Red curry with tofu, brown mushrooms and runner beans

For this dish I followed a simple recipe found on the red curry paste package . By adding, though,  chopped mint leaves and serving it with coarse bulgur instead of noodles or rice, I managed to transform it into a new dish. It sounds simple but the flavours combined perfectly and gave the dish a divine taste.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp red curry paste
1 can of coconut milk
1 clove of garlic
runner beans
4 brown mushrooms
chopped mint leaves
1/2 cup coarse bulgur

I start with the bulgur, rinsing it with water and then adding it to 600ml boiling water. I will add a vegetable cube and stir it once, cover the pan and let it simmer for around twenty minutes. Meanwhile, I prepare my curry. The recipe sites that we should heat the coconut milk and add the curry and the vegetables. I changed it slightly; mixed two spoons of red curry paste with two full spoons of the cream that concentrates on the top of the can and the garlic chopped to get some extra flavour and then poured in slowly the rest of the coconut milk, the mushrooms and beans. After 15 minutes of simmering my curry is ready. I will mix the curry with the bulgur and add the chopped mint leaves on top.

Tart with salmon, leeks and dill

Trahanas

This week I wasn't feeling well so I was cooking mainly 'sicky food'. Deprived of taste and smell and with no appetite or energy to make my usual experimental dishes, I, instead, went back to my childhood memories and dug up easy to make dishes, such as chicken soup with lemon and egg sauce (kotospupa), dry bread (frigania) and a grain and milk thick soup( trahanas), simple and nutritious recipes but most important, ideal for upset stomachs and feverish colds.

Trahanas is made from a mix of cracked wheat or rye and milk and can be cooked into a soup with water , stock or milk ; could be made into a thick pie or added into other dishes instead of or with rice. There are many different variations of the basic recipe across Greece and its origins go back to ancient Greece.

My grandmother used to make each September the whole year's production, boiling the ground wheat with the sour milk, letting the mixture to cool overnight, and then spreading it in the form of small balls under the sun to dry out on a sheet for a couple of days. She would cook it into a soup with water and throw in an egg when the soup was ready.

My take was to make a chicken soup and add trahanas instead of rice.



Ingredients

150 gr trahanas
1 chicken breast ( better if I had thighs or the whole chicken)
1 carrot
1 celery
1 onion
salt and pepper
feta cheese

The idea is to boil the chicken breast with the vegetables until it's cooked, pass everything through a sieve, keep the vegetables and chicken aside and add trahanas into the water. It will take 12 minutes to be cooked. Meanwhile I melt the vegetables and shred the chicken and add everything to the trahanas soup with some feta cheese to make it more salty. Grind some pepper on top and the soup is ready.

Just to add that in the traditional chicken soup, we boil the chicken with the vegetables and the last ten minutes we add the rice. Meanwhile we whisk together the juice of one lemon with 2 eggs  till we get a smooth mix. Βefore we pour it into the hot soup we mix one cup of the warm soup water into the egg-lemon mix, then whisk to combine.

Stefano's red pepper pesto and chestnut flour cake

The photos don't do it justice, but this shell pasta with red pepper pesto was absolutely delicious. The recipe was simple; all you need is the right ingredients and an italian touch.

Ingredients (for 6 people)

2 Tbsp olive oil
12 red peppers cut into strips
2 Tbsp wine vinegar
3 gloves of garlic
grated parmesan cheese
basil (12 leaves)

1 packet of conchiglie rigate (shell pasta)
grated parmesan cheese



After heating the olive oil in the pan, Stefano added the red pepper slices and cooked them for 10 min or until they became brown. Before removing the pan from the heat, he poured in some wine vinegar to balance the sweetness from the peppers. When the peppers cooled down, he added them to the food processor with the garlic, the parmesan cheese and the basil, making them into a paste. The pasta was cooked according the packet's instructions and was mixed with the pesto before served.

The chestnut flour cake

Guvetsi with hilopites

The word guvetsi derives from the turkish word guves, the ceramic tray which is traditionally cooked in. Usually it is meat cooked lengthily in the oven with pasta and/or vegetables.

Ingredients

1 tbsp of olive oil
800 gr lamb cut into pieces
2 red onions cut into small chunks
2 carrots cut into medium pieces
 1 leek cut into pieces
1 aubergine cut into pieces
2 zucchini cut into pieces
2 garlic cloves cut into pieces
1/2 glass of white wine
1 and a half can of chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp of tomato paste
500 ml beef stock
500 gr hilopites (greek soup pasta)
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp ras el hanout
2 bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbsp of sugar
salt and freshly grounded pepper

I heat up the olive oil in a thick-based large saucepan and when it starts bubbling I add the lamb pieces, leaving them to cook until they get a nice brown colour in each side. Then I will add bit by bit the onions, the leeks, the carrots, the zucchinis, the garlic, the ras el hanout and thyme. I stir occasionally and when the vegetables soften I pour in the wine and wait until it evaporates. Then i will add the tomato can and paste, the bay leaves and 500 ml of stock (could use vegetable or beef stock). I reduce the heat, put the lead on and let it cook for an hour at least. When the meet is cooked I will add 500 ml of water , stir everything together and put it in a ceramic tray with the pasta. I cover it with foil and let it cook for 20 minutes or until the pasta is cooked. Mine took longer because either I've put more pasta and less sauce or the tray wasn't big enough.
I should have halfcooked the pasta before bake it i the oven.

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.