God Bless the Greeks. They invented democracy, philosophy and some damn fine food. Including fried cheese. How good is that stuff? You take cheese…which is one of my all time best ever foods to begin with…and fry it. That;’s not even eleven. That’s twelve! Possibly thirteen. But, I digress, yeah, I know opening paragraph…and we’re already off track, because today we’re talking about the second wonder of the Greek cuisine pantheon…(or should that be Parthenon?) the cheese and spinach pie, also more formally known as the Spanakopita.
Spanakopita 1
I live in Melbourne, which as anyone in Melbourne will tell you has the largest population of Greek people outside of Athens. I have no idea if this is actually true or just one of those urban myths about the city you live in. Regardless of numbers, there are a lot of Greek people and hence a lot of super delicious Greek food. In fact, just as much as some families have the local Chinese or Indian restaurant, my family would go Greek.
No, not like that you bunch of perverts….I meant we would celebrate family occasions at the local Greek restaurant.
Spanakopita Ingredients
Mind you, this did come after a debacle at the local Chinese. You know the classic tale of the gauche family who drink the fingerbowls? Not that old chestnut for my family. No way. Uh huh.
We’re a much classier lot.
So when, towards the end of our meal, the waiter delivered some small bowls of water to our table we dutifully dipped and dunked and positively soaked our fingers revelling in our (sub) urban/e sophistication. He then reappeared with a plate of…I can best describe them as caramel coated sweet dumplings. The idea being that you dipped your caramel dumpling into the icy cold water thereby changing the caramel from a hot liquid to a crispy shell. We all looked to our now slightly grubby bowls of warmish water and the thought of dessert suddenly didn’t seem so good.
Now, I can’t speak a word of Mandarin, but believe me, that wasn’t a prerequisite to understand what our waiter was muttering as he swished away the original bowls. There is a certain tone people adopt when they say “You people are morons” that is pretty much universal.
We celebrated with Greek food from then on.
Spanakopita Ingredients – pre massage
The February Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Audax of Audax Artifex. The challenge brought us to Greece with a delicious, flaky spanakopita – a spinach pie in a phyllo pastry shell. I had thought I was au fait with the cooking of this particular dish as it is something I make fairly regularly. However Audax’s version had a few curve balls.
First there was massaging the ingredients. It made me think about those Wagyu cows…
Spanakopita 2
Then post the massage there was the squeeze….this was both kind of disgusting and a shit ton of fun.
Squeezing…kind of gross.Squeezed Spinach (and my abnormally large man hands)
Post the squeeze, you end up with two bowls. Once containing a dry mixture, one containing a milky green liquid.
Post Squeeze Spanakopita
It is at this point that I would diverge from the recipe as given by Audax and add some more cheese into the dry mixture. I don’t know what happened to the cheese but somewhere during the massage or the squeeze it kind of disappeared, leaving a less cheesy spanakopita than I would normally have. For me, it’s all about the cheese.
Anyhow, then you add some couscous to the liquid and let it soak it all up. This is utter brilliance. The couscous bulks up the mixture so you can have a higher pie and it stops the bottom pastry getting soggy.
Spinach Juice and Couscous
Another brilliant idea? Cutting the squares before baking. Stroke of genius!
Pre-Baked Spanakopita
Spanakopita – hot from the oven
Huh, I just realised I’ve mentioned fried Greek cheese in at least two out of the last three posts. I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something.
I’m going to be spending my week having at least one trip to the Paradise of Lindos to partake of some plate smashing, some haloumi and maybe even a little bit of this…
Ever made food where just looking at it made you feel happy?
Spinach and Cheese Arancini
That’s how I felt with the December Daring Kitchen Challenge. Just looking at these golden balls of goodness made me smile.
Yes, I did just say golden balls of goodness, and yes, I did have a little smirk as I did.
Sigh.
I so have the mind of a 12-year-old boy. And you know what? This whole post is full of stuff like that.
So, you know, take a moment….watch this clip from a British tv show called, I kid you not, Golden Balls, which appears to be a game show version of the Prisoner’s dilemma. (Yay, I knew that Philosophy major would come in handy one day! Stay tuned, next week…Baking with Nietzsche…)
Anyway, marvel at the British nuttiness of it all and come back ready to talk about arancini….
January’s Daring Cooks’ challenge was a ball! The lovely Manu from Manu’s Menu brought our taste buds to the streets of Sicily and taught us her family tradition of making arancine – filled and fried balls of risotto. Delizioso!
These were super delizioso but believe me, you’re not making them in any sort of hurry. These babies need some time and devotion to the cause.
