Lentil heaven

So many recipes so little time. That's a constant thought on my mind. But there's only so much a person can cook or eat, especially after the greediness of the Christmas holidays.

I feel like I can really use a break from meat, poultry, cream, desserts, and butter. But don't go thinking that I'm going to abstain from every type of fat. No, no that would be preposterous. Fat in the form of pure, rich, luxurious olive oil is the fat of choice. The dish of choice is a classic Greek recipe of lentils.

It is well known that the ancient Greeks enjoyed lentils, mainly in the form of soup, and lentils have been praised by Aristophanes, the ancient Greek comic playwright, in a number of his plays. So who am I to doubt their power? I'm a mere modern Greek girl declaring that I love, love, love lentils. I don't know what it is; maybe it's the appetite of my ancestors running through my blood, making me crave those small, round, tasty legumes. Maybe it's the fact that they're so nutritious that, without me even realizing it, they make me feel a little healthier and more balanced after I've eaten them. It's true; lentils are full of iron, dietary fibers, proteins, minerals, vitamin B1, thus an absolute delight for any of you vegetarians out there. They come in so many colors and sizes, which is curiously impressive, and above all they are so easy to cook.






Greek lentil soup (called "fakes soupa" in Greek) is supposed to have a small list of ingredients. Not fancy or flamboyant fare but simple and straightforward. It's soothing yet potent and full of flavor. When you take a spoonful of this dense soup and savor it, you can immediately taste the rich essence of lentils along with the acidity of tomatoes, the sweetness of the onions, the "kick" of the garlic, the silky smoothness of the olive oil and the aroma of the bay leaf. Adding a small amount of red-wine vinegar at serving time takes the soup to another, higher level.






Being a perfect remedy against the cold weather, this hearty dish is traditionally enjoyed with a side of anchovy or mackerel fillets in olive oil, a chunk of Greek feta cheese and a loaf of rustic bread.











Fakes Soupa (Greek Lentil Soup)

Before you cook the lentils it is important that you pick them over. Sometimes you can find spoiled, blackened lentils or small stones or debris. Just put them in small batches onto a plate and pick them over carefully.






Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients
500 g large* brown lentils
2 medium-sized onions, finely chopped
3 large garlic cloves, sliced
400 g fresh tomatoes, skinned, seeded and cubed or canned diced tomatoes
4 tsp tomato paste
3 dried bay leaves
1/2 cup and 1 Tbsp olive oil
5 plus 5 cups water (and a little more if needed)
A pinch of sugar
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Red-wine vinegar (optional)

Preparation
Pour 5 cups of water in a large, heavy-bottomed pot and add the lentils. Bring them to the boil over high heat and drain them immediately through a colander. Through this process the lentils get cleaned and ready for proper cooking.
Heat the olive oil in the same pot over medium-high heat. Add the onions and sauté them for 3 minutes, then add the garlic and lentils and sauté for 3 more minutes, making sure the lentils are well coated with the oil. Place the tomatoes and tomato paste in the pot and stir everything around. Pour the rest 5 cups of water all over and add the bay leaves and a pinch of sugar. The sugar is added in order to take away some of the tartness of the tomatoes. Add salt and black pepper, bring the mixture to the boil and then simmer over very low heat with the lid on, stirring regularly, for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the lentils are cooked. They should be soft but not mushy.

It is very important that you keep an eye on the lentils while they cook because they tend to absorb a lot of water. You may need to add more water, so check and stir lentils at regular intervals.

Once lentils are cooked, discard bay leaves, check the seasoning and serve soup in bowls. If desired, add a teaspoon of red-wine vinegar per serving. You can add more or less depending on your personal taste.

*You can also use small lentils, but you'll have to cook them for a shorter amount of time. They need about 30 minutes.

...and a Happy New Year!

