Greek Recipes from Halki

LEFKOSIA MAKES KEFTEDES

I was a little in awe when approaching Lefkosia’s kitchen, for this is a woman often spoken of as the best cook on Halki. She and her family have featured in articles and Lefkosia has appeared on ANT channel, cooking many traditional Halki recipes such as Easter biscuits, dolmades and the keftedes she was about to make.

She made me a coffee, and plied me with red eggs, soft mesithera (?) cheese, and bread. Mesithera is like a pressed curd cheese, not salty but creamy and yoghurty in flavour.

From the expected large fridge freezer Lefkosia produced the carcass of the stuffed Easter lamb, and displayed it on the table along with homemade cheese and mesithera. Vine leaves gathered from the avli were also present. This was to illustrate the point that at Easter the Halki Greeks, not accustomed to eating meat often, and having waited a long time during Lent, would make various use of their celebration lamb.

The chest end of the carcass would be stuffed with rice mixture and roasted for Easter Sunday, but the leg ends were divided. One half was used for keftedes and the other half for dolmades.

Now she got down to business, chopping the kilo of meat in the bowl, then peeling 2 red onions and a bulb of garlic (5 large cloves) before shooting off into the avli to fetch herbs – feathery amarathros (?) and diosmos (?) (mint?).

 Lefkosia fetched flour, pepper, and coarse sea salt which she gets from Trachea on Halki or sometimes Alimnia. I was fascinated by the way she chopped onions and garlic in her hands over the bowl, using the method of thin slicing then turning 90 degrees. I can just about manage this on a chopping board! What a wonderful smell was released when the herbs were being chopped! Salt was sprinkled and I was surprised by the amount of pepper added.

The amount of flour is about 10 spoonfuls, with Lefkosia adding about 6 initially, then water, and mixing thoroughly before adding more flour, testing the texture with the experienced fingers of an instinctive cook.

As one who adds egg to keftedes and has been known to roll them in flour, I observed the lack of either process with interest, sceptical about how such a loose mixture was going to hold together.

The secret, as I realised and exclaimed, was to have the oil both deep enough and sufficiently hot as to set the spoonfuls of mixture as soon as they hit the pan.

 After 2 minutes they were tested, by 3 they were turned, golden brown already, but later turned once more. So  each batch was 8-9 minutes in the pan. 3 batches of 13 keftedes were cooked, the whole process from chopping, through mixing, to final draining taking about an hour.

 Once all were on the serving platter, Lefkosia rushed off the fetch celery herb for garnish, while her friend helped by chopping lemon slices. The result looked wonderful but I blush to relate the moans of ecstasy I emitted when treated to a taste of one. What a melting texture inside the crispy outside! It was such a great blend of flavours, with that pepper supplying a ‘darker’ aftertaste to follow the herb-enhanced meat.

Lefkosia is a little dynamo of a woman (sadly a widow for some years now) who has raised three children – now all working on Halki  - tends many animals, grows her own vegetables in the avli and works hard for the Church.

Their house is an old one – 1891 in date – set high on the church side of the harbour, with a great view. In the avli I was shown tomatoes, lemons, aubergines, lettuces, potatoes and onions, even artichokes among other produce. This achievement marks Lefkosia out not only as a great cook but as a market gardener of great skill and enthusiasm!

I was delighted to be sent away with some of the Easter lamb, some keftedes a slice or 2 of mesithera and even a bottle of the glorious Halki oil. 5 great drums stand under the kitchen table. Lefkosia told me the family produced 1200 kilos of oil from their trees last year.

Many thanks to Lefkosia not only for my fabulous lunch but for taking the time and trouble to present her traditional recipe to us to be shared with our readers.

BAKLAVA FROM THEODOSSIA

Theodossia's new premises, with its larger kitchen, is allowing her to offer cookery demonstrations two mornings a week, at present Friday and Monday at 11am.

The Halki Visitor attended one of the early sessions, where Richard and Heather Findlay were assisting by writing down the recipe in English, to form part of a growing collection.

Photographs had to be taken from behind the counter owing to the large number of spectators, many armed with their own notebooks.

With a practical demonstration as the subject, and Theodossia's charismatic style, communication was no problem.

 A quantity of ingredients was assembled around her on the counter, including what looked like a huge amount of melted butter - my cholesterol count soared just looking at it!

Having made baklava myself from a recipe long ago in the UK, I was interested to see the proportions and the method of assembly, which differed from the style I had used - and presumably is more authentic. It was the large number of crumpled sheets of filo pastry in the layers that surprised me. I had used a method more reminiscent of French mille feuille where sheets are laid flat with butter between each one. Certainly, on reflection the crumpled method would make the result both lighter and more permeable to butter and syrup poured over.

 The nuts used are a mixture of almonds walnuts and hazelnuts. Asked by a visitor about all-pistachio baklava,  Theodossia said she had made it where she worked in Rhodes, though it was a more Turkish style, and she did not like the flavour so much. The addition of cinnamon to the nuts points up the variety possible.

Another surprise for non-Greeks is the absence of honey in the recipe. It can be used, Theodossia says, but it alters the flavour considerably and also can be too strong for some people. Greek honey IS strong, and is often regarded as medicinal, though adverse reactions to it are not uncommon.

 As Theodossia worked her way through the assembly of layers, the quantity of butter in that initially brimming pan was going down a bit - but what was to happen to the rest? Would it all be used?

Once all the layering, wrapping and cutting had been done, she picked up the pan - and inundated the tray. My internal calorie counter lost the plot!! Mind you, divided between 28 pieces it can't be THAT bad - can it??