First you’ve got to make:
The Risotto
Arancini Ingredients
I’ll put the full recipe at the end. but this is actually a great risotto recipe.
What you end up with is this. How gorgeous is this bright yellow?
This lovely sunshiney yellow is well on its way to becoming my favourite colour. And mmmmm…butter….
Saffron Risotto
Then you lay it into a tray to cool and then you make…
Golden Balls o’ Sunshine…
Saffron Risotto Balls
And you know what? You could stop right here and crumb these babies and they would be all kinds of delicious. But in the daring kitchen, we’re turning that flavour experience up to 11. Yeah. EL-EV-EN.
Starting With:
The Bechamel
Wow. has there ever been a bigger moment of cognitive dissonance?
Did you all just fist pump the air Eye of the Tiger style and then do a double take?
Bechamel? WTF? BlecHHHHHamel more like. Isn’t that the creepy white sauce that tastes like glue?
Bear with me..this one’s good.
You need to make it quite thick.
Bechamel Sauce
And finally:
The Filling
I chose to do a spinach and mozzarella filling. The recipe has a meat ragu version and a cheese version.
I didn’t get a photo of the sauteed spinach.
But it looked like sauteed spinach.
Trust me.
Filling the Arancini 1
You make a hole in the Risotto ball and add the filling ingredients – sauce, cheese, spinach.
And close.
Word to the wise. Do the sauce first. I’ll show you what happens in a moment if you try to do the sauce last…
Filling the Arancini 2
One of these things does not quite belong…guess which one of these was the one where I put the sauce in last?
Filled Arancini
See what I mean about this being a labour of love?
It’s not all over yet folks, now you gotta egg them, crumb them and fry them up.
Bet you’re thinking you can sit down and have a quiet bottle of vino and some valium now aren’t you?
Not so fast, Speedy. These are fabulous and you could quite easily eat them as is. Look at that oozy goodness….
Yep, oozy goodness from my golden balls…don’t roll your eyes…you were warned.
Spinach and Cheese Arancini 3
But remember when i said we were taking this up to eleven?
For eleven you need my spicy tomato relish (recipe below)
The arancini have a delightful crunch, then the aromatic risotto and the creamy cheesey garlicy goodness of the filling. The relish brings some heat and some tanginess. And that my friends is the five food groups covered.
Hola and Olé friends…and that’s the extent of my Spanish done!
Vintage Spain
Let’s talk about soup, baby….ok…I’m stopping with the bad music puns.
Right here. Right now.
Or..Maybe not…
Green Asparagus SoupOur November Daring Cooks’ hostess was Begoña, who writes the beautiful blog, Las recetas de Marichu y las mías. Begoña is from Spain and didn’t want to go with the more common challenges of paella or gazpacho, she wanted to share with us another very popular recipe from Spain that we don’t see as often called Sopa Castellana which is a delicious bread soup!
I chose the Green Asparagus version as not only is it my second favourite vegetable ( behind the far less exotic green bean) but also, currently in season here in the Southern Hemisphere..
Just look at how gorgeous it is!
Green Asparagus Soup IngredientsAsparagus
And the soup was pretty awesome too…I love the combination of egg and asparagus and I also love a poached egg in a soup…so, so good.
And saffron in anything just makes it awesome!
Try it, it may just get you dancing just like this!
One of the reasons I began this blog was to challenge myself to make new and different things – and so not only improve my skills but also my repertoire of dishes. Whilst this has been somewhat successful, the format I’ve chosen generally allows me to pick items that:
a) I am confident I can cook well,
b) Will look good in photos, and
c) I want to eat (mostly…I still shudder at the thought of that awful asparagus mousse)
Indian Dosas
So, what happens if you want to challenge yourself but take these safety nets away? Well, in my instance, you join the Daring Kitchen. Generally, each month members of this website are challenged to cook and blog about a recipe chosen by one of the members.
The only thing in my first month, which was October, in a “celebration” of past Daring Cooks and Daring Bakers challenges, Lisa challenged all of us to search through the Daring Kitchen archives and pick any one we’d like! The REAL challenge was picking which delicious recipe(s) to try!
And it was a real dilemma. For most people the choice may have been Cooks or Bakers, sweet or savoury. Not me, I’m way too shallow for that. My big quandary was:
Do I cook something I’m pretty sure I can pull off? Something that will look good in the pictures, and by default make me look awesome?
Or, do I stick to the spirit of the challenge and choose something that is going to test my skills and maybe fall flat on my face but learn something in the process?
The choice was therefore narrowed down to Gyozas or Croissants. I’ve made dumplings before, home much harder can gyoza be right? Croissants? Une toute autre histoire!!!
