Traditional Greek Christmas cookies

Christmas is round the corner and I am already enjoying the festive spirit, drinking mulled wine and devouring the greek sweets I mostly miss this time of the year.  My great-grandmother  made them from flour and called them 'finikia', distingouishing them from melomakarona, the semolina based ones. Whatever the name and the main ingredient, melomakarona, as they are widely called, is a delicious  sweet and a popular offering during the Chrismas period, alongside 'kourampiedes', a sugar-dusted-butter cookie.

 There are many different ways to cook them; I chose the following recipe from my mother's friend, Magda, who always amazes us with her cooking.

Ingredients

 2 cups of olive oil
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of brandy ( I added black spicy rum, and it turned out fine)
1/2 cup of orange juice
zest of one orange
1 tsp of cinnamon
1200 g flour
2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the syrup

2 cups of honey (good quality)
2 cups of sugar
2 cups of water
1 orange cut in half
2 cinnamon sticks


First I make the syrup; it has to be ready and chilled and then add it to the hot from the oven baked cookies. I put the water and sugar in a medium sauce pan and wait until the mix comes to a boil; I then add the honey, the cinnamon sticks and orange and put the heat down.

In a big bowl I mix the olive oil, orange juice, zest and rum and start adding the flour, baking powder and soda, bit by bit, until it becomes one big ball. I start to knead it with soft movements until everything becomes one and it is easy to take small pieces and turn them into balls. To achieve the exact shape I used the cheese grader; I took each ball and pressed it against the grader and then rolled them into a curved shape. I will then put each one next to another on a baking paper, on a flat tray and into the oven to bake for 30 to 40 minutes on 200. They will be ready when they are cooked through but remain kind of soft in the centre. Hot from the oven I place them in the syrup and leave them in for 2 to 4 minutes depending on how much syrup I want them to absorb. I place them on a tray and sprinkle crushed walnuts on top.

Because they can get dry and hard after some days I kept some baked cookies  in order to reheat them and put them in the syrup another time.

Slow-cooked chicken in gingery and chilly flavoured tomato sauce with prunes, served with a sweet potato puree

The above dish is inspired by a Skye Gyngell's recipe. I've been reading her cook book and I am pretty amazed by the complexity of her flavours and textures. I tried to encapsulate the essence of her style in this dish, which turned out as I expected, a feast of tastes. From the fist mouthful I could taste the earthy flavour of the spice mix balancing with the bitterness of the lime, the saltiness of the tamari sauce and the sweetness of the honey. All this combined great with the sweet and hot, velvety taste of the puree and a refreshing green salad.

Ingredients

4 organic free range chicken thighs cut into pieces
sea salt and freshly grounded pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 big red onion, finely chopped
3 cm piece of fresh root ginger
a piece of tamarind resting into 2 tbsp of warm water for 20 min
1-2 garlic gloves
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tbsp coriander seeds, cumin seeds, black mustard seeds
1 tsp five spice mix
1 tsp of ground coriander ( fresh is better, root and stems finely chopped)
500 ml chicken stock
1x400g can of chopped tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp Tamari sauce (or according to taste)
1 tbsp of honey (or maple syrup)
100 gr prunes
juice of 1 limes (or according to taste)

First I will add the olive oil in a thick-based saucepan in medium heat. When it is hot enough I start browning the chicken pieces, turning them often to colour on all sides. When they are ready I remove them from the pan and keep them aside warm.

After I clean the pan from fat and chicken pieces I put it back in the heat and add the seeds, cooking them until they pop ( I could have already heated and crushed them from before). I then add the onions, cooking and stirring them until they began to soften. Following, I will throw in the ginger, tamarind water, garlic, chilli and the spice mix, continue stirring for another five minutes and then add the chicken stock, increasing the heat and bringing it to a boil. I will add the tomatoes, bay leaf and cinnamon and wait until it starts to boil to put the chicken back in the pan and reduce the heat to a simmering point. I will let it cook for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. To balance the flavours I will add the tamari sauce, the lime juice and then the prunes to add a bit of texture. I will give it a good stir, turn the heat slightly up and cook for another 20 minutes.

Meanwhile I have boiled water in a small saucepan and added two sweet potatoes chopped into chunks and a deseeded, finely-chopped chilly. After 20 minutes , when the potatoes are soft enough I put them in a bowl with some organic unsalted butter and work them into a puree, adding towards the end 1 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of honey and a tsp of tamari sauce. I will adjust the seasoning by tasting it and add some freshly grounded black pepper.
 

