The Greek Food

Tag: vegetarian

  • Pickle Recipe (toursi): How to make your own traditional pickles

    Pickle Recipe (toursi): How to make your own traditional pickles

    One of the best things that you can have a side dish is pickles or  “toursi/τουρσί” as it is being called in Greek. You know about and you see them more or less every time on the super markets.

    I always used to have toursi at home because my father used to make it in a bowl by himself. Its not difficult to make and its really enjoyable and tasty.

    There are different kind of pickles depending where you are coming from, for example in USA and Canada they like to do cucumbers, while in Greece , Turkey and generally the Arabic countries I think we are more on green peppers and other vegetables.

    The process is basically really simple, you leave all the vegetables in a lot of vinegar and let it the vegetables receive it for some days.  But who am I to talk about those old and traditional recipes.

    Well, recently we got my father as a present a laptop so we can communicate a little bit more easily, and as a first job I made him write the recipe about toursi …the pickles recipe.  So here it is in his own style…the recipe for pickles as my father send it in his first email to me… 😀 (obviously translated…)

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B8XTCS3BKjH/

    How to make Pickles – Toursi

    • 600 to 700 grams of green peppers
    • Apple vinegar (portion depends on the size of your bowl)
    • Water
    • Pepper/Salt
    • Ginger

    We can replace them with other vegetable or put them all together if we have space.

    For example cauliflower, cabbage etc.

    • CAULIFLOWER. Wash and cut it and add it in the jar
    • CABBAGE. Cut the leaves Wash and cut it more or less as our palm
    • BULBS. Small onions like the ones we use for the stew, just clean them and add them inside .
    • GHERKINS. If you find small  (approximately 10cm)  add them inside. Only clean the top and the bottom place. After 5-6 days remove them and cut them in fat slices like in the salad. Add a little olive oil and eat them.

    Lets see now how can we make it.

    • Rinse all your vegetables and place all the vegetables in a bowl, add the salt and toss well. Allow to steep for 4 hours.
    • Squeeze excess liquid in batches with your hands and place in other bowl with enough vinegar to cover the half of the bowl and add water in the rest.
    • Throw in the pepper and a slice of Ginger. Close the lid and shake to make sure it goes everywhere.
    • Open up again and add a teaspoon of olive oil.
    • Close the lid and seal it for 7 days. Afterwards it should be ready to taste.

    Seal with lids and place in fridge. Keeps well for 6 weeks.

  • Tower of aubergines

    Tower of aubergines

    I’ve been feeling a little bit vegetarian lately as I said on my last post. Maybe too much of meat food of the last few days has brought me in this stage.

    Last time I went to the market I saw a man selling aubergines and I wanted to make papoutsakia again at some point. Nevertheless, I have realized in the past few months…that when you cook…you start from something…and sometimes you end up to something different…

    I always liked aubergines and loved any relevant recipes

    Not sure why, i guess it is my Asia Minor heritage or the fact that my father did a lot of work to introduce them to our weekly menu.

    Christmas is coming!

    In Greece when the summer comes, those vegetables are the ones that really shine most above all and you can find them in many different dishes. Sometimes though you do like to improvise and see how lucky can you get.

    So for this case, i decided to make a fun recipe that focuses on aubergines as a main ingredient and …really looks nice. Even if i am biassed in this occasion..

    Ingredients for Aubergine Towers

    • 2-3 Aubergines thinly sliced
    • 2 tomatos sliced
    • 1 onion
    • 200gr of Feta cheese
    • 250gr of teen can tomato juice

    How to Cook them

    Clean the aubergine slices and fry them in a pan, 2-3 minutes from each side really quick.

    When you finish, you place them in the side and get ready to make the small aubergine towers. The idea is to put one ingredient over the other creating a mixture of flavors.

    So first a slice of aubergine, onion, aubergine, tomato, aubergine and on top a teaspoon of tomato juice. Top it up with sprinkled feta cheese

    Repeat until you are done with all the ingredients.

    Wrap the pan, in a baking foil and cook it in the oven for an hour or so, removing the oven in the last 15 minutes.

