My funny Valentine

You might not be a fan of Valentine's Day, God knows I'm not, but I dare you to show me a person who doesn't like chocolate. Don't ask me why we associate V. Day with chocolate, or with flowers for that matter, I'm not gonna be the one to challenge the courtship rituals of the day. I am going to say this though; don't wait for V. Day to declare your love, admiration, devotion, your lust or your passion for your loved one, be that your wife/husband, boy/girlfriend, lover, even a secret crush. Life's too short to just sit and wait for February 14th.

Having said that... I'm just a girl who wouldn't mind receiving a nice box of chocolates on the day, although I have to admit, I prefer making my own. There's a certain satisfaction in making chocolate and an underlying sense of seduction. It's mystical, magical, this procedure. It makes me feel like an alchemist, working to make all the secret ingredients click and result in a spellbinding concoction that will allure and excite anyone tasting them.






Like the temptress that I am, I decided to make use of two kinds of chocolate and create two different treats. Spiced dark chocolate hearts and marzipan-white chocolate bites with ginger. Adding aphrodisiacs in the form of spices will always do the trick.
The little chocolate hearts melt in your mouth, filling it with the glorious sweetness of the chocolate and the slight tingle of heat from the cayenne and black pepper. The marzipan-white chocolate bites, flavored with the aphrodisiac of the East, ginger, taste like heaven in a bite, and along with the almond flavor of the marzipan constitute a marvel for the palate.






I could try more to explain the feelings that these chocolates evoke when eaten, but it would be futile. You have to try them. Keep these recipes bookmarked for when you just want to savor something special, something that you'll want to share not only with the love of your life but with anyone you love, no matter what day it is. They will be grateful to you.













Spiced Dark Chocolate Hearts
Adapted from Stelios Parliaros

You need only a few ingredients to make these chocolates but you do need to temper the chocolate for better results.






Yield: 30 chocolates (10 g each)

Ingredients
350 g couverture or bittersweet chocolate
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg, freshly ground
A good pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Preparation
Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie or in the microwave.
If you use a bain-marie, stir the chocolate while it melts and do not overheat it.
Be careful not to let any steam or water come in contact with the melting chocolate because it will ruin it and make it stiff.
If you're using the microwave, make sure not to boil the chocolate. Do not overheat it.

Next you need to temper the chocolate.

The procedure of tempering chocolate is an essential step when making chocolates. It ensures that the chocolate will remain shiny and will snap when broken, instead of crumble. When you temper chocolate, you lower its temperature by the constant folding and smearing of it across a cold marble stone, in order to prohibit crystallization of the cocoa butter and to prevent splitting of the solids from the liquids. This procedure goes on until the temperature of the chocolate drops to 30 degrees Celsius for dark chocolate and 28 degrees Celsius for white chocolate.

To temper chocolate, you can either follow the aforementioned method or a much easier one.
Let's start with the difficult one (based on the one above). Once you melt the chocolate, pour it onto a marble stone or a glass surface, or any other cold and smooth surface (not wooden or porous surfaces). Fold the chocolate, smearing it across the surface many times, using a spatula, for about 5 minutes. Continue this process until, inserting a thermometer, the temperature reads 30 degrees Celsius. Then place the chocolate in a bowl.

Now for the easy method. Not everyone has a marble stone or even a big enough surface in the kitchen for folding the chocolate, and I'm sure not many of you have a thermometer for this kind of use. So, there's another way to temper your chocolate.
Once the chocolate is melted, pour it into another bowl and keep stirring it around with a rubber spatula until it cools. How will you know when it has reached the correct temperature? Just bring a bit of the melted chocolate to your lips and feel it. If it feels warm, then continue stirring, until when you feel it again it's cool but not cold.

After tempering the chocolate, add the cayenne, black pepper and nutmeg and stir around until incorporated. Then pour the chocolate into the heart-shaped molds.
You will need silicone molds or molds especially made for chocolates.
Tap the molds gently onto a surface so that you eliminate any air bubbles in the chocolate, and place in the refrigerator to set. They will take about 20 minutes to set. Remove chocolates carefully from molds and store in an airtight container.

If you don't have molds, then you can just pour teaspoons of chocolate onto greaseproof paper and let cool completely before putting in the refrigerator to set.

Leave the chocolates at room temperature for 5 minutes before serving, because they get really hard when they're in the refrigerator and are difficult to bite into.

The chocolates will keep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator, stored in an airtight container.












Marzipan-White Chocolate Bites with Ginger
Adapted from Stelios Parliaros

This recipe has a small list of ingredients. The marzipan here is not the traditional one but a much lighter one since it does not contain eggs.






