Greek Pumpkin Pie For Halloween!

We don't celebrate Halloween in Greece, but I thought that perhaps those of you living in countries where it is celebrated might like to make these delicious little pumpkin pies - pumpkin being the order of the day!

We have previously posted this recipe here, so if you wish you can click on the link to see it. It also includes how to make your own philo pastry if you want. By the way, they're lovely with cream!

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Pies

Greek Apple Spoon Sweet (Glyko Koutaliou me Mila Firikio)

We previously posted the recipe for Orange Spoon Sweet and this is the recipe for a spoon sweet with firikio apples. I haven't been able to find the English word for firikio, but they are small, tasty apples - you can see the ones we picked in the photo at the bottom. As I mentioned previously, it's common practice in Greece if you visit someone during the day or early evening, to be offered a spoon sweet, or 'gliko koutaliou'. This is a sweet made from fruit and kept in a jar, to be served on sweet dish (preferrable glass) whenever someone comes.

The recipe below has 2 kg of sugar, but some people use less. You can try it and see what suits your taste. It's really easy to make and is a delightful sweet to eat.


Ingredients


1 kg firikio apples
2 kg sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
10 cloves
4 cups water
Juice from 1 lemon
8 tbsp glucose
Peeled almonds


Preparation

Peel the apples and core them so that they are still whole but there is a hole through the middle.

Place the apples in a bowl of water and add the lemon juice.

In a pan boil the sugar with the water and the glucose.

As soon as it comes to the boil and the sugar has dissolved, add the apples, cinnamon sticks and cloves.

Continue boiling the mixture, removing the froth every so often, until the syrup has formed. After about 30 min. you can check the apples with a fork and if they are cooked and the syrup has formed, you can remove from the heat.

Let it cool, remove the cinnamon sticks and cloves and fill in the hollow core with almonds.

Put the mixture in a large glass jar, ready to serve whenever you wish.



Eat and Enjoy!

The Brain In Your Gut

I just came across this interesting talk on TED by food scientist Heribert Watzke. Did you know you have functioning neurons in your intestines - about a hundred million of them? Watzke tells us about the "hidden brain" in our gut and the surprising things it makes us feel.

He also claims that cooking has made us what we are and suggest that instead of omnivores we should be called coctivors - from the Latin word coquere = to cook.

I'm not sure how much I would agree with what he says, but it's certainly interesting to listen to. Food for thought, you could say!

Greek Gavros (Whiting) With Peppers

We showed in a previous post how to prepare whiting (gavros) as a meze. Below you can see another way of preparing it as a delicious dish with red, green, orange and yellow peppers.

Ingredients

1 kg small whiting

1 onion sliced into fine rings

1 green pepper

1 red pepper

1 orange pepper

1 yellow pepper

2 cloves garlic

4 tbsp tomatoes cut into cubes without juice or seeds

3 tbsp parsley chopped

60 ml olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds.

Place the peppers under the grill with the skin side up for approx. 15 minutes.

You can now remove the skin easily and discard it.

Remove the head, tail and central bone from the whiting, keeping just the fillet but making sure that the fish are whole and not split.

Salt the fish and place in the fridge while you prepare the sauce.

Slice the peppers.

Place the oil in a frying pan and gently fry the onion rings for 2 minutes.

Add the peppers and garlic and fry for another 3 minutes.

Add the tomato cubes and parsley, stir and fry for another 2 minutes, adding salt and pepper.

Place half of the sauce you have now prepared in a shallow oven dish.

Arrange the fish on top of the sauce and then spread the remaining sauce on top.

Place in a pre heated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes, so that the fish is cooked and the sauce set.

Eat and Enjoy!

Authentic Greek Recipes Now Available On Kindle

I'm very excited to announce that we have brought out Authentic Greek Recipes as a Kindle book. For those of you who have Kindle, you can get the book either from the US or the UK Amazon store.





The book contains delicious Greek recipes as they are cooked in the country, with well-known dishes as well as lesser known. It also has a step-by-step guide to making your own phylo pastry.

For those of you favouring vegetarian recipes, we have also brought out Greek Vegetarian Recipes as a Kindle book - again from both the US and UK Amazon stores.




Lots of recipes here to delight vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike! The recipes in this book are also contained in the Authentic Greek Recipes book, so there is no need for you to buy both books.

If you don't have Kindle, then you can get it now at a greatly reduced price at both the US and UK Amazon stores.




Happy reading and cooking!

Greek Spetsiotiko Fish

This is a method of baking fish that comes from the island of Spetses - hence the name Spetsiotiko. It can be used for a few different types of fish. The one we prepared which you can see in the photo is Fagri or sea bream. You can also use large Lavraki or sea bass, Sinagrida or dentex, Sfirida or white grouper, large Tsipoura or dorado. As far as I have checked, these are the correct English translations of the fish names.


Ingredients


1 kg fish
3 cups grated tomatoes
1 ½ cups olive oil
3 tbsp parsley finely chopped
1 clove garlic crushed
1 cup crumbled rusks
Salt & pepper


Preparation

Clean the fish and salt it.

You can leave the fish whole, but if it is large you can cut it into slices.

Make the sauce by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl, apart from the rusks.

Place the fish in an oven dish and pour the sauce over it.

Take half of the rusks and sprinkle them over the fish.

Put a little of the sauce over the rusks to moisten them.

Sprinkle the rest of the rusks on top.

Put in a pre heated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for approx. 1 hour.

During this time, once or twice you can spoon some of the sauce in the oven dish over the fish. If, for some reason, you find that there is not enough sauce, you can add a little white wine.

When it’s done, the sauce should be like a crust on the fish.


Eat and Enjoy!