Being home in Greece for the holidays feels like time travel. Nothing changes at my grandmother's house where the whole family spends the holidays. And the holidays mean one thing and one thing only for my family. Food, food and... food! Planning meals, shopping for meals, preparing the food for meals, cooking meals, eating meals while discussing the meals, cleaning up after the end of each meal, planning meals for the following days. This is a vicious cycle I tell you! And of course I'm caught in it. I have to do my part, not that I'm complaining. Cooking is as important to me as for the rest of my clan. It's just that when three home cooks -my grandmother, my mother, and I- try to organize the festive family meals and cook them, chaos is the appropriate word to describe these occasions. We each think that we can contrive the best menu possible and the fact that each one of us has their distinct cooking style and method, makes it even more difficult to reach common ground on these menus.




My grandmother, being the more traditional cook, wants to prepare every single dish she has been preparing for the past forty years, proud of her heritage and always wanting to please every single member of the family. My mother, the spontaneous cook, wanting to try things that she'd never attempted before, gleefully and with the enthusiasm that is characteristic of her personality. I, the innovative cook -at least to my family's eyes- always trying to introduce new ideas and flavors that usually contradict the traditional greek concept of what Christmas and New Year's menus should include.
I can assure you that we eat extremely well during these days. No matter which menu we decide to choose eventually and who is the head cook for the day, it always turns out to be a magnificent experience for us and our loved ones.




This year I tried to familiarize myself and the family more with chestnuts. I've always eaten them in turkey stuffing or roasted, but never as a soup.
During the holidays, on the busy shopping streets of Athens, you can find stands where corn on the cob and chestnuts are being roasted on an open fire and sold to the passers-by. To those wanting to get warm standing by the fire, picking with greed yet carefully the flesh off, from the almost blackened from the fire, shells of the hot chestnuts and savoring them.
I wanted to create that same feeling of warmth and comfort with a soup made of chestnuts. Mission accomplished. This is a rich creamy soup full of flavor. The woody, nutty taste of the chestnuts complements the tartness of the port, and the addition of fresh vegetables and butter composes a sweet mixture that gives pleasure in every mouthful. The cream comes at the end to round up all the flavors and to give a smooth texture to the soup.
It's a scrumptious soup worthy of a New Year's dinner, served as a starter. It will most surely intrigue your guests' palates and they'll look forward to what's coming up next on your menu.











Chestnut Soup with Port

There are two ways to peel whole chestnuts. One way is to peel them with a sharp knife when they're raw. First peeling the outer, hard layer and then the inner soft hairs, leaving the flesh of the chestnut exposed. The other way is to boil them first and then peel them. I prefer the first method since I believe it is easier and less cumbersome. When you try to peel chestnuts after you've boiled them, you tend to lose a large amount of the flesh in the process since the shell tends to stick very hard onto the flesh, making it difficult to remove it.






Yield: 6-8 first-course servings

Ingredients
670 g whole raw chestnuts (2 3/4 cups raw peeled chestnuts)
1 cup celery, chopped
1 1/3 cup carrot, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
125 g butter
240 ml (1 cup) Ruby port
5 fresh thyme sprigs
950 ml or 4 cups good quality chicken stock, preferably homemade
120 ml (1/2 cup) cream, plus a little more to pour on top of soup when serving
A pinch of white pepper
Salt
Créme fraiche (optional)

Preparation
Place the raw peeled chestnuts in a medium-sized saucepan and fill it with water. Bring to the boil over high heat and then simmer over medium heat for about 15-20 minutes or until the chestnuts are soft. Drain them in a colander and leave them to dry while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over high heat and add the onions, the carrots and the celery. Lower the heat to medium and sauté the vegetables until they become soft, stirring constantly, for about 10 minutes. Add the thyme and port and let simmer for 3 minutes. Place the chestnuts in the pot and stir well so that they get coated with the port and butter. Cook for 4 minutes and add the chicken stock and white pepper. Bring the mixture to the boil and then simmer over low heat, with the lid half-open, for about 40 minutes. Remove the lid and let simmer for 10 more minutes.
Once soup is cooked, discard the thyme sprigs and pour soup in a blender*. Purée in batches until smooth and place in a clean pot. Stir in the cream, check for seasoning, and reheat the soup gently over very low heat, stirring. Ladle soup in warm bowls and pour a little cream over it or a small spoonful of créme fraiche.
Serve immediately.