Yield: 25 chocolates


Ingredients

for marzipan
35 g orange juice, freshly squeezed
50 g icing sugar
200 g almond flour
1/2 tsp fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated or 1/4 ground ginger

for coating
125 g white chocolate
50 g icing sugar (optional)
Sugar hearts (optional)


Preparation

for marzipan
In a blender, place the almond flour, icing sugar, orange juice and the ginger and blend until it becomes a firm dough. Remove dough from blender and shape into bite-sized balls. Put aside.


for coating
Melt the chocolate and temper it exactly as described in the previous recipe (the temperature must be 28 degrees Celsius after tempering).

Roll the marzipan balls into the white chocolate and place them on a wire rack to harden, adding on top, if you wish, small sugar hearts.
Alternatively, you can roll them into the white chocolate and then in icing sugar.

Place coated marzipan balls in the refrigerator to set. Serve straight from the refrigerator.

The marzipan-chocolate bites will keep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator, stored in an airtight container.

The first mezes

I'm in Greece for the last couple of days and I'm walking on air! I'm home! I always feel so happy when I get the chance to come home in Athens. This time a wedding is the reason for my visit; the wedding of two close friends of mine.
Of course being in Greece automatically means that I have an array of ingredients available to me that I can't wait to use in some yummy recipe. Ingredients that unfortunately I can't find in Holland or that I'm just too lazy to go looking for places that sell them. So naturally, as soon as I got here, I had to cook. And what's a better thing to cook than the thing you're craving the most. From the moment my boyfriend booked our tickets, there was one thing on my mind. Taramosalata. Oh yes, the famous taramosalata. What? You don't know what taramosalata is? Don't fret. I'll explain.






Taramosalata is a Greek mezes. Ok, you don't know what a mezes is either? Let's take it from the beginning then. Mezedes (the plural of mezes) are an assortment of small hot or cold dishes or appetizers, served before a large meal. They can also be served on their own as an accompaniment to alcoholic drinks such as ouzo, raki, tsipouro, or wine. A Greek mezes can consist of meat, fish, olives, legumes, vegetables, cheese, eggs and almost anything you can think of, cooked in many different and interesting ways. For example, a mezes traditionally accompanying ouzo is boiled octopus that is then marinated in vinegar, olive oil and dried oregano. A mezes traditionally accompanying wine is veal or beef cut in small cubes and cooked in a rich dark tomato sauce. Depending on what you're drinking you have the appropriate mezes.





Taramosalata is the ultimate mezes for me. It literally means a salad made with taramas. Taramas is salted and cured carp or the less expensive cod roe which is caviar-like, and I need to tell you that taramosalata is not actually a salad, it's a dip. Well, it's the ultimate dip. It's so unbelievably tasty, it's sinful. It's a supremely delicious, salty, rich, slightly sweet, creamy dip that will make you want to lick the bowl.

Salted and cured carp roe or taramas

The ingredients of taramosalata are so simple it's ridiculous, assuming of course that you have the carp roe. All you need is some stale bread, onions, olive oil and a lemon. Could it be simpler than that? A word about taramas though. There are two types, white and red. White or light pink taramas is the superior of the two, since the red one is the result of the addition of food coloring to the roe. Make sure that you buy the white one.






Although many suggest that taramosalata can be eaten with raw vegetables cut into strips or grilled pita, I strongly suggest that you eat it alongside a rustic loaf of bread. Just that. A big chunk of bread, cut into thick slices and dipped into the taramosalata, or just a load of taramosalata spread generously over the bread. Trust me, that's the way to go!
I made whole-wheat bread with Greek honey to accompany my decadent taramosalata and even though it was my first attempt at making it, it was a complete and huge success. I was jumping for joy. The recipe will come at another time, I promise.












Taramosalata (Greek Dip with Carp Roe, Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, Bread and Onions)

The stale bread is a very important ingredient of the recipe. You must not use pre-sliced bread or white baguettes because they will be very soft once soaked in water. The appropriate bread is a stale rustic loaf that is dense and does not disintegrate or become muddy when soaked.




Yield: 3 cups

Ingredients
70 g white taramas (salted and cured carp or cod roe)
200 g white stale bread, soaked in water
1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped
5 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed

Special equipment: food processor


Preparation
Place the bread in a large bowl and fill it with tap water so that the water covers the bread. Leave it to soak for 4-5 minutes, then drain it and squeeze it in your hands so that the water comes out. Discard the upper and bottom crust of the bread if the color is too brown because it will discolor the taramosalata.


Place the onion in the food processor and chop it. Then add the bread and taramas and while processing them, add first the lemon juice, dripping it in little by little, and then add the olive oil in the same manner, until the mixture blends well, lemon juice and oil is incorporated, and the mixture becomes smooth and creamy.


