread soaked up literally everything on the dish to the point that the dish was wiped so clean that it was hard to tell if it had been used. Not that my husband is poor, but he knows what it feels like to have just bread and oil to eat.

My version of lentil stew uses just salt, pepper and oregano to flavour it: this is because we make it with my home-made tomato sauce, which gives it a very strong flavour. This is quite different to my mother's φακές which contained bay leaf and dried orange peel, possibly because tomato was less easy to procure - she came from a mountain village, 500m above sea level. I once made this kind of φακές for the family, but I got a good telling off. I don't mix and match too many flavours or change the combination of my family's meals because I know they will notice: some things are meant to be (more on that in another post). And as I mentioned in another recent post:

“When you watch the news abroad you get the impression that a revolution could break out at any minute... But when you come to Greece you see that it is all happening in one small part of Athens. We know that the crisis is real and that people are suffering, but this is not a country on the brink of collapse.”

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Fava (Φάβα)

How can such a simple dish arouse so much adulation?

Fava looks like gruel, but it is actually a tasty sweet dip-like main meal in Greece. Split yellow peas are boiled up with onion, some salt and a little olive oil, till they are turned into a pulp.

The pulp is usually placed in some kind of blender to produce a smooth creamy texture. But the taste remains the same, so I have dropped this step over the years, and I serve it rough, without pureeing it.

The typical Greek way to eat fava is to dress it with chopped onion and olive oil. It is served with slices of bread and maybe some cheese, boiled egg or olives - and if you are lucky, some little fried fish.

But vegetarians and vegans alike can dress up their dish as creatively as they like. I added some chopped parsley and some sliced peppers to my serving of fava. Other choices include sliced beets, carrots, celery sticks, and any other crunchy vegetables that you enjoy eating.

I noticed that there was not enough bread in the house when I made the fava, so I had mine with some paximadi, double-baked dry rusk that has been made in Greece since ancient times.

I've made fava many times and have blogged about it considerably, but every time I make fava, it looks so much better than the last time I made it, and I can't help taking new photographs. Fava shows the vegetarian nature of Greek cuisine and how colourful and nutritious a simple vegetarian meal can be.

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Plant-based meal

A completely plant-based meal is effectively a vegan meal.

Not that anyone in my house is vegan; home-made vegan sausages simply taste really good, and you tend to eat a lot more in quantity when you eat only plant-based food.

Sorry about the blurry photo: boiled beetroot, bread, vegan sausages, avocado dip, boiled potaotes, and red wine.

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Leafy green rissoles

I started off yesterday making spanakorizo with 2 spinach roots, which I discovered were not enough to make a meal for the four of us, so I added some Swiss chard leaves as I was preparing the spanakorizo sauce. I realised what a mistake this was from the aroma coming from the pot - it was too sour! Rather than risk hearing my family's objections, I decided to find another edible way to use the mixture. Here's what I got: leafy green rissoles.

Clean 2 spinach roots (stalks and leaves) and 15-20 large Swiss chard leaves (very stalky bits removed). Finely chop all the leaves. Sauté 1 finely chopped large onion, some finely chopped parsley and 2 cloves of garlic in some olive oil. Add the leaves and the juice of 2 grated tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Cook till they wilt. When the mixture is cool enough to handle, squeeze it to remove all excess liquids. Add 4-5 tbsp chickpea flour and shape into short fat rissoles. Roll each one in breadcrumbs and pan-fry quickly over high heat in very hot olive oil, turning them to cook on all sides. Drain on absorbent paper. Serve with spicy red sauce.

This recipe yielded 17 rissoles. Spinach can be used to replace the Swiss chard (but not vice-versa - Swiss chard can be a bit too sour on its own). Plain flour can be used instead of chickpea flour, and flour can also replace the breadcrumbs. In half the mixture, I added some mizithra cheese (you can use crumbled feta instead) - the vegetarian as opposed to the vegan fritters were definitely tastier. Bottled Asian sauces are a perfect accompaniment. 