Making a salad into a meal

In order to maintain a healthy diet I try to add vegetables in each of my meals. I will always serve a salad with the main dish and to make it more exciting I will experiment with different colours and textures and enhance the taste with playful dressings. Sometimes the salad is the main dish, having a balanced fat/carb/protein ratio.

 A prawn salad with runner beans and mixed sprouts with a traditional vineigrette dressing and some cayenne pepper on top

Quinoa with lettuce and spring onions, red, yellow peppers, courgette and cherry tomatoes cut in cubes and scrabbled with feta cheese
 


A tuna, crab and green salad with a mustard, honey, chilly, garlic, lemon and extra virgin oil dressing.
 

Beef minced pie

I will be usually baking spinach pies but this time I made a beef minced pie,  a quite succesfull one I must admit. At first I thought of cooking the minced meat the way I do the bolognese sauce ( I have been trying a nice Carluccio's recipe) but then I decided to omit the tomato and cook the meat in its own juices with vegetables and potato pieces. And by the way, next time I will dare make my own pastry.

Ingredients
philo pastry ready made
1 onion finely chopped
1/2 kilo of beef minced meat
2 potatoes chopped into squares
2 carrots chopped into squares
1 leek finely chopped
1 parsnip chopped into cubes
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp of red wine
1 maggi cube with prawn ( just experimenting)
1 Tbsp  jerk seasoning
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
1 egg


First I heated the oil in a shallow, thick-based frying pan. I added the onion and cooked it until it became transparent. I threw in the minced meat, cooking it for a good 20 minutes and stirring constantly. I had already added the seasoning. Then it was time for the vegetables, cooking them until soft and for a little bit of flavour adding the wine at the end and letting the alcohol evaporate. Meanwhile I had made small square-sized pastry pieces, flattened with a rolling pin. When the filling was cooked I positioned two to three spoons of the mix in the centre of the pastry pieces, folding them in half and joining the edges, gluing together with a beaten egg. I, then put them in a baking tray and in the preheated oven to lay for the next half ( or more) hour.

Pasta in sauce with sun dried tomatoes, celery and fish leftovers

Coming back tired and hungry after a long walk to Crystal Palace park in zero temperature, I decided to make a quick pasta with a tomato sauce and add anything available at this time, including the fish leftovers from the delicious trout fillet with leeks and mushrooms, which I had recently cooked in the oven.

I experimented by adding the sun-dried tomatoes I have brought back from my recent trip to Athens; the trout is an oily fish with a buttery, rich taste and the sweet and tangy sun-dried tomatoes with some dried basil and a bay leaf to add some sharpness could elevate the dish flavour. The tomato sauce was cooked in a basic and traditional greek way, simple seasoning, celery and carrot. I thought about using my organic wholegrain spelt fusilli but chose to go for the wheat-made Napolina spaghetti, which proved ideal for this sauce, although I broke up my no-wheat regime. Just loved it (and ate a double portion)!

Ingredients (4 portions)

150 gr cooked trout ( i removed the skin)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 big white onion
1 garlic clove sliced
3 Tbsp of white wine
5 sun-dried tomatoes chopped into cubes
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1 red chilly pepper thinly sliced
1 stalk of celery
1 carrot chopped into cubes
and some dried basil and parsley, from Ios island

The sauce will take about 20 minutes so I start by heating the olive oil in a medium pan, and then adding the onion and garlic (I always add both onion and garlic but some good cooks have told me they  will never add both of them in a dish). After 2 minutes I throw in the celery and carrot, cook them for 3 minutes, add the sun-dried tomatoes and pour in the wine, stirring everything together and waiting for the alcohol to evaporate. I then add the tomato paste and chopped tomatoes, the bay leaf and half a can of water and bring it to a boil. I will put down the heat, add basil,  chilly and some freshly grounded pepper. Meanwhile the sauce is cooking, I prepare the pasta according to the packet instructions in a pan of salted boiling water, then drain and place it back into the pan with a Tbsp of olive oil, stirring to coat all of the pasta. When the sauce is cooked and after I have added the pre-cooked fish to it, I will put everything together, add some fresh chopped parsley and serve hot.