Olive bread (ψωμί με ελιές)

You may have noticed that I already posted a recipe for olive bread and now I shall describe another, equally as delicious. This is a great bread for making on Sundays and enjoying with family. You can keep it and enjoy it in the week, I take it to work and enjoy it for my lunch. 


Olives are so wonderful and vital to our Greek-Cypriot diet; the flesh is eaten, the oil is spread, slurped or sizzled. Bread is also an important part of our culture, our food is all about sharing and this is the ultimate symbol of togetherness. 


Ingredients: 
Handful of chopped Kalamata olives
300g flour
7 grams yeast
4 tablespoons olive oil (olive oil) 
175ml warm water
1 and a half teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon raw cane sugar
A little more olive oil (good quality)


In a bowl, mix together the yeast, warm water, olive oil and sugar and leave for around 15-20 minutes. 


Add the salt and flour, slowly blending and then take out of the bowl and knead the dough for around ten minutes. Then roll into a medium ball and brush with a little olive oil. Place in a bowl and cover with a tea towel, then put in a warm place to rise for around 2 hours. 


After two hours take the dough and hit it a couple of times with your fist on a work-top. Preheat the oven to 220°C.


Now gradually fold in the olives until they are all within the dough. Mould it into a ball shape, brush with a little more olive oil and place on a greased baking sheet. Cover again with a tea-towel and leave it for another 30 minutes. 


Then uncover and mark some circles on the top with a sharp knife. Place the bread in the oven and bake for around 25 minutes. When it is done, leave it to cool and enjoy it dipped in some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. 

Traditional Greek Pasta Bake (Παστίτσιο)

Apparently this is what the crew eat on the Greek ships, so despite the fact (I've heard) that they do not have the greatest reputation for on-board safety, at least your last meal would be a good one. 

This is is the epitome of the Greek-Cypriot kitchen and you will find it at every festive celebration. The party just isn't complete without the μακαρόνια του φούρνου (makaronia tou fournou). Well, it's always there because yiayia has made it and you hope that there is some left because you can take it home and keep it in the freezer for you to enjoy all by yourself on one of those flake-out evenings. 

I have no doubt that this is one of the most famous recipes, lasagne loving Italians move out of the way because we Greeks also know a thing or two about pasta bakes ;) 

Half a pack of macaronia (we use long pasta tubes)

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons dried mint

half tsp ground cinammon

1/2 pack of halloumi cheese

350g pork mince

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon tomato puree

100ml white wine

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

For the bechamel:

3-4 glasses milk

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons flour

3 eggs, beaten 

half teaspoon of nutmeg

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Heat some oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and add the onion, stir for a few minutes. Add the tomato puree and pork mince and cook for a further 5 minutes, until it has browned. Now add the wine and smell the lovely aroma as it sizzles. After a couple of minutes add the chopped tomatoes and continue to cook over a medium heat for about 5-10 more minutes. Turn it off and leave aside. 

Meanwhile boil the pasta for 8 minutes. Then drain and add the butter, mint and cinnamon. Stir well to ensure the pasta is covered. Now get a large baking dish and add a thin layer of the meat mixture, then a layer of pasta, then meat and so on until you run out of both. 


In a saucepan melt the butter over a low heat, then add the flour and stir with a whisk continuously. Slowly add the milk and keep stirring until, then the eggs (still stirring) until you form a thick bechamel sauce. The mixture should be thick and creamy, you can add more milk to make it thinner or more flour to thicken it. Stir in the nutmeg and season with salt and pepper. Now pour it over the top of the layers in the baking dish. 

Place into the oven and cook for around 40 minutes. When it is done, you can eat it immediately or leave it to cool and eat is as part of a midday lunch. It is delicious cold too! 

Olive bread (ελιόπιτα)

If there is one thing I am grateful for, being Greek, it is the olives... kalamata, stuffed, yiayia's own pressed olive oil from Cyprus, olive bread, olive pastries...



My favourite is this olive bread, it's not really a typical bread but a bit like a cake loaf. The aroma from the mint really gives it something special and it is so unlike the olive bread you can buy in a store. The texture is soft in the middle and the smell takes you to small village streets, ladies sitting outside their houses dressed all in black. 


