ΜΕΓΑΛΟ...ΣΚΑΝΔΑΛΟ....ΜΕ ΠΑΣΙΓΝΩΣΤΗΣ ΦΙΡΜΑΣ...ΕΛΑΙΟΛΑΔΟ....!!!!!!!

Μια μεγάλη εμπορική απάτη από την «μαφία του ελαιολάδου» όπως την χαρακτηρίζει η εφημερίδα ...
...«Republica», ερευνούν οι ιταλικές αρχές. Πρόκειται για την πώληση ελαιολάδου τρίτων χωρών ως ιταλικού, που αποφέρει κέρδος μέχρι και 3 ευρώ παραπάνω το κιλό. Σύμφωνα με διαδοχικά δημοσιεύματα της μεγάλης κυκλοφορίας εφημερίδας τον τελευταίο καιρό, εκτιμάται ότι από τη ραφιναρισμένη αυτή απάτη τα οργανωμένα κυκλώματα κερδίζουν περίπου 5 δισ. ευρώ το χρόνο. Η έρευνα βρίσκεται προς το τέλος της και σχετίζεται με την προώθηση στην αγορά ως ιταλικού έξτρα παρθένου ελαιολάδου, τεραστίων ποσοτήτων του προϊόντος που προέρχονται από την Ελλάδα, την Ισπανία, την Τυνησία και άλλες μεσογειακές χώρες. Στην απάτη φέρονται εμπλεκόμενες γύρω στις 10 φίρμες, παραγωγοί και διανομείς του προϊόντος που δρουν κυρίως στην κεντρική Ιταλία και μεταφέρουν το ελαιόλαδο από τις άλλες χώρες με πλοία -δεξαμενές.Όπως διευκρινίζεται στα δημοσιεύματα, δεν πρόκειται για τις παλιές γνωστές περιπτώσεις νοθείας, αλλά για ένα οργανωμένο σύστημα με πλάτες στο τραπεζικό και το φορολογικό σύστημα. Στην έρευνα ιδιαίτερο βάρος δίνεται στα τελωνεία προκειμένου να ερευνηθούν περιπτώσεις με ψεύτικα στοιχεία για εισαγωγές και εξαγωγές και περίπλοκες κομπίνες με αυτές (ποσότητες, τιμές, είδος ελαιολάδων κλπ.).Τα ιταλικά δημοσιεύματα κάνουν λόγο για «μεταμόρφωση», έναν γνωστό τεχνικό όρο της πραγματικής επεξεργασίας ελαιολάδου, ο οποίος μεταφορικά σημαίνει πλέον ότι το εισαγόμενο προϊόν μεταμορφώνεται σε ιταλικό και σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις δεν γίνεται ούτε ανάμειξη αλλά εμφιαλώνεται απ’ ευθείας με ιταλικές ετικέτες. Η μεταμόρφωση πολλές φορές συνοδεύεται από επεμβάσεις τροποποίησης οσμής και γεύσης καθώς πρόκειται για υποβαθμισμένα ελαιόλαδα τα οποία αγοράζονται με λιγότερο από 25 λεπτά το κιλό και με προέλευση την Ισπανία και την Τυνησία. Η διαδικασία της απόσμησης γίνεται με ατμό προκειμένου να εξαφανιστούν τα ελαττώματα και σύμφωνα με τα ρεπορτάζ, μετέρχονται κόλπα που δεν αφήνουν κανένα ίχνος. Υπολογίζεται ότι στην ιταλική αγορά η απάτη αφορά πάνω από 200.000 τόνους ελαιολάδου, καθώς οι εισαγωγές είναι 470.000 τόνοι και οι εξαγωγές μόλις 250.000 τόνοι. Σύμφωνα με τα δημοσιεύματα, πριν από μερικά χρόνια η ευρωπαϊκή νομοθεσία για το έξτρα παρθένο ήταν αυστηρή αλλά με τις αλλαγές που έχουν γίνει στην αγορά δημιουργήθηκε ζούγκλα. Τα αποσμημένα ελαιόλαδα προωθούνται σε καταστήματα discount (εκπτώσεων), σε εστιατόρια δρόμου αλλά και σε δίκτυα καταστημάτων. Πωλούνται από 1,82 μέχρι και 4 ευρώ το κιλό αποφέροντας τεράστια κέρδη καθώς έχουν αγοραστεί πάμφθηνα και οι ενδείξεις «μείγματα κοινοτικών ελαιολάδων», «μείγματα μη κοινοτικών ελαιολάδων», «μείγματα ελαιολάδων εντός και εκτός της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης» χρειάζονται… μεγεθυντικό φακό για να διαβαστούν...