I was heading right down Gyzoa alley (shallow remember?) when I mentioned the challenge to a friend at work and we started looking through the past challenges. She chose the recipe for the Indian Dosas from September 2009. These are both gluten-free and vegan which is great because honestly, my range in both of those areas is limited. So, thanks Nadya, good choice!
First step was to make the pancakes:
Dosas
These were not the super thin crispy dosas I have eaten in restaurants, mine turned out more the texture of crepes but they were still pretty tasty. And the difference in texture was probably more me that an inherent flaw in the recipe!
Then the chickpea filling…look at the amazing colours of the ingredients.. they are like a little rainbow of health and deliciousness!!!
Chickpea Filling IngredientsChickpea Filling
This was also really tasty! So, so good…
Finally, there was a coconut curry sauce and some condiments to go with it.
Dosas with Coconut Sauce and Condiments
This was a great first challenge for me as this was probably something I would never had made otherwise. If you want the recipe…and you know you do….click below:
Daring Kitchen Indian Dosas (2023 update – link no longer works. Here is another recipe for Dosa)
I really liked the filling, and if I was too lazy to make the actual dosas or the sauce again (which I probably am), the filling would be super in some warm pita bread with some of the condiments and some yoghurt dip over the top. Hmm..that probably ruins both the vegan and gluten-free aspect of the dish but hey, I’m neither a vegan or a coeliac. It would stay vegetarian..and pretty damn delicious!
OMG, now I want that so much…I have some of the leftover mixture in my freezer…shame I’m already in my pyjamas, or I would be down at the supermarket right now snapping up flatbread and tzatziki like a mad woman…
I ‘m really looking forward to the next month’s challenge which is…it’s a secret…you’ll have to wait about a month to find out!
In the meantime, enjoy this great vintage Indian print…which I think has the Goddess of Food and the Kitchen, Annapurna,in the background…
Last week I mocked some of the food styling in The Hot Weather Cookbook, so in the interest of fair and unbiased reporting I thought it was only fair to show what I think is easily the best photo in the book. Not only that, I was so inspired by the photo I had plans to cook the exact meal as shown for a barbecue dinner we were having.
Lamb Sosaties, Carrot Salad, Cucumber Salad
Why do I love this so much? First, I think it has a clean modern look to it. This would not look out-of-place in a current issue of Bon Appetit or Delicious magazine. Second, I love gingham. One of the reasons is that it evokes memories of summer, picnics by a river in the shade of a tree, the gingham table-cloth spread on the ground absolutely loaded with super tasty picnic food, the sound of birds and crickets chirping lazily in the background, the sun dappling through the leaves…In my mind picnics look like this. Thanks to the lovely Amber Clery from the Vintage Homeblog for her permission to use these gorgeous photos.
In reality, I remember having a picnic with my parents by a river. I went for a swim and got a leech on my leg. The sounds of that picnic weren’t so much the gentle noises of nature or the hushed sounds of silence but hysterical screaming and uncontrollable sobbing. I vastly prefer Amber’s version.
Apart from the gingham, the other things I liked in the photo from “The Hot Weather Cookbook” were those amazing looking kebabs and the saffron rice with juicy raisins that they are lying on top of. The legend for the picture told me that were Barbecued Lamb Sosaties accompanied by Carrot Salad and Cucumber Salad. No mention of the rice. I had never heard of a Sosatie before so I flipped to the glossary which told me that Sosaties were a:
“Cape Malay (South African) dish of curried meat, cooked in small pieces on a skewer”
So now, not only do these kebabs look delicious, they sound delicious. I was salivating in anticipation of finding out how to cook these delights because I thought they would reconfirm my position as queen of the barbecue. One of the first things I ever cooked for my family was a “Spicy Feta Burger”. I must have been eight. I didn’t even know what feta was but begged my mum to buy some so I could make these burgers. Some decades later we still make them. People invited to family barbecues demand them. In my family and circle of friends, they are legend. However, all empires fall and it had been quite some time since I had come up with some delectable barbecue goodness. I’ve rested on my feta burger laurels for far too long. The time was ripe to launch a new taste sensation.
In my mind, my spicy feta burgers were already singing that Coldplay song about “that was when I ruled the world”. My Barbecued Lamb Sosaties were running up and down flights of stairs and humming “The Eye of The Tiger.”
