Garides saganaki (prawns with feta in tomato sauce)

This is a typical mezze (Greek version of tapas) and normally served with other mezzedes and some ouzo to accompany the meal. It's nice with some bread dipping (dipping bread into sauces and just plain olive oil is very typical in Greece and totally delicious). I also find this dish can be a meal on its own served with couscous. One great thing about it, is that it's very simple to make and a great accompaniment when making mezzedes/tapas as there's no fuss involved in making it and always goes down well with friends. When cooking other mezzedes I usually prepare the sauce before hand and add the prawns and feta just before serving.

There are slightly different ways of preparing garides saganaki, as with everything. So here I will share my own version. It's very typical in restaurants in Greece to have it served with whole prawns (shells included). Here I present a simplified version by using peeled, cooked prawns. If you decide to make it with raw prawns, all you need to do is cook the prawns in the sauce for 5 minutes until pink and then add the feta.

The recipe:

Serves 3-4 people with couscous and a salad as a main meal or more people as part of a mezzedotapas evening.

Ingredients:

5-7 tomatoes

± 400g cooked and peeled king prawns

1 green pepper

100-150g feta cheese

1-2tbs olive oil

dried origano

a pinch of sugar

a pinch of sault and pepper

Optional: dilute a tablesoon of tomato paste with half a cup of water and add in the pot with the tomatoes in step one.

Recipe:

1. Roughly chop the tomatoes into small chunks. Put in a pot and simmer for around 20-30 minutes until the juices are almost gone and the tomatoes have turned into a sauce. Meanwhile chop the green pepper into large chunks.

2. Add the green pepper, olive oil, origano, sugar, salt and pepper and leave to simmer until the pepper chunks are softened (if you find the sauce dries up before the peppers are cooked add a bit of water).

3. Chop the feta into large chunks. Add the prawns and feta in the sauce and heat through for a couple of minutes (the feta will slightly melt and give the dish a pinkish colour). Serve immediately.

And that is all there is to it!

Mezzedotapas: Spanakotyropita with a sunblush twist

Hello all and welcome back! Your absence from my blog is entirely my fault as I have neglected my duties as blogmaster. I wish I could say this is due to holidays... I really wish! In any case I shall try to keep this up a bit more regularly.

The theme of this blog is mezzedotapas. This is a made up name of the Greek mezzes and the Spanish tapas. Oh, us Mediterranean people love our little bites of food accompanied with drinks and a lovely group of people. And let's face it, even my non Meditarranean friends enjoy it just as much. Who doesn't love having a variety of foods to pick and choose from? It can be as simple or as complicated as you wish and with the right company you can have a lovely tasty evening.
Rest assured there will be more posts on mezzedes and tapas as there are countless recipes and variations, and our household loves them very much!

Spanakotyropita with a sunblush twist.
In translation spanakotyropita is spinach and cheese pie. This is a very typical dish in Greece, and just as with the tyropitakia recipe posted a couple of posts ago, it can come in a variety of forms. I recently found a new recipe which has the addition of sundried/sunblush tomatoes. This sounds very strange to many Greek people, but trust me when I say, it's really good! And gratefully it's also very easy to make (if you manage to find filo pastry that is, not an easy task as I discovered first time round).

The ingredients:

• 400g spinach
• Half a leek, chopped roughly
• Bunch of parsley, chopped roughly
• A pinch or two of nutmeg
• 200g feta
• 2 eggs
• Jar of 150-200g sundried or sunblush tomatoes in oil
• 3 sheets of filo pastry
• A baking tin with a removable bottom

Preparation:
1) In a large pot heat a bit of water and tip in the spinach bit by bit, allowing it to wilt. Add the leek, parsley, nutmeg, pepper and a tiny amount of salt. Let it simmer for around 10 to 15 minutes (again I do this by eye!). Top with splashes of water if needed, but keep in mind that the spinach and leek will also release some liquids. Once cooked, tip into a sieve and with a spoon squish some of the excess water out and let cool.