Nutty, crunchy and drenched in syrup

Syrup-drenched and packing a hearty nutty crunch, the so-called “siropiasta” (syrupy) sweets that combine a varieties of nuts with layers of wafer-thin or finely shredded phyllo pastry are so delicious that almost every country east of the Ionian likes to claim them as their own.

Their execution is not the stuff of top patisseries -- requiring precision in measurement, skilled action with the whisk or a whole arsenal of specialized utensils and equipment -- but there is a knack for getting them right.

The essentials of siropiasta are pretty basic as they depend on good-quality butter, nuts and pastry and a rich-but-not-too-thick simple sugar syrup. Once these are in place, you can assemble the sweets in layers, coils, baskets, bite-size nibbles or large trayfuls of crispy buttered phyllo interspersed with walnuts, pistachios, almonds and even hazelnuts. For something more adventurous, you can mix different nuts together or jazz up the syrup with orange zest, liqueur or a few drops of rose water.

Pastry chef Stelios Parliaros takes the ABCs of siropiasta and elevates them to another level, merging different recipes to create new and exciting flavors.

RECIPES Baklava cheesecake Ingredients (for 12 portions) For the cream 1,400 gr cream cheese 200 gr all-purpose flour 4 eggs + 2 yolks 400 gr creme fraiche For the baklava 1 packet thin phyllo pastry 250 gr cleaned walnuts 125 gr sugar 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder 200 gr butter, melted 400 gr honey For the cream Mix the cream cheese and sugar in a blender on a whisk setting until the sugar dissolves. Add the whole eggs and the yolks one at a time and continue mixing until fluffy. Add the flour and then the creme fraiche. For the baklava Grease a baking tray (30x30 cm preferably) and start laying half the phyllo sheets on the bottom, building them up one on top of the other in a crisscross manner and buttering each layer carefully as you go along. Preheat the oven to 170-180C. Meanwhile, in the blender, crush the walnuts together with the sugar and the cinnamon. Sprinkle half the mixture over the phyllo in the pan. Add the cream mixture evenly on top and then sprinkle the rest of the nut mixture over it. Fold the ends of the phylo sheets inward and then lay the remainder on the top, trimming the excess bits off with a pair of scissors and making sure to butter every layer thoroughly. Bake the sweet for 1 hour and 10 minutes. When it is ready, douse the phyllo in honey that has been warmed slowly over a medium heat. Let the baklava cool down before serving. Saragli with nuts Ingredients (for one large rectangular baking pan) 500 gr phyllo pastry 500 gr butter 300 gr walnuts, roughly chopped For the syrup 500 gr sugar 400 gr water 1 stick cinnamon 1 tsp glucose powder Melt the butter in a small saucepan and, using a brush, grease the baking pan well on all sides. On your work surface, lay out a sheet of pastry, butter it and fold it in half. Sprinkle the nuts generously over the surface and then roll the pastry into a long tube, making sure to butter the clear sides as you go. If you want to make the rolling easier and to give the saragli its customary wrinkled look, place a knitting needle in the center, roll the pastry and then hold the needle upright and gently press down on the roll, before removing the needle. Repeat the process with all the sheets of phyllo, laying them into the pan as you go. Bake in a preheated oven at 150C for about one hour until golden brown. A few minutes before removing from the oven, prepare the syrup in a saucepan by boiling all the ingredients together for three minutes. When the saragli are done, douse them in the syrup and allow to sit for at least one hour before serving.

What did the ancients eat?

