Tzatziki

 

You have to love tzatziki for its simplicity if nothing else, Often served in and amongst a mesa of other bit and pieces tzatziki is eaten as a dip with just about everything.

Tzatziki take about five minutes to whip up to do so you will need:

200g Greek Yogurt

1          Small cucumber

1          Clove of garlic

8          Mint leaves (optional)

Salt (Sea Salt) and Pepper to taste  

Put your Greek yogurt into a bowl, crush the garlic clove and grate the cucumber, add these to the yogurt and mix them in. Finley chop the mint leaves and mix these into the rest. Add a pinch of sea salt and grind in some black pepper to your own taste.

Tzatziki will keep covered in the fridge for two to three days.

Fava

Fava.

Fava, is a really simple massively healthy Greek side dish. It is most commonly served as one of the many dishes that tend to find them selves on a Greek dinner table.

Fava is made from split yellow peas, much to my amusement if you go to a restaurant which is kind enough to translate the menu into English you will find this dish under pea soup, this of course is not what it is but is what fava directly translates as.

To make fava you will need.

Fava or split yellow peas

2 Small Onions

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Put the yellow peas into a pan, peal one of the onions, cross both ends and put this in with the yellow peas. Cover the yellow peas with water you will want the water to be above the peas by about 2cm. Add a pinch of sea salt.

Bring the plan to the boil and let it boil for about 20 minutes or until the peas have absorbed the water and are soft to the touch.

Drain any extra water and discard the Onion. Put the peas into a food processer and add about two tablespoons of olive oil. Run the food processer until the peas have become more of a cream, you may need to add a little water. At this point you can add some more salt and pepper, if you like you can also add a few herbs. I like to throw in some oregano and basil.

Finely chop the second onion. Take the now creamy fava out of the food processor and top with the onions and a dash of olive oil to serve.

This dish is best served warm. It will keep in the fridge for several days; you can heat it in the microwave or on the hob to serve again later on. 

Stuffed Vine Leaves

Stuffed vine leaves are one of my favourite Greek dishes, whenever I go out they are always ordered, so I have tasted a fair few. When Spring arrived and the vines started to grow leaves I thoutgh ‘Mmmmm, how hard can it be?!’

The truth is that it's not hard, just a touch fiddly, I like them so much that the fiddling doesn’t put me off and perhaps the genius part of the whole thing is that, much like a stir fry, anything goes! Any veg that you have lying around the fridge is fair game. You can use fresh herbs or dried, the result is much the same though I think the fresher the better.

This is a step by step guide to making stuffed vine leaves.

First off your going to need the following ingredients:

 

30 – 40            Vine leaves – I use fresh leaves but you can use jarred or frozen leaves.

1                      Red pepper

1                      Large carrot

1                      Fist full of fresh coriander

1                      Fist full of fresh basil

1                      Table spoon dried oregano

1                      Large red onion

2                      Cloves of garlic

8 – 10              Baby tomatoes

1 500g            Tin of tomatoes

2                      Large tomatoes

1                      Stock cube  - I use chicken

300g                Short grain rice

Salt and pepper to taste

If using fresh vine leaves collect 30 to 40, they should have a diameter of between 12 and 18cm. Try to take younger leafs and please try not to take them all from the same plant.

Once you have your leaves you need to wash them and cut the stalks completely off. Now that they are clean pile them into stacks of ten or so and role them into a cylinder resembling a cigar.

Using tongs submerge the leafs in a pot of boiling water for 3 – 5 seconds and then place them on a plate to cool.  Keep the water and add the stock cube to the water, turn the water down to a very low heat.

Peel the onion and the garlic and throw them into the food processor. You want to blend them into finely diced pieces, alternatively if you don’t have a food processor you can grate them.

The carrot and the pepper should be cut into small pieces and added to the onion and garlic.

Put a large wok or deep frying pan onto a medium high heat and add up to 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Once the oil is hot (but not smoking) add the onion, garlic, carrot and red pepper, cook these until they soften. When they’re soft add the rice and turn the heat down you will need a medium heat from now on.

You will need to ladle in the stock, it’s much like cooking a risotto, after you have added 3 – 4 ladles of stock add the coriander and basil and then the tinned chopped tomatoes.  The rice should be half cooked. It will be cooked the whole way through later on. Once you're at this stage take the pan off the heat and let it cool.

Unroll the vine leaves so that they are flat. Find the larger leaves and put these to one side, if there are any torn ones keep these aside too. Take a large pan or casserole dish and pour in a generous amount of olive oil (several glugs), now place as many of the torn leaves as you need to cover the base of the pan, this will stop your stuffed vine leafs from burning. Add a little more olive oil to the topside of the leaves.

On a dinner plate place one leaf upside down so that the underside of the leaf is now on top. Using a desert spoon, put just under spoon's worth of stuffing on the leaf. Next up you need to fold it. Try to get it as tight as possible, fold the left and right sides over one another and then roll the leaf, it should look like a pillow when you're done. Take the now stuffed leaf and put it into the pan which has the other leaves lining the bottom, you should put them on the edge of the pan creating a ring and work your way in, If you have a few too many just pile them up and make a second layer. 

Take the tomatoes and put them in the food processor, give them a really good nuke so that you are left with tomato pulp more than anything else and pour this over the stuffed vine leaves, you want to add some water so that the bottom leaves are just about covered and then a sprinkling of olive oil for good measure.

Cut a long sheet of aluminum foil and put a plate upside down in the middle. Lower the plate onto the stuffed vine leaves to act as a lid. Turn the heat on, you will need a very low heat. Leave the leaves cooking for about an hour or until all the water has been absorbed by the rice.

Once the water has been absorbed take them off the heat and serve hot or cold with some Greek yogurt.

Vine leaves are great and whilst they take a while to make they keep in the fridge for a few days and are wonderful snacks or starter dishes. 

Enjoy!