    You can never go wrong, with feta, aubergines and tomatoes!

    Aubergines with feta cheese-1
  • Spinach Rice recipe…or in Greek …Spanakorizo

    Spinach Rice recipe…or in Greek …Spanakorizo

    Spanakorizo is not a dish that you hear really often about in the Greek cuisine. It is though considered one of the classic ones to have especially during the summer months. Spinach is used in couple of recipes and it is common to have pies with it in Greece.

    Other than the typical spinach pie that you can find in many places around Greece, spanakorizo is the 2nd most famous spinach related dish.

    The following Spinach rice recipe is a typical Greek recipe that my mother and most of the Greek homes I suppose are doing. It’s vegetarian and one that I started appreciating when I got older…as before the only foods that I liked were Meat related… The funny thing is that the recipe is one of the easiest ones that exist. The basic ingredients are dill, spinach and rice…

    Last time I cooked it was in a Monday after a long drinking weekend at the Broads in Norfolk UK. I always try to cook something vegetarian after long sessions of drinking in order to convince myself that I am doing a healthy life…:$

     INGREDIENTS SPINACH RICE RECIPE –SPANAKORIZO

    • 1 kilo of Spinach sliced. (washed really good)
    • 1 spoon of Olive oil
    • 1 bunch of fresh onions sliced
    • 1 small cube of Feta Cheese (if we want)
    • 1 big bunch of dill
    • 1-2 tomatoes juice
    • the juice form one big onion
    • Salt/Pepper and 1 cup of Rice

    Method

    • In pot we add olive oil and throw in the Onions and stir for 3 or 4 minutes around.
    • Next we add the Spinach and the tomato juice and continue to stir well so they dont stuck on the bottom of the pan.  Throw in the rice and add water until they are half covered.
    • Salt and Pepper and then add the sliced dill as well as the lemon juice. Taste and add more if it is needed
    • When the water is almost drained we serve it together with the trimmed feta cheese.

    Some additional things:

    Usually I like to add one vegetable cube as it adds a little bit to the flavour but it’s up to you.

    What I do like a lot is to add feta cheese.  I have cut a big piece of feta cheese in small cubes and I add it to the pot after I have removed it from the heat, stirring it so the feta cheese goes everywhere.

    According to some other recipes you can add tomato juice but I prefer to served it together with tomato and cucumber salad …and some octopus that I brought to UK from my last trip in Greece !

  • Lentil Salad

    Lentil Salad

    Lately I am trying to find more ways to cook healthy foods which I can take for my work lunch and the following was made for that exact reason.  Lentils were something that I missed lately but doing a soup, during summertime wasn’t exactly my thing.

    So I decided to see what else can we do with lentils, and I did..

    It’s a pretty famous dish to be honest in Greece and many Middle Eastern countries with different variations, and i have played around with lentils in a salad many times in the past. I like them as an ingredient as they can be used in various ways as i am recently learning.

    In addition to that they can be really fulfilling. So…fulfilling, tasty (well…at least i liked it :$ ) , healthy (not a doctor but i think it is healthy) and traditional …Middle East food . 🙂

    Ingredients

    • 300gr of lentils
    • Around 10-13 cherry tomatoes
    • 1 big green pepper chopped
    • 4-5 sping onions chopped
    • 3-4 teaspoons of olive oil
    • 1-2 teaspoons of wholegrain mustard
    • 1 bay leave
    • salt and pepper
    • 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar

    Lentil Salad

    In a big pot we prepare the lentils as we would when we are making the lentil soup. Add the bay leave,  a bit of olive oil and let them boil for  45 mins.

    Drain them and let it cool down

    Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and add them in a big bowl, add the lentils when they have cooled down and then the chopped spring onions and all the other ingredients including the mustard.  Be careful with the quantities of the vinegar so make sure you taste and add a bit more if necessary.

    Use your hands and mix them to go around!

    Put the bowl to the fridge and leave it over there for 15-20 minutes and… it is ready!

     

  • How to make a Greek Salad

    How to make a Greek Salad

    The most basic of salads…..but the most famous one. The Greek Salad Recipe .

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