By Christina Sanoudou
What were the ancient Greeks’ favorite specialities? How has the diet in the region changed since Byzantine times?
These are among the many questions that will be addressed at a symposium on “Ancient Greek and Byzantine Gastronomy,” which is taking place on Saturday and Sunday at the new Lazaridi Estate Wine Museum in Kapandriti, eastern Attica.
Participants include food historians, critics and writers from Greece and elsewhere, who will deliver lectures, while there will also be ancient Greek and Byzantine recipe tastings, accompanied by live music.
Historians specializing in the dietary habits of ancient cultures have drawn their conclusions from finds at excavations and written sources, which, however, are rare, as well as from local lore passed down from one generation to the next.
As Johannes Koder, a professor of Byzantine Studies at the Austrian Academy, told Kathimerini, “writing down recipes or dietary rituals would only have made sense if the majority of the population was literate; which was not the case. Written sources from ancient Greece -- mostly regarding medical journals and directions for fasting -- are only partly reliable.”
Despite the shortage of tangible evidence, however, the subject does not fail to hold a certain fascination for a lot of people, as it illustrates daily rituals and a way of life that we can relate to more closely today. For example, it is known that in the Byzantine period what people ate differed greatly between the rich and the poor. The poor fared on bad-quality bread and onion soup with only a tiny bit of olive oil, while the rich were treated to a rich soup of cabbage, egg, cheese, cream and plenty of olive oil, which they would accompany with a dish of fish, meat or fresh vegetables and wine. The poor, according to Koder, were mocked because they couldn’t even afford the cheapest caviar on the market.
With the passage of time, dietary habits in the Greek region changed as a result of climate change and external influences. Spinach, for example, first made its appearance in the 12th century, when it was brought by the Turks from Persia and Mesopotamia.
Some flavors, however, remain unchanged, according to experts, such as fried dough and honey, or “kollyva,” a dish of grains, nuts, raisins and sugar that used to be eaten frequently as a dessert during antiquity and which today is part of the Greek Orthodox funeral ritual.

For octopus, trust your senses

Tips on choosing this eight-legged delicacy wisely and cooking it to perfection

By Christina Tzialla
Your nose is your best ally in buying octopus -- if it’s even slightly off, you’ll know about it.

The most usual variety found at fishmongers in Greece is the common octopus, which usually weighs around 3 kilos; a total of nine different varieties are found in Greek waters, but they vary only slightly.

A similar species, known in Greek as “moschi,” “moschoch-tapoda” or “kalamarochtapoda,” is usually smaller, cheaper (about 3 euros per kilo, compared to 13-20 for octopus) and doesn’t quite taste the same. The only way to really tell the difference is by looking at the tentacles -- a “genuine” octopus has two rows of suckers on each tentacle. But for some dishes, such as those with a rich sauce or octopus rissoles, their poor relations will do just fine.

You may have seen fishermen beating freshly caught octopus on a rock or the wharf -- at least 40 times is the rule -- to soften the flesh and then spinning it in the air to remove the red juice that would otherwise spoil the flavor. In fish markets, this is done mechanically, but when time is of the essence, it might have been done hurriedly or even not at all. The only way to tell is by feeling the tentacles -- they should be firm and the ends curly. If the flesh is too soft, however, and the tentacles hang limply, then it either hasn’t been prepared properly or it is a female that has just produced young and won’t have much flesh.

Another trick is one used by fishermen -- grab two tentacles that are side by side and pull. If the membrane at the point where they join tears easily, then the octopus has been well beaten.

Fresh or frozen doesn’t really make as much difference as the country of origin. According to gourmet chef Lefteris Lazarou of the Varoulko restaurant, frozen octopus from Morocco, Tunisia or the Atlantic isn’t as tasty as that fished in the Saronic Gulf or the Aegean Sea.

“Octopuses, like fish, get their flavor from the food they eat. The tastier the seabed, the tastier the catch will be,” Lazarou says.

If it has been frozen properly, there is no reason not to buy it if you can’t find fresh octopus. There are some cooks and fishermen who claim freezing helps soften the tissue. Shop at larger supermarkets to be sure they have been frozen and stored under the right conditions.