Ingredients: 
1 onion chopped finely
2 handfuls of fresh chopped coriander
1 tablespoon dried mint
2 cups black olives, chopped
200ml olive oil
5 eggs
200ml milk
350g self raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt


Grease a cake tin and preheat the oven to 220°C


Beat together the eggs and the oil and then stir in the milk. Then slowly add the flour, salt and baking powder, beating all the time. 


Stir in the coriander, olives, onion and mint and mix it all together well. Now pour the mixture into the cake tin and pop it in the oven for about 45 minutes. When it is done, it should be golden brown and cooked in the middle. 

Leave it to cool and then serve in cake-like slices along with tzatziki or tahini and a big fat Greek salad.

Tava (Aρνί ταβάς)

This is a great dish for a Sunday afternoon when you have visitors. If your family are coming round, this is perfect as it is all in one dish and can go in the oven to cook while you tidy the house ;) 


Ingredients:


Shoulder lamb of about 1kg
1 kg of potatoes, cut into quarters
1 large onion, roughly chopped
1/2 cup of olive oil
large knob of butter
4 tomatoes, medium slices
1 table spoon of tomato puree
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Sea salt and pepper


Handful of fresh coriander to garnish


Preheat oven to 160°C.


Mix together the olive oil and the herbs and spices. Put the lamb in a large oven dish and massage with half of the oil mixture. Then arrange the onion slices and potatoes around in the dish and then add the rest of the olive oil mix and give them a sprinkling of sea salt and pepper. 

Now add the tomato slices and dot small amounts of butter on the top and cover the dish with foil. Place it in the oven for around 3 hours (now go and relax!). After 3 hours, turn up the oven to about 180°C and cook for another hour. Finally, remove the foil and cook for another 30-40 minutes on 200°C.


The lamb should be browned, cooked through and soft enough to melt in the mouth. This dish will definitely impress at a Sunday family gathering. 


Put a big Greek salad on the table with this dish and enjoy with a well-deserved glass of wine. Bask in the complements!

Raviolia (Ραβιόλια)

This is a typical cypriot dish, perfect for an evening where time is short as these can be frozen and eaten at a later date. My yiayia makes these for my pappou at lunchtime and just the smell of the aromatic mint and halloumi takes me to the heart of Nicosia in the summer. Recently, I had one of those uneventful Sundays. There was some halloumi that my yiayia had bought me from Cyprus leftover and so decided to make some raviolia. In the cupboard I also have a stash of the most wonderful dried mint (also from my yiayia) and you really can smell the difference between that and the one from the supermarket...there is no comparison.

Ingredients: 

225g plan flour

2 tablespoons of olive oil

2 eggs

150g grated halloumi cheese

50ml warm water

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground cinammon

1 tablespoon dried mint

dash of pepper

You will also need a ravioli cutter or shaper.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, salt, oil and egg. Then add the water slowly and work the dough for around 5-10 minutes. The dough should be soft and not too sticky or too dry, if you need more water or flour then add it. Set it aside, covered with clingfilm and leave it for about half an hour.

For the filling, mix together the other egg, the halloumi and the spices and herbs.

Roll half of the the pastry out thinly and lay either on a floured surface or on to a ravioli shaper. If you doo not have a shaper then mark out regular squares of about 2x2cm. Place a spoon of the filling in the middle of each ravioli and then cover with a second thin layer of the pastry. Cut out the ravioli shapes and set them onto a plate.

When you have used up all of the pastry and filling, leave the raviolia for about half an hour. Afterwards, you can either cook them, boiling for about 10-15 minutes or freeze them. If you decide to freeze them then arrange them in layers with clingfilm in-between each layer so that they do not stick.

I like to eat them plain, with a drizzle of olive oil or in some vegetable stock. I also like to make a thick spicy tomato sauce and spoon it over the top.

This is what we eat when we are in Cyprus and are too tired to go out to eat. There is always a supply of them in the freezer and they are so quick to just throw in the pan. But more importantly...they are delicious ;)

Grandma's Apple Taart

In the Netherlands, you don't have yiayias, you have omas. "Oma" is the Dutch word for grandma and the Oma's appel taart is a true Dutch delicacy. As I currently live away from my home country, I thought it appropriate to take a peek at what the Dutch have for us in terms of the traditional recipes, made famous by a generation of grandmothers whose lessons are sadly being forgotten. 


