Hungry Mouth

Gigantes Plaki: A Greek bean dish

This is my first ever entry in IMBB (Is My Blog Burning).  I'm excited to be joining the fabulous food blogging community. 

We encountered this delicious bean dish in tavernas throughout Greece, usually served at room temperature as an appetizer. One advantage of this dish is it can be cooked 1 or 2 days in advance.  It improves with age. For more about our 3 weeks in Greece last spring see Exploring greek food. 

Gigantes Plaki

1 c dry gigantes or large lima beans
3 bay leaves (Greek if possible)
2 T EVOO
1 onion, minced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 15 oz can chopped tomatoes, fire roasted preferred
2 T rigani (dried oregano, Greek if possible )
1 bay leaf
1/2 c red wine
1 T honey
S & P to taste
juice of 1 lemon
1 T red wine vinegar
1/4 c chopped parsley
1 T chopped Parsley
1 T chopped Dill

Soak beans in lots of water to cover over night or boil beans in lots of water for one minue and allow to sit covered for 1 hour. (These beans soak up lots of water).  Drain beans.  Return to pot and cover with lots of water, bring to boil, reduce to simmer, add 3 bay leaves, cover and simmer.  Check every 15 minutes.  Beans are done when they are just soft through-out.  They will cook a bit more later. (Mine took 30 minutes to get done).  Drain beans (save water) and remove bay leaves.  In same pot heat olive oil.  Saute onions til soft.  Add garlic and saute for a few minutes.  Add tomatoes plus their juice.  Add rigani, bay, wine, honey and S & P.  Allow to simmer for 15 minues or until well amalgamated.  Add beans to sauce.  Add enough reserved bean water to keep beans juicy but not soupy.  Barely simmer for about 30 minutes to allow flavors to blend, or if you prefer, bake beans at 325.  Beans should be meltingly tender but not quite falling apart.   Add lemon juice, vinegar and 1/4 c parsley.  Remove from heat.  Serve hot or at room temp.  Garnish with chopped parsley and dill.  Makes 4-6 side dish 8-10 appetizer servings.

Growing Greece

I brought more than memories home from Greece. We were so taken with Greek cucumbers and tomatoes that we decided to grow our own. During our last week in Greece we stopped at every nursery or likely looking store to buy seeds to no avail. We finally found some seed packets in a small curio store in Athens. We bought tomato and cuke seeds as well as horta (wild green) seeds.

We planted the tomato and cucumber seeds in May and they have flourished. We ate our first home-grown Greek salad tonight. The Greek tomatoes, Greek cucumbers and red onions all came from our garden. The bell pepper, olives and feta were purchased. (The feta was added to individual servings at table as my husband does not eat cheese!) The salad was simply dressed with drizzles of EVOO, lemon juice, dried Greek oregano and S & P.

I was amazed at how sweet the tomatoes and cukes were. Despite the different growing conditions, the vegies had the same taste qualities that made me fall in love with them initially in Greece. Unfortunately, the seed packets give no clue as to vegetable variety. What am I going to do for seeds next year?

To serve with the salad I decided to make the dish that my companion ordered throughout Greece because he just couldn't get enough of it; Stifado, a Greek beef stew. The Greeks also make it with veal and lamb.

An example of Stifado as served in Greece:

I cobbled together a recipe from various sources as follows:

olive oil (not EVOO)
2 lbs of braising beef, cut in 1" chunks
flour
12 boiling onions (not pearl onions---they should be about 1 1/2"-2" diameter), peeled
3 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 t fresh thyme
1 T dried oregano, crumbled
3 bay leaves
pinch of cinnamon
5 whole cloves
1/2 t cumin
2 c red wine
2 T balsamic vinegar
S & P

Dredge meat in flour and brown in oil in batches in large Dutch oven. Remove meat to a bowl. Cut cross in base of onions. Add more oil if needed and saute onions for about 10 minutes til starting to brown. Add garlic and saute for a minute. Return meat plus juices to pot. Add remaining ingredients. Season with S & P to taste. Bake at 350 til meat is tender, about 2 hours.

Here is a not very pretty picture of the stew when almost done:

The stew formed it's own luscious thick gravy. It was pronounced a great success. Four of us finished off the whole amount! Serve with a crusty loaf of bread and Greek salad for a lovely and very Greek meal.

Pie for breakfast, anyone?

Prior to leaving for Greece, I read that breakfast there consists of a strong cup of coffee and a cigarette. That didn't concern me much as I am not typically a breakfast person...I don't eat eggs. But it's a funny thing. When I am on the road, and jumping out of bed at 6 am to go birding, I find I develop quite an early morning appetite. So imagine my joy when I discovered that pie is the national breakfast food of Greece. Sweet pies, yes, but even better, savory pies. Spinach pies, cheese pies, cheese and spinach pies...the baker pictured earlier served a fabulous ham, cheese and tomato pie that literally made my knees weak. Pies are the perfect breakfast food for the busy traveler. Just buy one and eat as you go. If it cools off, it still tastes good.

To my surprise most of the pies were not made with a filo dough crust. The crust was more like a croissant, or Danish pastry crust. I miss Greek pies.

Gyros Shock

I was certain I knew what Gyros was; a huge cone-shaped piece of pressed mystery meat that spins on a vertical spit. Wrong. That's just an Americanized, watered down, tacky version of something wonderful.