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Yemista for the freezer (Γεμιστά για την κατάψυξη)

Yemista are a popular Greek dish in summer. They are a taverna favorite for vegetarians. Yemista consists mainly of rice, which has herbs and spices added (home cooks sometimes add mince, as an alternative to the basic recipe). This mixture is used as stuffing for summer vegetables: mainly tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. Rice doesn't freeze well; although you can freeze it uncooked, the texture will be different to rice cooked freshly. The best way to do this is by preparing the stuffed vegetables and freezing them in the same baking vessel that they will be cooked in. This may take up a lot of space in the freezer.

Stuffed zucchini flowers - from the freezer straight to the oven.

As an alternative, I prefer to carve out the vegetable shells and freeze them empty. The shells are frozen upright, tightly sitting next to each other, in a baking tin, to keep their shape. Once they have frozen solid, they can be taken out of the baking tin and placed in bags, in free spaces in the freezer. The tops of the vegetables, which are used to cap the yemista after they have been stuffed, are also frozen for the same use in the dish.

Frozen pepper and tomato shells - I freeze them upright in a tray, then I place them in a bags.

The tomato juice and flesh can be chopped very finely (I always use a mini food-processor for this) and mixed with some finely chopped onion, parsley and mint. Some (but not all) of the eggplant flesh (again, finely chopped) can also be added to this mixture. To avoid the eggplant flesh browning, you need to work quickly. The quicker eggplant gets frozen after it's cut, the less browning will occur. This mixture is frozen altogether, in appropriate quantities, separately from the vegetable shells.

Frozen yemista mixture - only the rice, olive oil and seasonings need to be added.

When you want to make the yemista (which can be cooked either in the oven or in a pot on the element):
1. Take out the tomato mixture and defrost it.
2. When it has turned liquid, add the appropriate quantity of rice, olive oil, salt and pepper.
3. Take out the vegetable shells from the freezer and place them in the (pyrex or metal) baking vessel.
4. Start filling the vegetable shells immediately, without waiting for them to defrost.
5. Cap each vegetable with its top and continue to prepare the yemista for cooking as for the 'fresh' recipe. 

Yemista made from frozen shells

Don't forget that the shelled vegetables should be of an even size, for best results, in order for them to cook evenly when the time comes to use them. I used a local heirloom variety that produces tennis ball sized round tomatoes.

All the timatoes in this bowl came from the plant on the left hand side.

The basic recipe for yemista can be found here. This recipe can be used for freezing (without the rice, olive oil and seasonings) if you have a large garden that produces excessively, or you like to buy fresh seasonal produce in bulk from a farmer's market, especially towards the end of the season, when the prices are cheaper.

This kind of freezer food makes cooking for the whole family in the winter very easy and painless. 

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Good Friday (Μεγάλη Παρασκευή)

On Good Friday (Μεγάλη Παρασκευή)), my mother never cooked anything. We would eat soaked broad beans, olives, slices of tomato and pickled peppers, with some bread. Good Friday is one of only two days in the religious calendar of the Greek Orthodox church when a strict fast is observed - no meat, fish, eggs, milk or dairy products, as well as no olive oil and wine.



These kinds of meals are interspersed among the months and seasons of the Christian Orthodox calendar. Although they have a religious base, they serve a dual purpose. The pure lenten meal, according to the strict fast, is a form of detox, not just for the body which is being cleansed by the acidic brines of the preserved foods and the grinding power of the beans.



While the body is being purified, the mind in the now lighter, more relaxed and freer body is also being challenged by the thoughts of the day, which are concerned with death, but also of new life, as the build-up to Easter continues, leading to its climax.

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Spanakorizo (Σπανακόριζο)

Prices are in euro (valid in Hania). All ingredients are Greek or locally sourced; those marked with * are considered frugal here because they are cheap and/or people have their own supplies.
 
Spanakorizo is Greece's answer to risotto. It involves making a light sauce with spinach, and adding rice to it. Instead of spinach, cabbage can be used, as well as any other tasty seasonal greens. But the most popular version is the one made with spinach. When I have fresh garden-grown spinach, I make this dish at least once a week, and because the spinach sauce freezes really well (ie before adding the rice), I make plenty of it so that all I have to do mid-week on a working day is to thaw it in the morning so that I can cook it with rice in the afternoon after work.