*You can alternatively use an immersion blender directly into the pot and purée the soup.


HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!

Cranberry delight

Most mediterranean countries rarely use fruit in traditional savory dishes and that is certainly true for Greece. I suppose it's the fact that there is such a plethora of vegetables that one can pair meat or fish with, that there's no actual need to substitute with fruit. So fruit is used mostly for desserts or just enjoyed on their own in all their freshness and deliciousness.

I have used fruit in dishes oftentimes, usually in latin- or asian-inspired recipes, but ever since my boyfriend and I moved to Holland, we've expanded our culinary horizons. I started experimenting even more with fruit, incorporating them in numerous main or side dishes and hors d'oeuvres. Well, I know that the Dutch are not known for their excellence in gastronomy, but rather for their lack of, but I'm a firm believer in giving anybody a chance. So the journey began with apples and a try at hachee, then I moved on to pears, and suddenly here comes Christmas, and with it the sight of cranberries all over the greengrocer's stalls and super markets. I had to do something with them. I was mesmerised by their glorious red color and their juicy roundness.






I didn't want to pair them with game meat though, like in some dutch recipes I discovered, I needed something simpler for my cranberry debut. And what is more straightforward than chutney?






This strikingly red concoction has a pungent aroma. Its sweet and tart flavor along with the fiery heat from the chili can excite even the most demanding of palates. Only in the aftertaste you get a slight hint of the garlic and ginger that give an earthy tone to the chutney. It is perfect as an accompaniment to a piece of Stilton or Fourme d'Ambert cheese on top of crostini* and served as an appetiser.






The vinegary and syrupy taste of the chutney becomes more splendid when paired with a big chunk of Parmesan cheese and cold cuts of cured ham or roast beef on a cheese platter, for a night with friends, not forgetting a bottle of your favorite red or white wine.

*Crostini is the italian word for croutons, but it usually implies toasted slices of bread, most commonly baguettes or the Italian bread, ciabatta.









Cranberry Chutney
Adapted from Gourmet

If you wish to make this chutney another time of the year when you cannot find fresh cranberries, you can most certainly use frozen ones. Use them directly from the freezer.
The chutney tastes much better the day after you've cooked it and even better a week after that.





Yield: 2 cups

Ingredients
3 medium-sized shallots, chopped coarsely
1 Tbsp olive oil
320 g fresh cranberries
3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
150 g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 large garlic clove, minced
20 g (1 ½ tsp) fresh ginger, peeled and minced
A pinch of dried chili flakes or chili powder

Preparation
Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until they become soft but not browned, about 3-5 minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally and making sure that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan, until the cranberries just start to pop, 12-15 minutes. At this point you may want to cover the pan, but not fully, so that the berries don't pop all over your stove but still letting some steam come out of the pan. When most of them have popped remove pan from heat.
If you want to serve it the same day, let it cool, place it in a small bowl and serve.

If you want to preserve it, take the hot sterilized jar, making sure you are not touching the inside of the jar, and fill it with the still hot chutney. Close the lid tightly and put it in a cool, dry place for storage.
You may keep an unopened sterilized jar of chutney in a dark and cool place for up to a year.

Once you open a jar of chutney you have to immediately refrigerate it. It will keep for about 3-4 months as long as you don't contaminate it with dirty spoons or hands.
(Read this)




How to sterilize glass jars
Sterilizing jars is extremely important if you wish to preserve chutneys. It is unhealthy and risky for you to store chutneys in unsterilized jars.
Preheat your oven to 100 degrees Celsius. Wash the jars and lids with soap in hot water. Put them, while still damp and without touching the inside of the jars or lids, on a baking tray and into the oven for 35 minutes. Take them out of the oven, fill jars with the hot cooked product and seal the lids immediately.