Greek Orthodox Easter is near and I thought I should write about Magiritsa (aka Magheritsa, Mageiritsa, Mayeritsa, Mayiritsa), the soup we eat after midnight, after the Resurrection.
This is the tradional Greek recipe so it has intestines (Sofia wrote an explanatory post as this might seem a bit yucky). However, if you can’t get intestines where you are (or if you just find them disgusting) just omit them.
Since we started getting an organic fruit and veg box delivery each week I have been trying out all sorts of new things. It’s so exciting to be getting vegetables every week that you’ve never tried. It makes you look for information, learn and do new stuff. Sort of brilliant.
Especially since we are going through Lent (and the Greek version is a bit weird as I was saying the other day) it’s great to be doing different things with veggies.
My, this is a long – and yummy – story, but it had to be shared. So here’s a bit of gossip about my cooking adventure with Unilever Greece and OgilvyOne Athens for Hellmann’s.
The people at the two companies found the Greek version of Digital Scullery and my cooking videos in Greek. Apparently they liked them and they approached me. We got together to create “Πας Μαγειρεύοντας“ – the closest translation might be Cooking for Trouble – an online cooking show.
One of the things you have to understand about Greek food (apart from the obvious stuff like souvlaki, frappe, koulourakia and all that) is that at least once a year the word “nistisimo” appears almost everywhere. It’s probably Lent, aka Sarakosti.
Lent for the Greek Orhodox people starts on a Monday. Much neater that way, don’t you think?
I already posted the other day on Tsiknopempti, our BBQ Thursday. Then there is the Sunday of Apokreo – very similar to Halloween, but probably a bit more Dionysian in nature – when we dress up, eat, drink, dance and generally go a bit crazy.
The next day is Clean Monday, the start of the Great Lent, 40 days of no animal products whatsoever. Supposedly. Most Greeks don’t fast during Lent anymore. However, I’ve heard it’s quite good for detox to abstain from animal products now and again.
(refresh – this post is updated – working draft as I bake, take pics, video, update facebook (in Greek) and tweet (in English).)
(This post was being updated while I was baking. Thank you for the nice comments and support on Facebook and twitter. Full normal post (and video) coming up)
It’s all gone Pete Tong. Or rather, half of the two laganas is gone. We chomped it all!
Baked each for 20 minutes and they came out lovely!
Here’s a quick pic and I will be uploading a full proper post (and video) tonight with full explanations of what the heck lagana bread is.
If you ever happen to be walking around a Greek town or village and it seems that there are BBQ smells everywhere chances are it’s probably Tsiknopempti. (It could also be Easter Sunday but in that case the smell is the roasting lamb on a spit so you’ll know quite quickly which is which).
Tsiknopempti comes from the words tsikna (the characteristic bbq meat smell) and Pempti (Thursday). It comes about once a year, about two weeks before Lent starts.
There is a whole host of dishes we make in Greece which are classed as ‘meze‘. These are small (or big) plates of delicacies and nibbles (not prawns on stick or mini sausage rolls though) which are served with tsipouro (a.k.a. raki) or ouzo. Try not to drink the later if you’re not used to them. Meze can be simple – just a few slices of cheese and tomatoes, more complicated like boureki or just out-of-this-world, like today’s recipe.
I’ve been watching Nigel Slater‘s (he really needs a new website) Simple Cooking on BBC lately. What actually made me watch it in the first place was the amazing title sequence. I want to bake something for the people who thought of having episode and recipe titles on food packages. So cute!
What kept me watching are the really interesting recipes. Even though in every single episode I marvel at the miles he has to walk in his kitchen to get from the cupboard to the fridge or from the oven to the garden. Seriously, this must be the biggest kitchen ever.
There is something about London in November that just makes me ache for hearty soups and curling up on the sofa with thick socks. It’s not so much the cold – it gets worse over December and January. It is all about the sharp smell of the cold to come in the air. Sort of like the promise of winter right around the corner.
I was looking for something seasonal to do this week and I stumbled upon some lovely ambercup squash the other day. They look so lovely, don’t they? Small, round, tough, they are like a toy vegetable I think. In the past I never cooked with squash and pumpkin, for some reason my family is not very big on them. My mum has now started growing them in her garden, too late for me as I have flown the nest and my memories of what we eat “at home” are pretty much set. So using squash and pumpkin is very much a London thing for me.
I uploaded a pic of our dinner today on Google+ and Stratos asked for the recipe. That is to say he actually threatened that he would have a heart attack if I didn’t share it. Fine. You know me, I’m here for my friends.
What you need to know about this recipe is that roasted chicken with potatoes is one of the most frequent things we have in Greece. It is considered ideal for a family Sunday lunch so after a few years you are sick and tired of it. So I just gave the recipe a little twist to make it more interesting.
Hello “auntie” Sofia!
I am sending you this photo as historical proof that yes, I, the kitchen lazy gal, made at some point in my life roxakia!
The photo is not very good, but I will not say the same for the roxakia. They are yummy!
Cleaning
Now that we know all about cross contamination, it is about time to explore the second magic C that stands for Cleaning. Maintaining a clean kitchen is very important. While this is not a big secret really, not everybody would agree with the same definition of a “clean kitchen”?
Here I am with the first ever Digital Scullery video in English. Cheers to all the friends of the Greek blog for the idea, by the way if people hate the video I’m blaming you 😉
I honestly thought about doing the Greek accent but I sound so fake that I just stuck to my own. So no funnies there I think. Anyway.
In this first ever Digital Scullery video in English the only classic recipe from modern Greece I could think of was the Frappé coffee – beloved in Greece. The actual phrase “drinking Frappé ” in Greek has become sort of like a cultural symbol. Depending on the context it could mean that you’re just chilling or – in some cases – that you are just lazying about.
Roxakia are a Greek type of sweet dough. I hope it’s mainly Greek but you never know. Anyway. They are bite sized cocoa and vanilla and cinnamon goodies that look lovely and taste like heaven. Avoid if syrupy stuff is not your cup of tea, but you will love them if you like any of the syrupy Greek, Turkish and Arabian goodies.
So. Friends of the Greek blog LOVE this dessert and have been asking me to do a video for absolute ages. I got around to it over the weekend (you can watch the video here – it’s in Greek obviously but you’ll see the technique I am describing below) and I managed to take some pics for the English side too.