Category: Greece

October 2002 – My Big Fat Greek Feast – 20 Years Ago Today

Greetings from 2002!  This month I am cooking from the October 2002 issue of Australian Table.   Instead of cherry picking recipes from all over the mag, like I did with September 2002, this time I have cooked three Greek inspired dishes from an article called Acropolis Now.  Nice pun Australian Table.  At least they didn’t run with “It’s all Greek to Me”.  So, what is on the menu?

Greek Menu 221022

 

Broad Beans with Grilled Haloumi Cheese

OMG…these were AMAZING!!!!

I love a broad bean.  And you know who doesn’t love haloumi?  With all due respect to vegans and the lactose intolerant, people who are dead inside.  If you cannot find some sense of joy in the very prospect of grilled cheese?  We can’t be friends.  And you probably need to sign up for years of therapy.

Broad Beans with Grilled Haloumi Cheese

 

I totally botched the gorgeous grill marks you are meant to get on the haloumi but I didn’t do too bad a job of recreating the recipe as it appeared in the mag.  I wonder though, if this recipe appeared in a magazine today, would we need to have the word “”cheese appended to the haloumi?  I think not.  Apart from that though, this is a delicious dish that could appear on any table today without it feeling like a recipe that was 20 years old.

Here’s the recipe.  And…can I just say…I don’t think I did too bad a job at recreating the look of the magazine picture in my version!

Broad Beans with Haloumi Recipe

Keftethes and Greek Salad

I love how 2002 has to explain these as being Greek “Rissoles” .  Not even meatballs.  Rissoles.  The word rissole reminds me so much of this scene in the utterly brilliant Australian film The Castle.

These were great!  The mint was really nice and it made a very tasty yet simple weeknight dish! I was a bit worried about coating the keftethes with flour before cooking but it kept the meat from drying out and gave it a really nice crust!

Kefetethes

The keftethes paired really well with a Classic Greek Salad!

Kefetethes and Greek Salad

The recipe for the Greek Salad per Australian Table had no lettuce.  My local Greek restaurant, The Paradise of Lindos, always includes lettuce in their Greek Salad so I added some to mine without even realising it was not in the recipe.  Go your own way on this!   None of these dishes are breaking the mould when it comes to flavours or techniques.  But they were all flavourful and easy to make.  They would be a perfect weeknight dinner!

Here are the recipes:

Keftethes and Salad Recipe

For those of you with a sweet tooth, the article also contained a recipe for those lovely crescent shaped Greek shortbreads which I am very keen to try making!  If you would also like to try, here is a recipe for Kourabiethes.

The Film Event of October 2002

So, you know what else happened in October 2002?

If I told you that the film that Wikipedia  reliably informs me was “the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time” was released would you have any idea what I was talking about?  Take a guess.  Then take another because you were probably wrong.  Then, look at the title of this blog post and take another because who knew that?

My Big Fat Greek Wedding was released (in Australia) on 24 October 2002.  Starring Nia Vardalos and John Corbett (who was riding high on his role as Aiden in Sex and The City) it was a rom com about the cultural confusion that occurs when a Greek girl falls for an all American boy.

I remember being delighted by this film when it came out.  It was so funny and John Corbett was so handsome!   My clearest memory though is this one:

I fear that My Big Fat Greek Wedding might not stand up well to the test of time.  I was tempted to rewatch it for this but did not want my memories of a film I really enjoyed back in the day to be spoiled.  Was has stood up to the test of time are the recipes in the article on Greek cooking.  Acropolis Now?  I say Acropolis Wow!

I’ll show myself the door on that one!

Have a great week everyone!

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Get Me To The Greek – Spanakopita – Daring Kitchen

God Bless the Greeks.  They invented democracy, philosophy and some damn fine food.  Including fried cheese.  How good is that stuff?  You take cheese…which is one of my all time best ever foods to begin with…and fry it.  That;’s not even eleven.  That’s twelve! Possibly thirteen.  But, I digress, yeah, I know opening paragraph…and we’re already off track, because today we’re talking about the second wonder of the Greek cuisine pantheon…(or should that be Parthenon?) the cheese and spinach pie, also more formally known as the Spanakopita.

Spanakopita 1
Spanakopita 1

I live in Melbourne, which as anyone in Melbourne will tell you has the largest population of Greek people outside of Athens.  I have no idea if this is actually true or just one of those urban myths about the city you live in.  Regardless of numbers, there are a lot of Greek people and hence a lot of super delicious Greek food.  In fact, just as much as some families have the local Chinese or Indian restaurant, my family would go Greek.

No, not like that you bunch of perverts….I meant we would celebrate family occasions at the local  Greek restaurant.

Spanakopita Ingredients
Spanakopita Ingredients

Mind you, this did come after a debacle at the local Chinese.  You know the classic tale of the gauche family who drink the fingerbowls?  Not that old chestnut for my family.  No way.  Uh huh.

We’re a much classier lot.

So when, towards the end of our meal, the waiter delivered some small bowls of water to our table we dutifully dipped and dunked and positively soaked our fingers revelling in our (sub) urban/e sophistication.  He then reappeared with a plate of…I can best describe them as  caramel coated sweet dumplings.  The idea being that you dipped your caramel dumpling into the icy cold water thereby changing the caramel from a hot liquid to a crispy shell. We all looked to our now slightly grubby bowls of warmish water and the thought of dessert suddenly didn’t seem so good.

Now, I can’t speak a word of Mandarin, but believe me, that wasn’t a prerequisite to  understand what our waiter was muttering as he swished away the original bowls.  There is a certain tone people adopt when they say “You people are morons” that is pretty much universal.

We celebrated with Greek food from then on.

Spanakopita Ingredients - pre massage
Spanakopita Ingredients – pre massage

The February Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Audax of Audax Artifex. The challenge brought us to Greece with a delicious, flaky spanakopita – a spinach pie in a phyllo pastry shell.  I had thought I was au fait with the cooking of this particular dish as it is something I make fairly regularly.  However Audax’s version had a few curve balls.

First there was massaging the ingredients.  It made me think about those Wagyu cows…

Spanakopita 2
Spanakopita 2

Then post the massage there was the squeeze….this was both kind of disgusting and a shit ton of fun.

Squeezing...kind of gross.
Squeezing…kind of gross.
Squeezed Spinach (and my abnormally large man hands)
Squeezed Spinach (and my abnormally large man hands)

Post the squeeze, you end up with two bowls.  Once containing a dry mixture, one containing a milky green liquid.

Post Squeeze Spanakopita
Post Squeeze Spanakopita

It is at this point that I would diverge from the recipe as given by Audax and add some more cheese into the dry mixture.  I don’t know what happened to the cheese but somewhere during the massage or the squeeze it kind of disappeared, leaving a less cheesy spanakopita than I  would normally have.  For me, it’s all about the cheese.

Anyhow, then you add some couscous to the liquid and let it soak it all up.  This is utter brilliance.  The couscous bulks up the mixture so you can have a higher pie and it stops the bottom pastry getting soggy.

Spinach Juice and Couscous
Spinach Juice and Couscous

Another brilliant idea?  Cutting the squares before baking.  Stroke of genius!

Pre-Baked Spanakopita
Pre-Baked Spanakopita

 

Spanakopita - hot from the oven
Spanakopita – hot from the oven

Huh, I just realised I’ve mentioned fried Greek cheese in at least two out of the last three posts.  I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

I’m going to be spending my week having at least one trip to the Paradise of Lindos to partake of some plate smashing, some haloumi and maybe even a little bit of this…

ZorbaZorba

Have a great week whatever you get up to!

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