We’ll pause there and I’ll tell you about the rice with raisins. Remember how I said they weren’t mentioned in the picture tag? I searched for the recipe in index. Under R there are two entries:
Radish Salad, Cool
Rice Salad
I didn’t really know where else I might find the recipe for the rice with raisins (it was not the rice salad recipe listed). So I flicked through the entire book and found the recipe on page 64…well I found something on page 64 called Yellow Rice With Raisins. As it’s not name checked in the photo, I can’t be entirely sure it is the same recipe but given that what is pictured is yellow and it’s rice and it contains raisins I used my best Sherlock Holmesian powers of deduction and decided they were one and the same. I then went back and checked the recipe index. This time, I not only checked under R in case I had missed something in the vast number of recipes beginning with that letter. (I hadn’t.) I then checked Y…just in case. Not there either. I then checked every recipe in the index to see what exactly was listed for page 64. There’s a Barbecue Sauce which is actually on page 64. There is no mention of the Yellow Raisin Rice in the index at all. Grrr….
That annoyed me. It’s slapdash and surely someone in the editing process should have picked it up before the book went to print. Never mind, at least I could make it. After all, I had the recipe, even if it appeared to have been inserted into the book by stealth.
Ok, so the last time we saw the Barbecued Lamb Sosaties, they were fist pumping the air and claiming global victory in the barbecue stakes. I looked up Barbecued Lamb Sosaties in the index.
I started with L…not there.
S…not there either.
I tried B…I may was well not bothered.
I tried a lateral approach and looked under K for kebab and, harking back to the glossary definition, I looked under C (Curry and Cape Malay). I then looked through every other letter. There was no mention to the Barbecued Lamb Sosaties in the index. Double Grrr!
But the rice recipe wasn’t in the index either. No point in getting upset. So, in the spirit of keeping calm and carrying on, I flicked through “The Main Course” section of the book.
Nothing.
I flipped back to the picture. Those kebabs look hearty but I thought that maybe they are meant to be a first course, like satay sticks in an Asian restaurant.
They weren’t in the first course section either.
I then looked through the entire book.
Zippedy doo dah.
I then looked through the entire book again, this time focussing on the page numbers. (This was a second-hand book and, given the awesomeness of the Barbecued Lamb Sosatie, someone may have ripped the page out to keep it for posterity).
Every page was accounted for.
THE RECIPE FOR WHAT LOOKED LIKE THE MOST AWESOME DISH IN THE BOOK….WAS NOT IN THE BOOK.
If that looks like I am yelling, it’s because I am. It’s actually a lot nicer than what came out of my mouth when I initially made this discovery. I probably wouldn’t be allowed to print exactly what I said. It’s more than likely illegal in some countries and frowned upon in most others.
I could give you a recipe for Barbecued Lamb Sosaties. I (eventually) found a number of them on Google. Instead, I was so annoyed with the HotWeather Cookbook, I am going to give you the original recipe for the spicy feta burgers. This recipe is so old now, it comes from a time where they didn’t quite know how to spell spicy. These are awesome and you should all make them immediately. (Sorry it’s a bit crooked, that is literally the way it is stuck to the page in the family recipe compendium).
Just to top off a few days where recipes from the past have really let me down, it is also wrong.
I defy anyone to make 12 burgers out of 50g of minced steak. Unless of course they happen to be pixies. (To anyone not familiar with the metric system, as a point of comparison, I just weighed an egg from my fridge. It came in at 64g. )
I used 500g of mince when I made the burgers this time and made 12 decent sized burgers. I left all other amounts as stated.
This can also be very much treated as a base recipe. For instance, this time round I added some dried chilli flakes and some chopped up coriander. You could use mint or parsley or basil. Pinenuts in the mix are fabulous! You can also use lamb mince instead of steak for another variation in flavour.
Spicy Feta Burgers
Out of sheer spite I also didn’t make the rice or either of the salads from The Hot Weather Cookbook. I made a gorgeous carrot salad inspired by a recipe from Gourmande in the Kitchen. This recipe is amazing…quite possibly the most vibrant delicious taste sensation I have had all year. The orange flower water in the dressing is a stroke of genius! The original recipe required watercress. I tried three local green grocers and was advised that due to the hot weather, we are suffering watercress drought. I used rocket and it was lovely. I will definitely also try it with watercress as soon as I can get my hands on some!
The cumin and the orange flower water actually go very nicely with the lamb and feta to create a lovely Middle Eastern vibe to this meal.
I made a really quick cucumber salad to go with this, just sliced cucumber, a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and chives, and a squeeze of lemon. I had a small bowl of pomegranate molasses as a condiment for the burgers.
Et voila! Here is my Not The Hot Weather Cookbook Middle East Feast!
Feta Burgers, Carrot and Orange Flower Water Salad, Cucumber Salad and Pomegranate Molasses
This will more than likely be my last post before the New Year as I need to focus on cooking and other things related to the season for the next few days.
Best wishes to all for a safe and happy Christmas and a joyous New Year.
Zorba