Spanakorizo can be cooked using a tomato or lemon based sauce, in the same way as most Greek dishes using beans or meat. In our house, we cook more with tomato, but lemon-based dishes make a tangy refreshing and lighter meal. Adding the rice after making the spinach sauce will give the dish a softer texture, resembling a pilaf. But if the rice is added before the spinach and sauteed with the onion until caramelized, it remains 'al dente', and it becomes a risotto. 


Spanakorizo needs only a little cheese to go with it. My kids eat all Greek rice-based dishes with Greek strained yoghurt, but not FAGE yoghurt, because it's hardly ever made with Greek milk these days (usually with mainly German and partly French milk). Non-FAGE strained yoghurt made with Greek milk is usually cheaper; there's no need to be brand-conscious when buying yoghurt.


You need:
1 1/2 cups of rice (~40 cents)
half a cup of olive oil*
1 large onion*
a few cloves of garlic*
half a kilo (or more) of spinach (~50 cents)
a bunch of parsley and/or fresh mint* (I used a variety of fresh aromatic herbs from the garden)
1 cup of tomato sauce (or some tinned tomato: ~50 cents)
1 teaspoon of tomato paste*
2-3 cups of water*
salt, pepper and oregano*


Follow the instructions for my spanakorizo recipe here.

Total cost of the meal for four people: about 1.60 euro, together with the yoghurt; 40 cents per serving.

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Vegan soutzoukakia (Nηστίσιμα σουτζουκάκια)

Prices are in euro (valid in Hania). All ingredients are Greek or locally sourced; those marked with * are considered frugal here because they are cheap and/or people have their own supplies.  

Soutzoukakia are a long-standing favorite Greek meal. They are a fiddly dish to make, requiring at least two cooking techniques: one for frying (or grilling) the meatballs, and another to make the sauce. At the end of the process, the two are combined. They certainly aren't vegan. But once you make these vegan ones, I believe you might be convinced never to make meat-based ones again.



I came across some black beans (imported from Thailand) at a small Athens supermarket a while ago when I last visited.  I've never come across this kind of legume before, so I decided to buy a packet just to try them out. But If your culinary repertoire doesnt include something, then it's hard to fit it in with your regular cooking schedule. The beans were kept in a dark corner of my pantry until I recently unearthed them and remembered a suggestion by a reader for vegan burgers using black beans. Their colour gives them a natural meaty appearance when mashed. When combined with the appropriate mix of spices, they easily pass off as fake meat. I've used beans to make fake mince before, but this time, with the black beans, it was much tastier.

For the meatballs, you need:
100g dried black soya beans (or any other bean you prefer: to keep it Greek, I would use a mixture of black-eyed beans and lentils, at a cost of mot much more than 50 cents)
a small cup of dry breadcrumbs (10 cents)
a large onion*
2 cloves of garlic*
a few sprigs of parsley*
a few sprigs on mint*
half a cup of thick tomato sauce* (I use my own home-made stuff)
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil*
cumin, paprika, salt and pepper*
some oil for shallow frying*

For the sauce, you need:
half a cup of tomato sauce (bottled or home-made)*
salt and pepper*

Soak the black beans overnight. Boil for half an hour; you don't want them too tender, so that they keep their nutty taste. Drain and rinse the beans. Place them in a strainer to dry off. Then place them in a blender, together with the peeled onion and garlic, breadcrumbs, herbs and seasonings. Pulse until the mixture resemblesfine grains. 

Pour the contents of the blender into a bowl and add the tomato sauce and oil. Mix together; you will get a firm dough. Shape it into short fat sausages (the usual shape of soutzoukakia). Heat some oil in a pan and shallow-fry the soutzoukakia, making sure to brown them all over. They don't need much cooking time, just enough to brown and heat. Remove them from the pan onto a serving plate and set aside (no need to drain them on paper towels: the olive oil is the only fat in the recipe).

