Sunday, January 20, 2013

Garides saganaki (prawns with feta in tomato sauce)

This is a typical mezze (Greek version of tapas) and normally served with other mezzedes and some ouzo to accompany the meal. It's nice with some bread dipping (dipping bread into sauces and just plain olive oil is very typical in Greece and totally delicious). I also find this dish can be a meal on its own served with couscous. One great thing about it, is that it's very simple to make and a great accompaniment when making mezzedes/tapas as there's no fuss involved in making it and always goes down well with friends. When cooking other mezzedes I usually prepare the sauce before hand and add the prawns and feta just before serving.

There are slightly different ways of preparing garides saganaki, as with everything. So here I will share my own version. It's very typical in restaurants in Greece to have it served with whole prawns (shells included). Here I present a simplified version by using peeled, cooked prawns. If you decide to make it with raw prawns, all you need to do is cook the prawns in the sauce for 5 minutes until pink and then add the feta.


The recipe:

Serves 3-4 people with couscous and a salad as a main meal or more people as part of a mezzedotapas evening.


Ingredients:

5-7 tomatoes
± 400g cooked and peeled king prawns
1 green pepper
100-150g feta cheese
1-2tbs olive oil
dried origano
a pinch of sugar
a pinch of sault and pepper

Optional: dilute a tablesoon of tomato paste with half a cup of water and add in the pot with the tomatoes in step one.


Recipe:

1. Roughly chop the tomatoes into small chunks. Put in a pot and simmer for around 20-30 minutes until the juices are almost gone and the tomatoes have turned into a sauce. Meanwhile chop the green pepper into large chunks.
2. Add the green pepper, olive oil, origano, sugar, salt and pepper and leave to simmer until the pepper chunks are softened (if you find the sauce dries up before the peppers are cooked add a bit of water).
3. Chop the feta into large chunks. Add the prawns and feta in the sauce and heat through for a couple of minutes (the feta will slightly melt and give the dish a pinkish colour). Serve immediately.

And that is all there is to it!

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Banana cake/bread

Got some over-ripened bananas that you don't know what to do with? Well, you don't need to throw them away. You can bake them instead!

This is a nice little recipe that I have made to suit my own taste... Truth be told I'm not a fan of overly sweet things so I have modified it according to my tastes. If you have a sweet tooth make sure to add more sugar and butter (I will list ingredients for both sweet and less sweet versions). Additionally feel free to use any nuts you fancy and you can replace the chocolate with raisins or dried cranberries :)

I found that people loved this cake for different occasions. You can have it for breakfast, desert (with a bit of ice-cream if you please) or as an energy booster for exercise. A friend who came over and went for a loooooong ride with his bicycle said that this was the best thing ever for his energy levels. The chocolate, sugar and flour gave him an instant energy boost, while the slow energy releasing banana and hazelnuts kept him going later on when he needed it most.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The recipe

 

Ingredients:

50 g (or 100 g) unsalted butter (take it out of the fridge a couple of hours ahead of time in order for it to soften) and a bit extra melted
100 g (or 140g) light muscovado sugar and a bit extra for sprinkling
2 large eggs
3 large ripe bananas, mashed
50 g hazelnuts (pecans also work well), roughly chopped
chocolate chip (or dark good quality chocolate roughly chopped)
150 ml buttermilk
280 gr wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Optional: You can roast the hazelnuts ahead of time. I find this enhances the taste. Do this by heating the oven to 180C. Place the hazelnuts on a tray and roast for about 15 minutes. Take them out of the oven and place them inside a folded towel. Leave to cool for a bit and the place your hands on top of the towel and rub, in order to release most of the dry peel from the nuts.

Tip: Instead of buying ready made buttermilk make it yourself: squeeze a bit of lemon juice over 150 ml of milk, stir and leave to rest for about 5 minutes, et voila!