Another unexpected technique was to douse the tray with a bit of water before baking. Apparently this stops the butter from foaming up and escaping the tray. A great tip!

And of course Theodossia would not make the mistake with her lemon-flavoured syrup that your reporter did. After over-boiling the syrup, I had poured it over my laboriously assembled layers - only to achieve a substance which would have put pre-stressed concrete to shame! 

Theodossia has gone on over the weeks to demonstrate a wide range of her repertoire. Visitors, in the mood to relax their waistlines while on holiday, can have a glorious time sampling the variety. We congratulate the chef on her initiative and wish her and her family every success in their new location.

BALKAVA RECIPE

(Thanks to Richard and Heather Findlay for writing this and to Jane Chapman of Direct Greece for giving us a copy)

INGREDIENTS:

METHOD

1.   Melt butter in a pan

2.   Mix cinammon and nuts

3.   Place 2 sheets of pastry in base of tin so they hang over one side.

4.   Place another 2 sheets of pastry so they hang over the opposite side.

5.  Fold 2 sheets of pastry in half widthways and, with folded edge at the side, place pastry in the top half of the tin so it covers half of the base and the other half overhangs the tin.

6.   Repeat step 5 at the bottom edge of the tin.

7.     Loosely scrunch a sheet of filo and place in tin ‘ north to south'. Do this with a further 5 sheets to fill the tin - do not press down.

8.      Drizzle some melted butter over the pastry.

9.      Place one whole sheet of filo on top - do not press down.

10.  Sprinkle on a thick layer of nuts

11.   Repeat steps 7 to 10.

12.   Fold in the overhanging pastry and brush with butter.

13.   Place one sheet of pastry on top and brush with butter - do this with a further 3 sheets of pastry.

14.   Trim excess pastry and tuck all edges into the tray with a knife.

15.   Divide into portions (around 28 triangles)

16.   Pour over all the remaining butter, sprinkle a little water all over and bake at 180C for 1 and a half hours.

17.  When cooled, pour the hot syrup over.

 Will keep for up to one month.

KATINA'S DOLMADES
( Interviewed by Frances Mayes and published in the Halki Visitor in 2004 )

We were delighted to be able to observe Katerina Veli (wife of local policeman Thodoris Nakopoulos) as she prepared a big pot of dolmades (stuffed vine leaves) in her mother's kitchen.

Katina first prepared the parsley (maidanos) and mint (duosmos) by chopping finely with a large knife. Next, she finely chopped one large onion (kremmidi). These were set aside while she brought out 1 kilo of minced meat (kima) in a big bowl, to which she added half a kilo of rice (rizi), followed by the herbs.

Further seasoning was 2 heaped teaspoons of salt (alati), one heaped teaspoon of black pepper (piperi), and one of powdered cummin (kimino). There followed one and a half cups of olive oil (elaioladi) and about three quarters of a kilo of tomato pulp/puree (poumaro). The ingredients were then thoroughly stirred to mix.
 

Katina began to pick up the washed vine leaves (abelofillo) and placed a pinch of mixture at the base of each leaf, folding and rolling, (the tripartite structure of a vine leaf helps with this) until she had a neat parcel about the thickness of a finger and about 3cm long. There are two methods, one simply held in the hands, and one using a plate as a base. Katina said that she preferred to make the dolmades small as they are more delicate - and agreed that they cooked through better like that as well. Certainly it is a fiddly job, but Katina's nimble experienced fingers made it look easy. Even so, it takes a long time to make so many tiny parcels!
 

The dolmades are arranged around the edge of a large stewpot, and continue in ever-decreasing circles till the middle is filled in. there must have been about 40 in one layer. And she would go on, she said, until she had many layers in the pot, maybe even up nearly to the rim!
 

Once all are arranged in the pot, 2-3 large glasses of water are poured over, and the pot put on the electric ring to stew gently for about half an hour. Pity it was too long to wait for them to be ready - but there was a promise of a tasting later!

 

IRINI MAKES BAKALAOS PAKTOS
(Interviewed by Frances Mayes and Published in Halki Visitor 2005)

Irini Kitsou is the wife of Manolis Kitsos, one of the builders working on Halki. The family are from Kalymnos, but lived for a period on Halki in the past, and returned a few years ago with their son and two daughters to settle on Halki.

As she is known as one of the great cooks on Halki, we were delighted to be able to watch Irini prepare a traditional Kalymnian dish (particularly associated with the Feast of Evangelismos on 25th March). Although in some ways similar to the kakavia cooked for us by Katina for the last issue, this dish, Irini pointed out, is a stew, whereas kakavia is basically a fish and potato soup, with the fish used to flavour it served separately on the side.

Bakalaos is a fish of the cod family, but some believe it resembles hake more closely than cod. So something to watch for in the restaurants is cod on the menu!

In Kalymnos, the tradition grew up of using salted bakalaos, as the fishermen who could be away for long periods were obliged to salt the fish for preservation, in the days before fridges and ice boxes.

Visitors wishing to try their hand at cooking this salted fish should look out for the large fillets which appear occasionally in Halki supermarkets.

Irini stressed that the fillets must be soaked for a long time - at least 12 hours - to get rid of the large amount of salt. For this dish, she puts a kilo to soak overnight, changing the water again in the morning for another 2-3 hours of soaking before starting to cook. Plenty of time then, to prepare the other ingredients of leeks (prasso), celery herb (selino), potatoes (patates) lemon (limoni) olive oil (elaioladon ladi) and flour (alevri).
 

Last updated on 26 November 2006
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