In Greece the gyros meat is not ground and pressed. It consists of real meat, either thinly sliced pork steaks or whole chicken breasts . . . The only similarity to what is served in the US is the vertical spit and the way it is carved from the sides.

Gyros is Greek fast food. The meat is encased in a flat bread (similar to a pita but without a pocket). Ususally, there is a dab of Tzatziki (garlic or cucumber yogurt sauce), a few slices of onion, maybe a tomato slice, and French Fries all wrapped in white paper! Yes, the fries are in the sandwich. A few gyros stands also added catsup and mustard. Odd.

Gyros is the delight of the budget traveler. An order typically costs less than 2 euros and is quite filling. One warning: be sure to specify "gyros peda" when ordering. If you don't mention the word "peda" (bread), you will receive a much more expensive gyros plate.

Greek Anti-War Graffiti

I was quite amused yet saddened by this building on the outskirts of the village of Eressos. Certainly the Greeks are outraged by the war in Iraq. The unfortunate torture scandal broke while we were in Greece and every headline, every news show, every front page expressed scathing disgust with USA's current leadership.

Traditional Baking in Greece

On our first evening in Skala Kalloni, a fishing port village on Lesvos, I saw a sign for a bakery which pointed down a dark alley. Early the next morning I headed for the bakery to see if they had anything for breakfast. The bakery was actually below street level by several steps. I descended the steps and entered a very small room, probably about 10X15 ft. Inside the elderly baker and his young assistant were busy shifting breads around in the wood-fired stone oven with long-handled wooden peels.

I was very excited to actually see one of these ovens in action. All over Europe they are quickly becoming just a memory. As the old bakers die there is noone to replace them. The younger generation of bakers typically go for the modern electric oven, and the bread suffers as a consequence.

In the background of this picture are the long wooden troughs where the bread is placed to rise.

Fresh baked croissants.

The breads were delicious. It was nice to see that the baker was training a young apprentice. Maybe in this village, at least, the tradition will continue.

Oh...and let's not forget breakfast. The Judge likes sweets so I got him a chocolate croissant. The baker took a fresh croissant, shoved it onto a metal tube poking out of a large device clamped to one of the tables, cranked a handle and chocolate cream filled it. I like savory so I had a choice between Spinach Pie, Cheese Pie, and Ham/Cheese/Tomato Pie.

Eat your Greek vegies...

This is an example of a vegetable platter meze (appetizer) we were served in a small taverna in Sigri, a small fishing village on Lesvos. Each vegie was cooked separately and then marinated in an appropriate dressing. Tasted as good as it looks. (This was the same place I had the octopus salad pictured previously).

As in many Greek tavernas, there was no menu. The server simply took us to the kitchen and showed us the food. Sometimes we actually looked into the cooking pots. In this case, they had a refrigerated case with the food on display.

I ordered fried small fish for my lunch.

The Judge had veal stew.

We sat on the patio.

The taverna owners were proud to tell us that they were among the 200 people who remained in the village each winter. Many people fled the rough weather. I was shocked at how low the population was given that Sigri is one of the major cities on Lesvos.

By the way, all that food plus wine cost about $20...one of the more expensive meals we had in Greece!

A Greek Way with Octopus

At almost every seaside village restaurant on Lesvos we saw octopus hanging from clotheslines to dry. Prior to drying, it undergoes a rigorous treatment which we were fortunate to observe one afternoon while sitting outside a taverna in Mytilini. An elderly fisherman, standing in water up to his knees in the harbor, laboriously tenderized octopus. Holding the octopus by a few tentacles he smashed it against a rock with great force over and over again...about 15 times. He then laid the octopus on the rock and took hold of a flat mallet, rather like the bottom of an ore, and hammered the octopus repeatedly. He then massaged the octopus against the rock for a few minutes. He repeated this with about a dozen octopus over the course of an hour. He then took his catch and headed off. Given the price of octopus, I hope he made a decent day's wage.

Here is the octopus salad I ordered in Sigri. It could have used a bit more pounding.

Three Little Pigs: the Athens Meat Market

Warning! Go no further if you are squeamish. Not for vegetarians!

The Athens Meat Market is fascinating. Don't miss it. As I wandered down the aisle I wondered how anyone distinguished between one booth and the next, they all seemed to have basically the same products. I was bothered by the lack of customers but it was mid-morning. Hopefully they are hopping early in the day. Check out my photo album in the left column.

Three Little Pigs:

No such thing as a bad tomato...(in Greece)

Well, I won't apologize for the fact I am enthralled with Greek food. One dish we ordered everyday was Greek Salad. Sounds like a tourist dish but the Greeks were ordering it, too. I am not surprised considering that in April the tomatoes were excellent. How can that be? Where do their tomatoes come from?

A Greek Salad in Greece does not include lettuce ever. Here is how it was composed:

2 parts tomato wedges
1 part cucumber chunks
1/4 part red onion slices
1/4 part green bell pepper slices (optional)
a handful of black kalamata olives
one giant slice of feta that was marinated in oil and oregano
a splash of olive oil
(I like to add a squeeze of lemon but Greeks don't)

That's it. Addictive. The cukes were Persian though probably grown in Greece, but I can't explain the high quality of tomatoes in what should have been the off season. Makes me even more irritated with the state of produce in America. Sigh...

The title of this post comes from a Brit we met who has spent years off and on in Greece. We did score some Greek tomato seeds...we are planting this summer.