Kalofagas - Greek Food & Beyond

Greek Food Gazette 20/05/2012

Peter Minakis — Sun, 20 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Meteora, Thessaly

Greek winemakers speculate on Greek economy and the future of Greek wines
Come to the Grecian Festival at St. Spiridon in Worcester, Mass. June 1-3 where I will be doing some cooking demos
Organizers of Toronto’s Taste of the Danforth (Greektown) prepping for the 1 million+ visitors this August
A couple vacations in Greece and returns with a whole new perspective on Greek yogurt

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© 2012, Peter Minakis. All rights reserved. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

Grouper With Green Olives & Sultanas

Peter Minakis — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:16:11 +0000

I enjoy foods that offer contrasts: it could be heat and spice combined with a cooling element or a tender morsel in the mouth along with a garnish to offer some crunch. I also like contrasts in flavours – some yin & yang and in this case the savory is balanced with ever so slight sweetness of sultana raisins.

Sultanas are golden raisins and I used to see them in the array of finger foods offered when my parents would throw huge Namedays for my father (on St. Nicholas Day) or I would see them when we visited relatives when they were entertaining for a Nameday. Let’s not worry too much about sultanas because the main ingredient here is fish and in this case, a grouper fillet.

Grouper is a large fish with medium firmness that holds up well to cooking and I’ve found it very forgiving when I grill, bake or pan-fry it. It has some fat content so it won’t dry out on you like a piece of tuna or salmon. Today I’m pan-frying the fish, seasoned with salt and pepper and a sprinkle of sweet paprika for more depth of flavour and then I dredge the fillets in cornmeal to give them a nice crispy crust.

This dish is simple and it uses some traditional Greek ingredients but in an untraditional combo. The backbone flavour here is diced celery with a final pop of flavour (with celery leaves at the end), pan-seared slices of lemon, smashed cloves of garlic, some white wine, stock and briny green olives. The sultanas (there they are again) balance these briny flavours and a sprinkle of capers and some bright rosemary needles to lift the flavours.

Use salt sparingly in this dish as the olives and capers do the heavy lifting here and you may only need some black pepper and more herbs according to your taste.

Grouper With Green Olives & Sultanas (Ροφος με Πράσινες Ελιές & Σουλτανες)

(serves 4)

4 grouper fillets

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tsp. sweet paprika

approx. 1/2 cup cornmeal

4 slices of lemon

4-5 cloves of garlic, smashed

3 stalks of celery, diced

1 cup pitted green olives, rough chop

1/2 cup sultana raisins

1/3 cup dry white wine

2/3 cup hot vegetable/seafood stock

1/4 cup capers, rinsed

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

1/3 cup roughly chopped celery leaves

salt and pepper to taste

Rinse your fish fillets and pat-dry then brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and sprinkle paprika on both sides of the fish. Place the fillets in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Remove the fish from the fridge and lightly dredge in cornmeal and pre-heated a large skillet to medium-high heat. Add a couple of swirls of olive oil and when hot, add the fillets and brown on both sides (sauté in batches if necessary) and carefully transfer to a platter and reserve.
Add some more oil into the pan, reduce heat to medium and add the lemon slices and sauté on both sides and place on top of your reserved fish fillets. Now add the diced celery, garlic, olives and sultanas and sweat for about 5 minutes then add the wine and stock and bring up to a simmer. Now gently place your fillets back in the skillet and add more liquid (enough to come halfway up the fillets).
Slightly cover the pan and simmer for about 15 minutes then uncover and simmer for another 2-3 minutes or until the sauce has thickened. Add the chopped celery leaves, capers, extra-virgin olive oil and some rosemary needles and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
Serve immediately with a side of rice pilaf and pair it with an Alpha Estate Sauvingon Blanc.

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Windows in Niagara Falls by Jamie Kennedy

Peter Minakis — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:10:45 +0000

Jamie Kennedy has long been associated with local, seasonal cooking in the Toronto area (some say he led the movement) and now he’s spread his wings to Niagara Falls where he treated some lucky guests to a dinner atop of the Sheraton Hotel’s Windows restaurant overlooking both the American and Canadian Falls.

Chef Jamie Kennedy with personal assistant Jo Dickins

Born and raised in Toronto, Kennedy has cooked for 37 years, now runs the Gilead Cafe (our meeting point before driving down to Niagara Falls, has a successful catering biz, JK ROM and once ran the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar. Throughout his career, Kennedy has been dedicated to using local, seasonal, organic and sustainable ingredients and what better place than to showcase local (Canadian) ingredients than Niagara Falls?

Visitors to Toronto will usually to include a day trip to Niagara Falls to look in awe at the sheer power that is “The Falls” and perhaps visit one or two of the wineries in the now thriving Vineland of Niagara. Jamie Kennedy has teamed with wine aficionado and esteemed writer of all things Oeno to pair the food with local Niagara wines.

Chef Kennedy will be doing the Toronto to Niagara run on the QEW on an almost daily basis but he’s entrusted the helm of the kitchen to like-minded chef Ross Midgley who shares Kennedy’s food philosophy. The moment you arrive in Niagara Falls you hear the roar of the enormous amounts of water constantly falling and once the elevator doors opened to the Windows restaurant, you are treated to one of the best views overlooking The Falls. The American Falls are directly across and the Canadian Falls (horseshoe shaped) are south and to the right.

Our evening began with a Spring Salad of Soiled Reputation (from the farm of the Manic Organic fame) with Easter radishes and sorrel vinaigrette.

Next up was a Spring Minestrone with braised rabbit and an herb pesto that perked up the soup when you swirled it in.