RECIPES

Keeping it simple on the grill

Choose a good-sized octopus of 1.5-2 kilos. After washing it well, cut each tentacle in two, and remove the very thin end as it will burn. First, lightly oil the octopus. Ideally, it should be grilled slowly over a low heat for 20-25 minutes on the barbecue or 10-12 minutes on each side in the oven. Make sure the grill is not too hot, or keep the octopus as far away as possible from the heat. Turn the pieces over so they cook on
all sides. The thinner pieces will be done first, so be ready to remove them. To ensure the flesh is tender, cut it into thin slices as soon as it is done. If desired, pour an oil-and-vinegar mixture over it. And if you really want to do it properly, take a tip from taverna owners, who hang the octopus out in the sun -- it makes them much tastier and they grill more easily.
Christoforos Peskias

Octopus souvlaki
Ingredients (serves 6-8)
1.5 kg octopus, cleaned
1 bay leaf
5 peppercorns
1 small finocchio
1 unwaxed orange, preferably organic
90 gr green olives, stoneless (about 30 olives)
2 tbsp olive oil
For the marinade:
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp fresh oregano leaves
or 1 tsp dried, crushed oregano

Preheat the oven to 200C. Put the octopus in a baking dish to fit exactly, placing the tentacle suckers upward. Add the bay leaf and peppercorns and cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Allow to cool enough so that you don’t burn your fingers, but while it is still warm, take hold of the skin at the ends of its tentacles and pull upward carefully so as not remove the suckers. Cut the octopus in 2-cm pieces and place in a bowl. Cut the finocchio in half and then lengthwise into 1-cm slices and drop into boiling water for 4 minutes, then into ice-cold water and strain. Cut the orange into four slices and then quarter each slice. Take 16 large skewers and alternate a piece of octopus, a slice of finocchio and an olive, continuing in that order until most of the skewer is covered. Finish with a piece of orange.
Marinade:
Beat all the ingredients in the blender and pour into a rectangular baking dish. Place the souvlakia into the mix, turning them so they are coated on all sides. Leave to stand for half an hour in the marinade. Then strain, retaining the marinade in a bowl to use when serving.
Rub the souvlakia with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, season and grill on the barbecue or in the oven for about 32 minutes on each side. Pour the marinade over them and serve with a green salad or rusks with olive oil, tomato and capers.

 Helpful preparation tips to make sure you achieve a delicious, mouthwatering result

By Christina Tzialla

Cooking octopus in a rich wine sauce with herbs and spices calls for special caution if the result isn’t going to be too salty. The octopus should be cleaned and washed properly and then placed in a saucepan, either whole or cut in pieces, covered and cooked over a low heat until it releases its juices and starts to soften.

Its own juice is tasty and salty enough, so it doen’t really need any other liquid. You may, however, add a little wine, with some herbs or spices to taste. If the juice looks like it might evaporate before the octopus has softened, add a cup of water or preferably wine. For a more aromatic result, use the zest and juice of citrus fruits.

Remember that octopus shrinks during cooking, so keep that in mind when estimating the number of servings you will get from it.

Prick the octopus with a fork to see if it is soft – the prongs should slide easily into the flesh. An average-sized octopus (1-1.2 kilos) takes about 40 minutes to cook. A bigger one might need over an hour. The safest way to tell if it is done is to taste it.

If you want to add olive oil, do so toward the end so it is not overcooked; the result will be lighter and tastier. Octopus can be served on its own as a snack or as a meal with rice, vegetables, potatoes or pasta. Vinegar or tomato can also be added.

Remember that it has to be cooked slowly so the juices don’t evaporate before the meal is ready. If you need to thicken the sauce, raise the heat right at the end, removing the octopus and other contents if necessary, leaving only the liquid.
If you are using vegetables that need to be sauteed, start with the octopus as described above, then remove it once it has released its juice, put it aside and pour the juice into a bowl. Add the olive oil to the pan and saute the vegetables. Then return the octopus to the pan, stir and add a little wine, then the octopus juice. Add a little more liquid if necessary to cook all the ingredients.

As the octopus is already quite salty, no extra salt is needed during cooking. Taste halfway through and add only if necessary, for example if you have added a lot of extra liquid.