2) Preheat the oven at 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Crumble the feta into a bowl, chop the sundried tomatoes (keep the oil for later) and prepare the pastry (the trickiest part of this recipe - see tip below). Once the spinach mixture has cooled, roughly chop it and tip back into the pot, add the feta, sundried tomatoes, eggs and stir into an even mixture.

3) Oil the baking tin with the sundried tomato oil. Take a filo pastry and layer snuggly inside the tin, with one end sticking out. Oil another sheet and repeat, with the extra bit of the pastry sticking out on another side of the tin. Repeat once more.

4) Spoon in the mixture, making sure that it also sits nicely on the edges. Cover the mixture with the ends of the pastry that are sticking out, scrunching it to give it a nice effect (purely for cosmetic purposes)

5) Again with the sundried tomato oil, oil the pastry on top. Place in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes.

A nice little trick to ensure it's nice and crispy is to bake it until slightly golden. Then take out of the oven and let it cool slightly. Remove the pie from the tin, but still keeping it on the bottom of the tin and placing it in the oven for another 10-15 minutes. This double baking ensures that the sides become crispy and golden.

This pie also looks very pretty (and more impressive) when baked in a round tin.

















Filo pastry tips and handling:
As mentioned earlier, filo pastry is slightly tricky to handle. It's best to take out of the fridge about 30 minutes before using (but keep it sealed in the packaging.) Take it out of the packaging right before you need to use it (this ensures it doesn't start drying out). Unfold it and cover with a dampened towel. Every time you need to take a sheet uncover, oil it quickly, peel the sheet off and cover again with the towel. Once you're done, roll up the remaining sheets and place in the packaging sealing it up with foil or cling film. I have used pastry from the same package within 2 weeks and it was fine, if only a little dry. I wouldn't really use it after 2 weeks of opening the package...
If you can't find filopastry in your ordinary supermarket, try Turkish and international supermarkets, they are bound to have it!


And lastly may I quote a great fan of this dish:
"This is the best thing I have EVER eaten!"
:p
Enjoy!

Tyropitakia

Here is the much promised post for the recipe of tyropitakia (deriving from the words "tyri"=cheese and "pita"=pie).
Cheese, and more specifically feta is very popular in Greece. As a consequence, it is of course used in many ways and enjoyed in various dishes. You can mix it in your salad (especially choriatiki salata, which is the typical "Greek" salad), you can cook it, you can have it as a side dish for a variety of dishes such as stuffed tomatoes, lentil soup etc., or just have it there with a nice plain old bread and olives. You can even roast or barbeque it by wrapping it in kitchen foil and adding onion, pepper, tomato, oregano and olive oil to that wrap. And then there is the typical spinach and cheese pies (spanakotyropita and tyropita). You can find those in small and various versions in many bakeries or cook large sized pies for a group to enjoy. My own version of tyropitakia (which is lots of little cheese pastries) which have fed many and is the perfect finger food for parties and gatherings, comes from a family friend who first showed me years ago how to make them. They are very easy and quick to make once you know what you're doing! I have to say I buy ready made pastry, cause let's face it: if I had to make that as well I wouldn't be making them that often...
So without further ado, here is the recipe!

Ingredients (for 16 tyropitakia, easily doubled)
250gr puff pastry
200gr feta (I like to add slightly more if I have it, so they can be nice and fat!)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
pepper for seasoning and giving them a slight kick
flour for dusting
melted butter (about 20-30gr)

In preparation have a large working surface nice and clean, to roll out the pastry. Butter your baking tray. I like to first line the baking tray with baking paper and buttering that instead. This makes washing easier and the pastries don't stick to the surface while baking. Tip: take the pastry out of the fridge about 30 minutes before as it will be easier to shape and handle.

Preheat oven at 180°C.

In a bowl crumble the feta with your fingers. 