If you don't mind the burnt bean crumbs in your oil, add the tomato sauce to the same pan that you fried the soutzoukakia in. Otherwise, try to remove as many of them as you can. (You can drain the same oil to clear it into another pan, but you will have to do more cleaning - I don't call that fun.) Add the tomato sauce and seasonings, and cook on moderate heat for 5-10 minutes to thicken the sauce. Pour the sauce over the soutzoukakia.

 I served my vegan soutzoukakia with my home-made tangy apricot chutney. It's not really a very Greek combinaiton, but it turned out well.

Voila - your soutzoukakia are ready: no fuss, no bother. Imagine eating such a meal during lent. Serve the soutzoukakia with crsuty bread to mop up the sauces, a green salad and some wine. So good, so cheap: it's can't get better than this.

Total cost as a main meal (serves 4): about 1-2 euro, depending on the cost of the tomato sauce.

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Vegetarian Greek cuisine (Χορτοφαγική κουζίνα)

If fasting is very important to you during the Great Lent, then you will want to know how to keep your as food vegan as possible. Greek taverna meals lend themselves very well to this kind of eating, since they are mainly vegetarian, while the meat and cheese part of the menu is often kept separate. Here's an article I originally published through Suite101. 

Traditional Greek food is mainly plant-based and mostly vegetarian, leading to a healthy balanced diet and longevity.

The basis of Greek cuisine is often misunderstood. Most people will associate Greek food with souvlaki, the Greek kebab, which is more of a street food or a tasty snack, rather than with what is being cooked in the homes of most Greek people. Despite the rise in modern times in the consumption of meat for the average Greek due to global forces, the true basis of Greek cuisine lies in a plant-based diet. As Diane Kochilas, a respected Greek food writer, implies: simple dishes based mainly on plants could be the country's most effective goodwill ambassador. This is in fact where the secrets of Greek longevity lie: a plant-based diet, profusely laden with olive oil.

Vegetarian Greek recipes

Many of the most popular meals in Greece are based on a vegetable dish, combined with some form of carbohydrate to add bulk to the meal. Summer favorites include yemista, shelled vegetables (tomato, pepper, eggplant) filled with rice mixed with herbs; fasolakia, string beans cooked in a red sauce, with the addition of chunks of potato; and horta, leafy greens dressed in olive oil and lemon juice, always accompanied by thick slices of freshly baked bread. All such meals are very popular taverna choices too, as they are all considered a staple part in the range of traditional Greek recipes, so tourists will often see them on a menu card. They may sound in essence like easy Greek recipes to make, but when prepared with fresh local seasonal ingredients, these dishes are very hard to beat in terms of taste.

Vegan soups and beans in the winter

In the winter, bean soups are a regular feature of the weekly meals cooked at home: there are few homes in the whole country that won’t be enjoying a hearty Greek bean soup every week. Does that sound boring? Not if there are so many different beans to base a soup on! The most popular Greek bean soups are fasolada, made of dry white beans, cooked in a tomato-based soup, together with carrots and celery, and fa-kes (φακες), a simple lentil soup cooked in tomato or with rice. Chickpeas (garbanzo beans), known as revithia, are often cooked together with spinach or other leafy greens in a lemon-based (or tomato) soup, similarly to black-eyed beans (mavromatika). The Greek version of baked beans, gigandes, is the main bean dish served at almost all Greek tavernas throughout the year.

Endless variety

A plant-based diet cannot be criticized for its lack of variety because there is simply no lack of edible plants in Greece, due to the temperate climatic conditions which allow almost any fruit and vegetable to be propagated successfully. In the past when fasting was more commonly practiced, according to the religious calendar of the Greek Orthodox church, half the year was actually reserved for Lenten meals, when dairy and meat products are not consumed. Therefore, all the meals would have been mainly vegan, with the exception of shellfish (which was not necessarily accessible to everyone, at any rate).

All vegetarians, whether they include dairy in their diet or if they are completely vegan, will be able to find a tasty balanced meal to choose from in the range of meals that make up traditional Greek cuisine.