 

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Prep your ingredients (mash bananas, chop nuts etc...), butter a loaf tin (roughly 20 x 15 cm) and line the base with baking paper. I use a silicone loaf tin which makes it super easy to remove the cake once it's ready.
2. In a mixer, mix the butter and sugar until the mixture becomes creamy. Transfer to a bowl and beat in the eggs. 
3. Mix in the mashed bananas, hazelnuts, chocolate chip, and the buttermilk.
4. Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda on top of the mix. Fold the mixture with a wooden spoon, but do not over-mix. Spoon into the loaf tin and shake a bit so that the mixture is even.
5. Sprinkle some sugar on the top and place in the oven. Bake for 1-1h 15mins until golden. You can check if the inside is cooked by inserting a knife in the cake. If the knife comes out mostly clean, your cake is baked (however the cake is quite moist so the knife will never be completely clean). Leave to cool for a few minutes and then take the cake out of the tin and leave to cool on a cooling rack (or if like me you don't have a cooling wrack, the grill from a grill tray will do!).

Enjoy!


P.S. You can also freeze this cake. Just simply slice it and place in freezing bags. Then on the days you feel like having some, take the slices out and leave to defrost for about 30 minutes.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Paella with cod and vegetables

In my in-laws house paella cooking (and therefore eating) is a social event in itself. They have a lovely barbeque outside where a huge paellera (a special broad and shallow frying pan made for the purpose of cooking paella) fits comfortably on top of a gas stove. For some reason the task of cooking a paella has always fallen in the hands of a man in that house. People are welcome to come and help the cook or simply sit around in the sunshine, enjoying a beer, chatting about with the cook and taking in the lovely aromas radiating from the pan.



Now, I know the use of a large paellera outdoors is not always possible in every household, but I would say that one of the most important things here is to cook the paella over a gas stove instead of an electric one and make sure that the fire is distributed evenly underneath a large pan.




Every household has its own little secret for a paella recipe, and everyone will cook it with slightly different tips and tricks. I am sharing with you here our friend Chef Antoine's recipe (one of the best in my opinion!). He was kind enough to let me watch, question him constantly and take photos as he was working his magic :)


Note: There are many different types of paella with different variations (e.g. meet, shell fish etc). This one is considered a light one. Another little tip: paella is best eaten at lunchtime.


The recipe:


Serves approximately 15 hungry people. For smaller portions make adjustments according to taste (e.g. less vegetables, less rice...) - there's no actual science here. Additionally you make the paella with whatever vegetables you have at hand/ are in season, so feel free to swap according to taste or findings in your supermarket!

Ingredients:

 

- 1 kg cod cut in slices
- 1 large aubergine chopped into cubes
- 1 large pepper chopped into chunks
- 3 large onions chopped
- 250 g mushrooms of your choice chopped into large chunks
- 1-1,5 kg artichokes cleaned (outer layers and chalks removed) and chopped into wedges
- 3 tomatoes chopped into cubes
- 1,5 kg paella rice (if not available, risotto rice will make a good substitution)
- boiled water (double the amount of volume of the rice ) with vegetable stock
- generous amount of good quality olive oil

Optional: men wanting to cook in the sunshine in which case they would appreciate being served beer.






 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recipe:

 

1. Put the artichoke wedges in water and squeeze a lemon over them so that they don't brown (leave to rest while chopping the rest of the ingredients)
















2. In the paella pan add a lot of olive oil (good quality is a must!).
3. Wait for the oil to heat, add the artichokes and fry for about 5 minutes stirring occasionally.
4. Add the aubergines and peppers and fry for a couple of minutes, stirring often.
5. Add the onions and fry for another couple of minutes stirring often.
6. Add the tomatoes. Stir occasionally. Fry for around 10-15 minutes until the vegetables are softened.

7. Add the mushrooms and the cod. Stir and leave to fry for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally.
8. Add the rice and stir to mix well. Fry until it becomes abit see through.

9. Add the boiled water with stock, stir in and leave to simmer stirring once in a while. 










 
Cook for about 20 mins until the water is absorbed and the rice is cooked. You might need to add extra water toward the end (you'll know by tasting to see if the rice is cooked). It's important that if you do add water, it's boiling hot, otherwise you "interrupt" the cooking of the rice. Toward the end, do not stir too much, it's nice when the rice at the bottom burns slightly. Instead you can shake the pan a bit. Also try the rice every now and then to know when it's done. 

Y ya está: A dinaaaar!