Herbs & spices

Bay leaves, pepper, allspice, oregano, thyme and rosemary all go well with octopus. Parsley, fresh thyme and fresh oregano are also excellent – add them at the end of cooking time, but don’t go overboard, particularly if you aren’t sure.
Some more to try include dried coriander, star anise, and orange juice and zest (some even use whole slices of orange). A classic recipe calls for cloves with bay leaves, cinnamon stick, allspice and paprika, perhaps with a little Mavrodaphne wine. For an even “hotter” version, try finely chopped chili.

RECIPES

Octopus with olives

Ingredients (serves 8)
1.2 kg cleaned octopus
100 ml olive oil
250 gr finely chopped onions
300 ml dry red wine
300 ml homemade tomato sauce*
250 gr Halkidiki olives, stoned and sliced in rounds
2 tbsp fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Wash the octopus well, cut off the tentacles and discard the hood.
Heat the olive oil and saute the onions until slightly softened. Add the tentacles and saute, stirring continuously. Lower the heat and add the wine; leave to cook for 10 minutes and add the tomato sauce and olives. Simmer until the octopus is soft, adding a little water at the end if the octopus doesn’t release much juice. Add the basil and season. Remove from the stove.
* Saute a chopped garlic clove in a tablespoon of oil, add 400 gr canned chopped tomatoes, fresh or dried herbs as desired, salt and pepper and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring and mashing the tomatoes with a wooden spoon.
Lefteris Lazarou

Octopus with wild greens

Ingredients (serves 6)
1.2 kg octopus (one large or 2-3 smaller ones)
1 kg wild aromatic greens, washed and chopped into small pieces
1/2 cup of dry white or red wine
1 onion, finely chopped
2/3 cup olive oil
A little salt and plenty of black pepper

Clean the octopus and, using scissors, remove the hard part (the mouth), found where the tentacles join. Turn the hood inside out and discard the stomach (which could be full of sand), leaving the ink sac if desired. Cut the octopus into pieces, according to the desired serving size.
Wash well and place in a saucepan over a high heat, leaving uncovered until the juice released has evaporated. Then add the oil and onion and saute briefly. While it starts to spit, add the wine and pepper. When the wine has evaporated, add about a cup of boiled water and leave to cook until the octopus is half done (when a fork slides in easily). Add the chopped greens and cover the pan until they settle, stirring occasionally.
The greens will release their own liquid, which will be enough, but keep an eye on it just in case a little more boiled water is needed. Add a little salt to season the greens. There should be no surplus liquid left at the end of cooking time.

Moussaka made better

The usual goo served at many tavernas is not how it's supposed to be

By Yvette Varvaressou

Ask any tourist what Greek dishes they know and the first thing that comes to mind is usually moussaka. Unfortunately, what used to be the pride of every Greek homemaker (and a rite of passage for every prospective village bride) now often devolves into a greasy pile of potatoes and tomato sauce with a spattering of minced meat and eggplant. As for toppings at tavernas, a quivering layer of faux bechamel sauce tends to be the order of the day.

But it’s unlikely that any of these taverna cooks have taken the trouble to follow the recipes of chefs such as Nikos Tselementes, once the foremost authority on Greek food. (It is Tselementes, in fact, who is credited with introducing the bechamel sauce layer back in the 1920s.)

Older moussaka recipes call for eggplant, ground lamb, onion, garlic, chopped tomatoes, herbs and spices -- including cinnamon and allspice. Potatoes were intended to be added as a variation, but have increasingly pushed out other ingredients as an easy way to increase bulk and cut costs.

One of the following recipes uses mashed potato instead of the bechamel sauce as a lighter variation. The second recipe is for an eggplant pie that uses the ingredients of the original moussaka while adding a crust pastry.