(This article was originally published at Suite101).

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The way we are: Then and now (Τότε και τώρα)

Life can be simple, and the simple life can also be made to look highly desirable. I wanted to capture this concept in a photograph that specifically showed how the food traditions of Greece have remained quite stable during a time when the country cannot be described in this way. In a recent book find, I came across a photo depicting Clean Monday (Καθαρά Δευτέρα - Kathara Deftera), with a perfect image of the associations we make of this day: lagana bread, vegan food and the coming of spring.

A 1978 image of Kathara Deftera.

I still had some lagana left in the house from Clean Monday's purchase. It had gone a little stale, but it was still tasty, especially heated up in the toaster. Lagana traditionally contains no rising agent, which is one reason it doesn't grow mould. Instead, it hardens like a paximadi (rusk) and becomes very tasty when dipped in olive oil.

After Saturday's lunch, I set up the kitchen table with a few props:
- an old-fashioned (store-bought) tablecloth with Cretan designs,
- a bowl of my pickled summer banana-peppers,
- a bowl of my home-cured olives,
- the leftover piece of lagana, and
- a vase of flowers I had picked from a walk around Ayious Apostolous.

 

Apart from forgetting the wine and knife, I also felt that it was one of the most uninspiring scenes I had ever photographed. The kitchen badly needs a paint job, the windows were dusty, the afternoon light was not very bright, and the whole atmosphere looked so artificial. Most of my food photos are spontaneous - they either work or they don't work. Today's contrived session not only did not work, but so much time was spent badly on something that I knew was not working in the first place. I gave up, and went back to writing about my foray into posh nosh.

The next day, the sun was shining. What a blessing that felt in what has been one of the coldest winters I have ever experienced. I may have stayed in a mountain cabin for two days, I may have felt snow in my hands, I may have been born and raised in a colder climate than Crete's, but I have never lived for two months continually in a cold house, warmed up only by a wood-fired heater in one room. The appearance of the sun recharged my creative energy. I decided to once again try to recreate the image of the Kathara Deftera of yesteryear.

The flowers had wilted slightly and the lagana was one day older. There was nothing I could do about that at this moment. I took my props outside and began setting them up.

Not that my photograph was lacking the picturesque scene that I wanted to recreate, but there seemed to be a lack of natural light. Not only that, but the ugly yellow tarpaulin and chicken wire net fencing in the background in front of the neighbouring olive grove made my food look like that of a poor Cretan farmer's, not the feast of the dedicated follower of the good life. I left the props where they were and went back into the kitchen to carry on cooking the Sunday lunch, which was now starting to look more sumptuous than my leftover lenten food: I was preparing a pork roast with potatoes, to be cooked in the very last of the summer's frozen tomato juice (not to worry: plenty of jars of home-made tomato sauce in the pantry).

The sun was now starting to creep over the little balcony where I had set up my props, so I took my camera and went outdoors. But someone had bet me to it.

"Mmm, lagana, can I have some?" asked my daughter. She had already started to pick at the olives and peppers.

"In a minute, dear," I tried to sway my daughter away from the food, as I popped a couple of olives into my mouth. I already knew I was running out of time before the scene of perfect idyll would be dismantled. I moved the table a couple of inches from the original spot where I had placed it, and hurriedly snapped a few more shots.

There was a hint of sunlight scattering white light on the plates, and the ugliness of the scene had now been removed by my bending down, moving around and playing with the zoom to ensure that such items would disappear from the final image. The romance of Greece was starting to appear in the photo.

"Is it OK if I have some lagana now?" my  daughter asked.

"Can you wait a few more minutes?" I asked her. It would be nice if I could take a few more photos to make sure that I hadn't missed that special moment when the sunlight was its peak. I went indoors and emptied out the washing machine, hoping that the good weather would last to dry my clothes on the line. Just lately, they had to be dried indoors (private households in Crete don't have dryers because we rely on Mediterranean sunlight, which has been lacking this past winter). But by the time I got back to the balcony, I found more company.