The main was a duck duo of confit and seared duck leg served with schmaltz (fat) potatoes and a sour cherry glaze.

Dessert was a camomile tea spiked with Amaretto and served with a panna cotta topped with a rhubarb gelee and more delicious Niagara wines for those that lingered waiting for the lights to shine on Niagara in the Spring night.

Having driven back to Toronto and passing through the more touristy Clifton Hill (wax museums, etc), one also passes the diner’s wasteland of roadhouses and “food so dumb that high school students can cook it” restaurants, its hard to believe that Jamie Kennedy’s Windows will do anything other than succeed.

Niagara Falls was screaming for a restaurant for the meticulous gourmand and Jamie Kennedy has answered the call.

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Greek Food Gazette 13/05/2012

Peter Minakis — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:10:19 +0000

photo by Vicky Stamateas

Discover Toronto’s Greektown on the Danforth every Saturday from 11:30am – 2:30pm
A journey to the cherry orchards of Pella
The first Acropolis Half-Marathon takes place on May 20th
New York Times invites you on a Greek wine adventure with some recommendations
Feature Greek island: Amorgos
Tasty tips to enjoy mange tout or…fassaolakia

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Floriniotiki Strapetsada With Feta & Kebapia

Peter Minakis — Sat, 12 May 2012 13:10:02 +0000

To understand where this dish comes from is to first get a hang of what Strapetsada is: basically a scrambled egg dish containing grated tomatoes, olive oil and crumbled Feta and often eaten as a meze or late evening Greek dinner. There are may variances to this dish but those are the basics. Like with any cuisine there are also regional versions of dishes applied to the standards and strapetsada is not immune to this.

My parents come from the region of Florina (northwest of Thessaloniki) in northern Greece and proudly part of Greece’s province of Macedonia. The red “shepherd’s peppers” are enjoyed/eaten by the denizens of this region and they are called “Piperies Florinis” or Florina Peppers throughout Greece. For as long as I can recall, peppers have been at our family table from pickled peppers to stuffed peppers, fried peppers in the winter and charred peppers on the open flame that are peeled and simply dressed with olive oil and sea salt. Piperies Florinis (Florina Peppers) also have the distinction of being an appellation product (DOP) where only red peppers from Florina may be called as such.

air-drying Piperies Florinis, Amynteo

One uncle would even bring small chilli peppers with him to weddings: he’d snip some into whatever dish was being served. The folks from Florina love their peppers and if you choose to visit this beautiful region in the summer, you’ll see stringed red peppers hanging outside of homes, air-drying to be preserved for cooking in the cold winter months.

The love of peppers extends to egg dishes like the nationwide popular Strapetsada with sweet and hot peppers being added into the mix. Much like the usual strapetsada, ripe, sweet tomatoes are grated into a skillet and simmer with olive oil until reduced but peppers are first fried and softened then the tomato gets added here along with onions. Once the vegetables have cooked down and the sauce has thickened the crumbled Feta is added and finally the eggs. Most scramble the eggs but here I chose to gently poach two eggs (matia) into the sauce making for a gorgeous presentation and the taste of oozing egg yolk with the peppered tomato size and tart Feta makes for some wonderful flavour contrasts in the mouth.

photo courtesy of Florinapast

The finishing touch to this dish is my addition of a kebapi(a) which is what the rest of Greece would call a Soutzoukaki(a). Visitors to Florina will see lots of grill houses offering roasted peppers and an array of grilled meat, including kebapia. This sausage-shaped meat rissoles share same name given to these in the rest of the Balkans with the name having more to do with Ottoman 400 year rule than a Slavic influence. Kebab refers to meat that is cooked on or near open flame.

from the Kalofagas grill pit

The Turks can thank the Persians for kebabs and it’s important to note the differences in cooking kebabs: in Turkey and the middle east the meat (often lamb) will be shaped by hand onto to flat skewers and suspended over hot coals and cooked to perfection without the meat ever falling off! In Greece and throughout the Balkans, the Kepapia are grilled directly on hot grate – offering more flavour by way of searing.

My take on Floriniotiki Strapetsada is a hearty meal or great as a meze offering and definitely mopping-up material for good, crusty bread - “μακα-μακα” for those from this region of Greece.

Floriniotiki Strapetsada With Feta & Kebapia (Φλωρινιωτικη Στραπατσαδα με Κεμπαπia)

(serves 4)

1/2 cup olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

2-3 hot banana peppers, diced or sliced

6-8 ripe plum tomatoes, passed through a box grater

approx. 1 cup crumbled Feta cheese

4 large eggs

salt and pepper to taste

pinch of sugar

dried Greek oregano

Kebapia recipe

Using one large skillet or two smaller ones, add some olive oil over medium heat and add your hot peppers and lightly saute until just softened and remove and reserve. Now add the remaining oil, the onions, sweet peppers and sweat for 5-6 minutes or until softened then add the grated tomatoes and reserved fried hot peppers, season with salt and pepper and bring up to a simmer (medium) and cook-down for another 5-6 minutes or until the sauce has thickened and the water has cooked away.
In the meantime, you may fry-off your kebab (I use this master recipe for my kebapia) in a little oil and reserve/keep warm. Add the crumbled Feta into the pan (s) then drop the eggs, place the kebap in the center and reduce the heat to medium-low. Season the eggs with salt and cover the pan to gently poach and steam the eggs until the whites are just cooked (you want the yolks to still be runny).
Sprinkle some dried Greek oregano and serve the Floriniotiki Strapatsada directly from the skillets to the table with good crusty bread with Tsipouro(with anise) or a local Amynteon Xinomavro like the Alpha Estate Rose.

μακα-μακα

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