Break the egg and mix it with the feta. 

Season with pepper according to taste and mix all the ingredients with a fork (mushing the slightly larger bits of feta that might have got away). Your filling is now ready. 

Split your pastry into 2. If you're working with pre-rolled pastry, just cut it in half.

Dust your hands and work surface with some flour. Take the pastry, roll it into a ball and flatten it out with a rolling pin, shaping it into a pizza shape.

Cut the rolled out pastry into 8 "pizza slices".

Now take a small spoonful from the filling and place it on the wide end of the "slices".

Take the sides from the wide end of the slice and fold inwards toward and over the filling.

Then roll from the top toward the smaller end to shape into a croissant type shape.

 

Repeat with all the pieces and then place them on your buttered baking tray. Repeat the whole process with the other half of your pastry.

With a brush, butter the top of the rolled cheese parcels.

Once they are all buttered take the egg yolk and brush the parcels. This will give them a nice golden colour when baked.


Place the tray in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes until cooked through.
Leave to cool for a bit, resisting the temptation to bite into them, as they will be piping hot!

A little alteration that I experimented with last time I made these was to add some chopped sundried tomatoes to the filling and it was yum.

Acknowledgements:
Photos taken by the wonderful Pau.
The batch I made for the illustrations was actually for 32 pastries (so that I could give some away and still have some for ourselves :p)

Enjoy :)

Sant Jordi, Catalan celebration

Sant Jordi, also known as La Diada de Sant Jordi, is a Catalan celebration, and a much better version of St. Valentine's day. According to old tradition a couple would celebrate, by the man giving his sweetheart a rose and she in return giving him a book. However I think that in this day and age this seemed quite sexist and the tradition has changed slightly in that the woman receives a rose AND a book.

According to http://www.donquijote.org/culture/spain/fiestas/ladiada.asp "Due to popular legends about Barcelona, roses have always been associated with this day since medieval times. However, the giving of books as a gift is a more recent marketing twist prominent of our times.
A smart bookseller began to promote the holiday in 1923 as a way to honor the simultaneous deaths of the two greatest men of literature: Spain’s Miguel de Cervantes and Britain’s William Shakespeare, both deceased on April 23, 1616." Also this has expanded from a celebration between couples to a celebration between friends as well.
I have been in Barcelona on this day and it's a beautiful one. A lot of people take the afternoon off work and stroll down the Ramblas and the centre of the city. The sun always seems to shine brightly and everyone is smiling happily. Book stalls are set up wherever possible and couples walk around hand in hand and carefree. Smiles all around!

This year Agnes, Samuel, Pau and I organised a little evening to share this tradition with friends. And of course (as our Mediterranean nature dictates) there was food involved! People were asked to bring some food and a book to give. The result was a really nice one, with tapas/mezze type food of different nationalities.

 

 

Our little buffet of yumminess.

 

The roses all the ladies of our gathering were to receive.

  

Flatbreads. These were first created by myself and Seb (a good friend from university). They were inspired by a couple of recipes we found and were then given a personal little twist. I have since then been trying slightly different versions and on Sant Jordi, they were the best I've made so far!

Recipe for 16 flatbreads (be warned, they take quite a while to prepare, and require a bit of muscle!)

Ingredients:
500gr of white bread mix
500gr of wholemeal bread mix
3tsp extra yeast
600ml luke warm water
3tbsp olive oil (plus extra for pan frying)
a pinch of salt
a handful of cumin seeds (toasted for a few minutes on a pan and then slightly ground to release the aroma)
a cup of sundried tomatoes chopped into small pieces (without oil, as liquids will make a mess of the bread dough)
a cup of raisins