 
"You forgot the olive oil, Mum," said my son, who had bought out a couple of plates and some lemon, which he particularly likes with oil as a dip (more like a spread) for his bread.

"And the feta," said my daughter between mouthfuls. "Do you want to take a photo of us eating?"

"Yes, why not," I said and prepared to capture their al fresco brunch.

"Oh, wait, mum," my son called out. "Do you want us to look natural while you're taking the photo?"

"Would be best," I answered.

And that was the end of the photo session. If I captured anything of idyllic Cretan life, it was its spontaneous essence. I don't think I'll bother too much more with contrived photo shoots. The natural ones come out much better. Cheers! (Σ'υγεία!)

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Dolmadakia (Οικονομικά ντομαδάκια)

Prices are in euro (valid in Hania). All ingredients are Greek or locally sourced; those marked with * are considered frugal here because they are cheap and/or people have their own supplies.  

Dolmadakia - stuffed vine leaves - are often served as an appetiser in Greek tavernas. They are an oily rice dish, which makes them quite filling. They become a super-frugal meal when you have your own supply of leaves, like most Cretan rural dwellers.

 Zucchini flowers and choi sum leaves; dolmadakia are made all year round from seasonal leaves.

Stuffed leaves with herbed rice are a quintessential dish associated grapevine leaves and Greek summer. But you can also eat these parcels in winter, using a variety of whatever fresh locally sourced leaves are available according to the season. Possible leaves for the season which can be used for stuffing are lettuce, spinach, sorrel (also known as dock) and Swiss chard, all easy to grow in Crete's mild winter climate. In this way, I can make these little parcels most of the year round. In the summer, we also use squash flowers. This year, we even grew some very unusual (for Crete) leafy greens: choi sum, a popular leafy green in Chinese cuisine. The only prerequisite when choosing a species of leaf for making rice parcels is to ensure that it will not disintegrate when it is stuffed, layered and cooked. Small leaves can be used, and although they may look tricky to fill, with a bit of advice from an experienced yiayia, they can come out very pretty too.

To make super-frugal dolmadakia (serves 4, about 8-10 dolmadakia per person), you need:
about 40-50 medium- to large-sized leaves of edible greens* (only 30-40 will be rolled up - you may need to cut them to a smaller size if they are too big (eg spinach leaves are bigger than vine leaves)
1 teaspoon rice per individual leaf parcel (ie about 30-40 teaspoons rice; ~50 cents)
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of tomato paste (or one large juicy tomato, pureed)*
a few sprigs of parsley, mint and dill* (or fennel, which we have plenty of)
a small cup of olive oil*
a sprinkling of salt, pepper and oregano*
more olive oil for cooking*



First of all, clean your leaves well, making sure they are free from dirt. Then blanch them by placing them in a pot of boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain the leaves over the side of the pot, taking care not to burn them. In another wide shallow pot, place 5 leaves on the base.

Place all the ingredients except the leaves in a bowl and mix together. Place a tablespoon of the mixture on each leaf and roll it up, a little like the way fish and chips is rolled up in newspaper. Place each dolmadaki on top of the leaves lining the pot. Place up to two or so layers of dolmadakia in the pot (three full layers may not cook evenly).

When ready to cook, cover with another 5 leaves. Then pour a 1 cup mixture of olive oil and water over the dolmadakia. Cover the rice parcels with a plate, before placing the lid of the pot over it. Cook over moderate heat for 40-50 minutes. Be careful when removing the pot - it will burn!

Greeks usually eat dolmadakia with plain yoghurt or tzatziki, to dip the parcels in. You can also accompany the dolmadakia with a piece of feta or any other kind of cheese instead. A tomato-based salad completes this meal. You really don't need any bread with this dish. Vegans simply eat them plain.

If rolling up leaves is too much trouble for you, a variation of this dish can be made by simply layering the leaves and rice mixture. The same ingredients used to make this dish can also be used to make spanakorizo (spinach risotto). Because dolmadakia are generally considered to be quite a fiddly piece of culinary work, bear in mind that you can freeze them stuffed, but they must not be defrosted  - they need to be cooked straight out of the freezer.

