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!

easter roast, Greek style

With the easter celebrations behind us, I thought what better occasion to finally start actually using this blog (this being my first post after creating the actual blog about a couple of months ago). 

Easter in Greece is a huge celebration and many traditions are attached to it both religious and non-religious. On Easter Sunday families and friends gather together and start roasting the lamb. And when I say lamb, I mean a WHOLE lamb (spit-roast). 

My memories of Easters passed are similar: Someone starts roasting the lamb at the break of dawn in the hope that the lamb will be ready by lunch time. Families and friends arrive in the morning and start chatting and taking it in turns spinning the lamb over the coal. Traditional Greek music plays in the background. The drinks soon come out and the yummy smells from the lamb start to make bellies grumble in anticipation. Lunch time comes around yet the lamb doesn't seem to be ready. People start picking at the crispy parts of the lamb, while consuming more drink. Soon people start to sing and dance in merriment. And then finally, sometime after 3 or 4 pm lo and behold! the lamb is ready! The carving begins! People gather putting the final touches together: tzatziki! salads! more drink! gather the kids! The food is ready! People have their egg competitions (another tradition, that I won't go into detail now), People sit, people start eating. And the merry atmosphere of food and drink and dance and laughter goes on till the evening...

I have not had the chance to enjoy these delights for 10 whole years. Somewhere along the line I decided I needed to learn how to cook lamb (all be it just a leg of lamb in my oven, but it would have to do) and gather my friends and share an element of this day with them. This year, in Brussels and on a strange miscalculation on Easter Monday, friends came over for our little feast. The sun was shining and we decided to pop open a bottle of bubbly and have it in our little terrace with a small starter I'd prepared while waiting for the lamb to cook (let's face it, if we didn't have to wait for the lamb something would be missing from this wonderful day)

 

Sunshine and friends.

Cherry tomatoes filled with home-made tapenade, mozarella and sprinkled with basil leaves:

For the tapenade: 

200gr pitted black olives

1 garlic clove

1 tbsp olive oil

a handful of basil leaves

Blend all the ingredients together and there you have it! Home made tapenade :)

For the cherry tomatoes construction:

Cut the top of the tomatoes off and scoop out most of the juice (you can keep the juices for pan tomata - I'll save that for another blog post). Fill the tomatoes with some tapenade, and top off with half of a mini mozarella ball. Sprinkle with fresh basil. This is a very nice and refreshing starter which I came up with the day before when I decided to do the tapenade, and it worked a treat.

After some waiting around and the correct amount of hunger the oven roasted lamb was ready, so we all moved indoors for the yumminess!

 

 

For the roast lamb:

Ingredients

Leg of lamb: I got about 2.5kg (2 pieces) for 6 people and it was almost completely gone!

Enough potatoes for them to be spread out on the tray and NOT pile up on each other (this was a tip my aunt Marianna gave me, and she was completely right! If the potatoes are too many then they won't go crispy)

Juice of 2-4 lemons

Quite a bit of garlic! (cloves cut into 2-3 thick slices)

And of course extra virgin olive oil

Start off by boiling the lamb for 1.5-2 hours. This is a tip from my grandmother, and it ensures that the meat will be nice and soft inside. When it is nearly done juice the lemons, cut the garlic and potatoes (I don't peal them but that's up to preference) and preheat the oven to around 200 degrees Celcius. Lay the lamb on a tray (if you have 2 pieces you might need 2 trays to make sure the potatoes are spread out) and then of course the potatoes and a few pieces of garlic. With a knife slit parts of the meat and stuff them with the pieces of garlic. Drizzle everything with 3-4 spoons of the water left over from the boiling of the meat, the lemon juice and some olive oil (I'm sorry I do everything by eye and don't have a set measurement for this recipe!). Sprinkle with some salt, pepper and oregano. Baste everything and put in the oven. After around 20-30 minutes turn the lamb around, baste it with the juices and return to the oven. It will be ready when the lamb and potatoes are crispy (I usually think it takes around 1 hour in total, but then again I always seem to make people wait a little longer, believe me the crispyness is worth the wait!). Oh and another handy tip from my aunt: don't stir  or baste the potatoes at any point! Otherwise they might turn out soggy, and who wants that??

Serve with tzatziki and salad and tuck in!

I think I'm going to end the first blog post here as it's quite long already. Hope you enjoyed it and come back for more :)

Acknowledgements:

There was one casualty in the celebrations of the day... A suicidal easter chic decided to drown its sorrows and itself in Hylke's wine. We managed to rescue it as it started to drown in what we perceived to be slow motion. It rejoined its colourful friends and life was worth living again for this little fella