RECIPES

Moussaka pie with mashed potato crust
Ingredients (serves 6-8)
For the pie:
0.5 kg beef fillet, in small cubes
2 large eggplants, cubed
2 zucchini, cubed
15 baby tomatoes, halved
1 tbsp tomato juice
2 shallots, finely sliced
1 medium-sized onion, grated
1 tbsp parsley, finely chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp white wine
2 dried allspice berries
Salt and pepper

For the mashed potato:
1 kg potatoes (preferably organic)
150 ml fresh milk
50 gr fresh butter
A little grated nutmeg
2 tbsp grated cheese (kefalotyri)
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan. Add the grated onion and beef and saute until browned, stirring with a wooden spoon. Add the wine and keep stirring for 1-2 minutes. Then add all the vegetables, tomato juice, parsley and allspice. Season, cover and cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, boil the potatoes in a large saucepan in plenty of salted water. In another saucepan, heat the milk with the butter. As soon as the potatoes are quite soft, remove them with a slotted spoon and transfer them to the saucepan with the milk. Mash them with a fork, stirring continually. The potatoes don’t have to be pureed, but should be well blended with the mixture. Then add the nutmeg, salt (if necessary), a spoonful of the grated cheese, and the pepper. Pour the meat mixture into a deep, greased oven-proof dish and spread the potato mix on top of it. Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese over the top and bake at 180C for 25-30 minutes until the top turns golden.
Myrsini Lambraki


Moussaka tart
Ingredients (for 6-8)
3 sheets of pastry
2 large eggplants, cut in small cubes
2 tbsp olive oil
250 gr minced beef (minced once)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 shot of brandy
1 whole garlic clove
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
2 finely chopped tomatoes
A little sugar, salt and pepper

For the sauce:
500 ml fresh milk
2 heaped tbsp cornflour
A little freshly ground nutmeg
2 eggs (preferably organic),
yolks and whites separated
2 tbsp strained yogurt (2 percent fat)
Salt and white pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C. Wash the eggplant, remove the stalks and cut into small cubes. Place the cubes in a bowl and pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil over them. Mix them with your hands, lay them on a sheet of greaseproof paper on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and saute the minced meat for 4-5 minutes until done. Don’t stir it too much or you’ll dry it out. Add the onion and garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes more until they are transparent.
Add the brandy and gently stir with a wooden spatula until the alcohol has evaporated. Add the tomatoes, sugar, parsley and seasoning. Cook for another 7-8 minutes until the meat has absorbed all the liquid. Remove from the stove.
For the sauce, put the milk, cornflour and nutmeg in a saucepan and mix with a whisk so no lumps form. Heat for 7-8 minutes and when it begins to boil, remove from the hub and keep whisking, while adding the cheese.
Using the whisk, beat the egg yolks together with the yogurt and add to the sauce.
Beat the whites for 4-5 minutes until a soft meringue has formed and fold into the sauce with a spoon.
Lay three oiled pastry sheets in a lightly oiled 26-centimeter tart tin, pushing the corners down to form a pocket.
Cut the corners and round the edges. Mix the baked eggplant with the meat mixture and pour onto the pastry. Cover it with the sauce. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the sauce has fluffed up and a crust has formed. Then leave it in the oven for 10-15 minutes and cut into individual servings carefully so that it doesn’t break up.
Argyro Barbarigou