You will be hard pressed to find a dutch cafe that doesn't offer you koffee en gebak and it will always be a tempting looking apple tart. At every birthday party I attend here in the Netherlands, there is always a slice waiting for you. 


So, it's a real crowd pleaser and definitely one for the winter months. Thus, I urge you to make it and invite your friends and family over for koffie en gebak. 


Ingredients:


For the dough:
300g self-raising flour
150g caster sugar
175g (salted) butter
1/2 egg (save the rest for brushing the pastry)


For the filling:
1 kilogram apples (hard, sour ones), halved and sliced thinly or in sticks
75g raisins (soaked in water)
75g granulated sugar
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon (mmmmm)
juice of half a lemon


And some toasted bread crumbs to make sure the cake does not stick


Instructions:


Butter a round cake tin and sprinkle the bread-crumbs to line the tin. 


Combine all of the ingredients for the dough and work until smoothly combined. Wrap in cling-film and leave in the fridge. 

Now combine the ingredients for the filling in a bowl. 

Retrieve the pastry from fridge and roll it out to form the sides and bottom (for this I usually use the bottom of the cake tin as a guide. Then spoon the filling into the tin. Now roll out the rest of the pastry and make a thatch pattern on top, or alternatively a pattern of your choice. 

Brush with the remaining egg half and then pop it in the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes at 175°C.

Serve with whipped or pouring cream and a sprinkling of icing sugar for decoration.

Yiayia's Yiouvarlakia (Γιουβαρλάκια Γιαγιάς)

It has taken me a while to really get the right inspiration for this blog, yet I think I have finally cracked it! I realised that living abroad makes you miss the really homely things in life. One of these things for me is my yiayia's cooking. Yet in many ways, being away has brought me closer to my culture than ever before. Me and my yiayia speak regularly now on the phone about recipes, and I am always calling her for inspiration when I can't decide what to cook. After all, she is the expert on feeding people well! 

Now, everyone probably thinks that their yiayia is the finest cook in the world and I am no exception. Somehow yiayia's manage to pack in a special ingredient (for scientific purposes I'll call it the 'yiayia factor'), which I believe is only available to you when you yourself become a yiayia. Even if you copy their instructions step-by-step, theirs will always taste better.

I want to keep these recipes alive, share them; their taste, their tradition, their ability to bring family together.

For me, my favourite food is an easy choice; Avgolemoni (Egg and Lemon soup). This soup is always different depending on whose family makes it and I have experience the good, the bad and even the ugly. So you should by now know what I am going to say...yes my yiayia's one is the most delicious. However, this recipe is not for Avgolemoni. This recipe is for Yiouvarlakia (Egg and Lemon soup with meatballs). It so reminds me of being in Cyprus, in a little traditional restaurant during the old days when Nicosia was not yet home to swish bars, starbucks and sushi. The recipe originally comes from Greece and my dad swears that his yiayia (my great grandmother) made the nicest one (what a surprise!) 

Ingredients: 

250g lamb mince

1 onion grated

100g rice 
hanful chopped parsley

2 eggs (yellows and whites separated) 

juice of 2 and a half lemons 

3 litres chicken stock 

Mix the onion, parsley, rice and lamb mince with some salt and pepper in a bowl until well combined. 

Roll into small balls, then fry them for in some olive oil until they are browned.

Add the chicken stock and simmer for about 30 minutes, then leave aside to cool a little. 


In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites a little (you can use an electric whisk) and then add the yellows. Keep whisking all the time and then add the lemon juice. Now add half a cup of water and (as I said before) don't stop whisking. Now add a ladle at a time of the stock from the pan into the bowl whilst whisking. When the bowl becomes warm you can stop whisking. 


Now slowly, whilst stirring, pour the contents of the bowl back into the pan. Stir well and leave. You can warm the soup a little when you are ready to eat but do not boil it again as the egg may curdle. 

Enjoy!