Total cost of meal: about 1.60 euro, together with the salad and yoghurt; 40 cents per serving.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Vegan sausages (Λουκάνικα νηστίσιμα)

Prices are in euro (valid in Hania). All ingredients are Greek or locally sourced; those marked with * are considered frugal here because they are cheap and/or people have their own supplies.  

 "Sausages from beans?" was the title of an article by Orestis Thavias in last month's Gastronomos. Not that I have a problem with eating the regular carnivorous version, but I was intrigued to find a recipe for vegan sausages in a Greek foodie magazine, a supplement of the Sunday Kathimerini. The article did not hint at any sign of the times (eg a mention of the crisis), but was talking about an alternative lifestyle, as if nothing is in disarray...

The author is a dedicated vegetarian, but he is honest with his readers. It's not easy to be and stay vegetarian by choice (ie other than medical reasons), because vegetarians eventually come to the realisation that they miss both the unique umami taste and the texture of meat, as well as the feeling of fullness that meat gives you, We aren't born to be vegetarians, we become one by choice, but even then, we don't forget our past preferences so easily.

The writer says that it took him about a decade to realise that he was no longer tempted by the burnt-pan aroma of a meat dish. Before that, he needed 'help' to get over it. He provides a very basic recipe for something he calls 'different' sausages, made with beans (for protein) and breadcrumbs, tomato puree (to bind) and onions (for the umami taste), and some herbs and spices (for more flavour). He admits that his tasty 'sausages' are not really convincing when compared to mass-produced meat substitutes for vegans/vegetarians (available mainly - only?? - at organic shops in Greece), which provides further evidence that we are not born for this kind of life.

Having said that, vegan sausages can be made very cheaply at home, and if I may says so myself, they can be very tasty. The ready prepared food vegans/vegetarians can buy at organic shops in Greece are probably very expensive, not because they are made with cheap ingredients, but, as is common in Greece, such items are imported, in the same way that the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle has been imported to Greece. It's just not Greek to be vegetarian all year round, is it?

 

But home-made vegan sausages do have one good point about them, and that is that they constitute a very cheap and frugal dish, and they can be very Greek in taste and origin too. My recipe is a variation of the one that I found in Gastronomos. Most of my cheap'n'greek'n'frugal recipes are much simpler than this one, but when you're living without meat, you need to make sure you're eating something healthy as well as tasty.

To make Greek-tasting vegan sausages for four people, you need:
100g black eyed beans (~ 25 cents)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (~ 5 cents; you can also make your own by collecting the dregs left over from a packet of paximathi or friganies - which aren't cheap to buy - or even your own breadcrumbs)
1 large onion*
1/2 cup tomato puree* (I use own home-made one)
a few sprigs of parsley*
a few sprigs of basil* (I used mint from the garden)
some dried oregano*
a sprinkling of cumin powder* (to make your vegan sausages smell like soutzoukakia)
some red pepper (to make your fake meat smell like souvlaki)
salt and freshly ground pepper*

Soak the beans overnight. Drain, boil in fresh water till tender (about 30 minutes), drain again. Place the beans, onion, tomato, herbs and seasonings in a small blender and mix till a soft doughy mixture is formed. Mix in the breadcrumbs and shape into sausages (or balls or patties). Place in the fridge to allow them to become firm. To cook them, roll them in flour (being careful when lifting them off the plate so that they do not break) and shallow-fry in a pan with some olive oil until well-browned.The flour will make them look singed - you can try cooking them without the flour but they may break.

I also made a vegetarian (rather than vegan) version by adding some mizithra cheese. You can also add an egg to give them a fuller more satisfying taste. I served this meal with some bread crusts (my mother-in-law was making skorthalia) and an amazing hot sweet and sour spicy cabbage and fennel bulb dish - another cheap and Greek and frugal meal. NB: This kind of meal doesn't give you a full feeling in your stomach, so you will want to eat a lot.

Total cost of meal: about 1 euro, 25 cents a serving among four people.

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