When cheesy is good

There are plenty of dairy products on the market with reduced fat content and many of them are just as flavorful as their full-fat versions -- and then there are some cheeses that are naturally low in fat. Anthotyro, for example, which is made from the whey of feta cheese, has only a 12-20 percent fat content, compared to 25-30 percent of fat for feta and 40-45 percent for yellow cheeses such as graviera and kasseri. Other light traditional Greek cheeses include katiki, tsalafouti, galotyri and goat cheeses generally. Anthotyro, with a Controlled Denomination of Origin (DOC) is a variation of and similar to myzithra, made from sheep’s and goat’s milk. Katiki is a creamy white cheese made from goat’s milk or sometimes a combination of goat’s and sheep’s milk and has a salt content of just 1 percent. Soft and spreadable galotyri, one of the oldest traditional cheeses in Greece with a Controlled Denomination of Origin, has a fat content of 13.8 percent. Goat and sheep’s milk products are often thought of as healthier than those made from cow’s milk. Although they have the same amount of lactose as cow’s milk, the different fermentation process reduces the amount of lactose in the cheeses. It is also thought that goat’s milk is more easily digested than cow’s milk, mainly because goat’s milk does not contain the same levels of the protein casein as cow’s milk does. Below are three recipes by Dina Nikolaou for light and deliciously cheesy dishes. RECIPES Zucchini, katiki and dill tart Ingredients (serves 6-8) For the pastry 250 gr all-purpose flour 1000 ml olive oil and 1 tbsp for the tart base 50 ml milk 1 egg, preferably organic, lightly beaten 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp dried crushed oregano For the filling 4 fairly large zucchinis, grated Leaves of one bunch rocket, finely chopped 250 gr strained yogurt 300 gr katiki Domokou or tsalafouti 2 eggs, preferably organic Leaves and soft stalks of half a bunch of dill, finely chopped 1/3 tsp ground nutmeg Salt & pepper Pastry: Sift the flour into a baking dish and add the olive oil. Knead them together with your fingers until a loose dough is formed. Add the milk, egg, oregano and salt and knead until smooth. Don’t overmix it. Mold the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour. Filling: Squeeze out most of the liquid from the grated zucchinis with your hands. Beat the eggs and yogurt together in a bowl and add the katiki or tsalafouti, beating continually. Add the zucchini, rocket, dill, nutmeg, salt and pepper and mix well. Preheat the oven to 200C. Grease a round 28 cm pie dish or a rectangular one and spread out the dough with your fingers, covering the bottom and sides. Pierce it with a fork in several places and then add the filling. Bake for 40-45 minutes. If the top browns earlier, cover the tart with greaseproof paper until the time is up. Light cheese pie with mint Ingredients (serves 8) 12 sheets shortcrust pastry (about one packet) 1/2 cup olive oil 1 tbsp roasted sesame seeds For the filling: 250 gr anthotyro 250 gr katiki Domokou 250 gr low-fat white goat’s cheese (there are several of these sold packaged in supermarkets) 1 egg, preferably organic, plus 1 egg white for the filling and 1 egg yolk to baste with 1 cup mint leaves, finely chopped or 2 tbsp dried mint 1 tsp sweet paprika Salt & freshly ground pepper In a large bowl, break up the cheeses with a fork and add the whole egg and the white, the paprika, mint and a little salt and pepper. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Brush a round or rectangular (26-38 cm) pie tin with the oil and lay three sheets of pastry, basting each one with oil. Divide the filling into three equal portions. Spread the one portion over the three layers in the dish and cover with three more, basting each one with oil. Continue the process until all the filling and all the pastry layers are used up, finishing with pastry. Preheat the oven to 180C. Baste the top of the pie with oil. Beat the yolk lightly with a teaspoon of water and baste the top of the pie with it. Make shallow cuts in the top of the pastry to form squares and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Bake for an hour. Baked eggplant with cheese Ingredients (serves 4) 3 large eggplants, cut in 1 cm slices 4 tbsp olive oil for the eggplant plus 2 for the sauce 1 onion, finely sliced 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced 8 ripe tomatoes, peeled and cubed 1 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp dried thyme 300 gr low-fat goat’s cheese, grated 1 cup parsley leaves, finely chopped 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, finely chopped or 1/5 tsp dried basil Salt & pepper Put the eggplant slices in a colander, salt well and leave for at least half an hour until they sweat, to remove the bitterness. It will also prevent them from absorbing too much oil while cooking. Rinse with cold water, dry with kitchen paper and lay on a baking tray. Brush the slices on both sides with the olive oil and grill on the highest shelf in the oven for 3-4 minutes on each side. Remove and set aside. Heat the onion and garlic in 2-3 tablespoons of water in a large frying pan, add the tomatoes and 2 tablespoons of oil and stir. Add the oregano and thyme, season and simmer (at 3 on a scale of 1-9 or at 1 on a scale of 1-3) for about six minutes or until the sauce thickens a little. Remove from the hob and add the fresh herbs (parsley, basil). Preheat the oven to 200C. Lightly oil a deep baking dish (about 30x22 cm), add a layer of eggplant and sprinkle with half the cheese. Then add a layer of sauce, continue with the rest of the eggplant slices and then the rest of the cheese. Add the rest of the sauce and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.