• In a large bowl mix the bread flour mixes, the extra yeast, cumin seeds and salt. Make a well in the middle of the mix and pour in the oil and water. With your hands mix everything together until the liquids are absorbed.
• Knead the dough. I used to do this by hand for 10 minutes but this last time I remembered that a mixer I recently got came with dough hooks and used them. Even though it still requires some physical effort I found that the dough became much fluffier. I kneaded the dough with the hooks for 7 minutes (minimum time is stated at 5 minutes, but I always thry and add a bit more time for good measure)
• Shape the dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, tightly cover in cling film and leave to rise for at least an hour until doubled in size.
• Separate the dough into 16 pieces. Flour your worktop surface and your hands and roll a piece into a ball. Then flatten it out into an oval shape with a rolling pin. Spread the sundried tomatoes on one half of the shape and fold the other end over to cover them completely. Roll over with the rolling pin, to flatten out the dough and tomatoes within, making sure that the edges are sealed. Lay on a  surface (covered with baking parchment) and repeat the process for all 16 pieces alternating the filling of either sundried tomatoes or raisins.
• Leave the flatbreads to rise for a bout an hour. Just before cooking sprinkle them with olive oil.
• Get a griddle pan piping hot and shallow fry each side for a minute (it might not seem long enough at first, but trust me, that's enough as they will be nice and fluffy as opposed to dry and crispy!)
• Cut each flatbread in half and voila!

Tip: As the whole process takes quite a while and you probably do not want to be absolutely knackered by the time the evening comes rolling in, prepare the dough the night before, leave to rise until doubled in size and then pop into the fridge overnight. On the day prepare the flatbread shapes and cook.

Pau's Escalivada (a traditional Catalan tapas dish, often served with bread)

Ingredients:

1-2 aubergines

4-5 peppers (red and green)

olive oil

• Preheat oven at 180 degrees.
• Wash the vegetables and oil them slightly with your hands. Lay on a roasting tray and roast in the oven for about an hour, until they look softened and cooked through (they will look slightly charred and deflated).
• Remove from the oven and let them cool so you don't burn your hands in the next step!
• Once cooled, peel the vegetables with your hands, tear the flesh into strips, squeeze excess juices and place the strips in a container. Once all of them are done, pour olive oil (quite a bit, so that they can soak in it), salt and mix it all with your hands (I know it's messy, but it's the best and easiest way). Cover and chill overnight to allow for the flavors to blend.
• Remove from the fridge a bit before serving to allow the vegetables to reach room temperature. Serve with pa amb tomata (also a Catalan favourite in which a halved tomato is rubbed on toasted bread, which is then sprinkled with a bit of salt and olive oil). 

Tip from Pau: You will need to soak the veg in quite a bit of oil as they soak it up quite a lot. You might need to check it every now and then to make sure it's fairly liquid.

 

Agnes' herring and orange salad 

Ingredients:
smoked herring
2 oranges
1 onion

Sherry vinegar
black olives (stones removed)

• Remove the skin of the herring and cut into 2cm pieces. Marinate it in the juice of one orange  for 4 hours. 
• Cut the onion into very thin slices and let it marinate in Sherry vinegar for 4 hours. 
• Peele an orange and cut it into 2cm pieces.
• Chop the olives and mix all the ingredients together. Sprinkle with olive oil and serve. 

Bean dip (this goes nicely with the flatbreads, nachos or even the escalivada):
Ingredients:
400gr white beans (or mixed)
1 garlic clove (crushed)
100ml vegetable stock
A handful chopped coriander
Lemon juice

• Drain and rinse the beans.
• In a pan mix the beans, garlic and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and let it simmer until the juices are gone.
• Let it cool and stir in some lemon juice and the chopped coriander. Add some water if it's too dry.

After all the yummy food, the books were exchanged and the merriness continued...

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Mamen for a wonderful idea and the Syrian Lingerie books to all the ladies! Rest assured we shall not be trying any of the fashion suggested any time soon :p


P.S. In the next installment of the blog I shall put up a post on how to make cheese pastries. Their creation shall be explained with step by step photographs. Watch this space!