Move taramosalata to a serving bowl, drip a little olive oil over it or put a nice big juicy Kalamata olive on top and serve, or keep taramosalata in the refrigerator for later use.

You can store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.

The power of a vegetable

Give us Greeks a vegetable, any vegetable, and we're going to transform it, chop it, fry it, stuff it, grill it, bake it, broil it, you name it! We have a real talent for that. Or perhaps we just have access to so many vegetables that we have to do something with them.
When I was little, I hated almost any vegetable I laid my eyes on, let alone put them in my mouth. I didn't even give them a chance. They were too green, too soft, too hard, too bitter (never too sweet mind you), too slimy, too awful smelling, too... anything! I was driving everyone crazy. Little did I know that a couple of decades later, I would be the stronger supporter of vegetables in my family. What? Having a meal without a vegetable being included? Unfathomable! Oh, how times change.






As it happened with eggs, my mother had to find ways to make me eat some vegetables. Camouflage was the name of the game. Vegetables not in plain sight, but artfully covered or mixed with let's say pasta, rice or meat.
The addition of a heavenly minced meat-tomato sauce filling (or better yet topping) and some scrumptious cheese on top, was all little Magda needed to be persuaded to eat a stuffed eggplant, or as we call it in Greek "Melitzanes Papoutsakia", the actual translation of which is "Eggplant little shoes".






This is a recipe well rooted in the hearts and stomachs of every Greek. It is a staple dinner dish enjoyed by the whole family, though still a special one that can be served at a celebratory dinner or a special occasion. Including hearty vegetables, meat, dairy in the form of cheese and of course olive oil, it covers every single food group a person needs to incorporate into his daily diet. And flavor, oh the flavor. It's magnificent. The slight bitterness of the eggplant marries perfectly with the sweetness of the tomato and the earthiness of the onion. The meat lends its precious proteins to the dish, making it both satisfying and substantial, and the melting cheese on top, cascading down the shiny eggplant, gives an extra depth of flavor to the overall dish.






Stuffed eggplant is a versatile dish, since you can either serve it as a main or as a first course dish. Either way, be sure to pair it with a nice bottle of robust red wine, like the excellent Greek wine Amethystos, which is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and an ancient Greek variety called Limnio.











Melitzanes Papoutsakia (Greek Stuffed Eggplants with Minced Beef-Tomato Sauce Filling and Kefalotyri Cheese)


Literally every home cook in Greece makes their minced meat-tomato sauce filling in a different way. I suppose it's a matter of taste as well as family tradition. I've played around with enough ingredients myself for this recipe over the years, making this filling different almost every time, but the following recipe is my favorite.
Feel free to experiment yourselves, using your own taste and instinct. Keep in mind though that the more ingredients you add to your sauce, the less room you're leaving for the eggplant to shine as the main ingredient of the dish. Less is more in this case for me.




In Greece, the majority of people eat veal instead of beef, so that would customarily be the minced meat of choice for this dish. But beef works marvellously as well in this recipe, as long as it's a clean, lean cut of beef.

Traditionally, the cheese used in this dish is Kefalotyri, a hard, yellow Greek cheese made from raw goat or sheep's milk that has a slightly salty, mildly acidulous flavor and a sharp aroma. This cheese will bring authenticity to the dish.
Alternatively you can use Pecorino Romano or Parmiggiano Reggiano (Parmesan cheese) and if you're a Dutchie or simply want to try a cheese from the Netherlands, you can use Oude Geitenkaas, an aged goat's cheese which is fantastic.


Yield: 4-5 main course servings or 9-10 first course servings*

Ingredients
5 large eggplants (around 19 cm in length each)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
1 medium-sized garlic clove, sliced
400 g minced veal or beef (from a lean piece of beef)
400 g fresh tomatoes, skinned, seeded and cubed or canned diced tomatoes
2 tsp tomato paste
2 fresh thyme sprigs or 1/8 tsp dried thyme, crumbled
A small pinch of sugar
1/2 cup water
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
130-140 g Kefalotyri cheese, grated


Preparation
Be sure to choose eggplants that are firm, with a vibrant purple color, smooth skin and no disfigurement whatsoever. You also need to buy eggplants of similar size so that they take an equal amount of time to cook.
Wash them well under cold water, cut off their green stems and leaves and cut them in half lengthwise. Prick lightly with a fork the inside of the eggplants.
If you want to take the bitterness out of the eggplants, sprinkle the inside with some salt and leave them inside a colander for an hour. Then rinse them well and squeeze them lightly to get a little bit of their juice out.
You can skip this part, and actually I do, because I rarely find eggplants bitter nowadays.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place the eggplant halves, skin side down, on a baking pan, sprinkle with a little salt and black pepper (if you have left them salted for an hour then you do not need to salt them again) and put pan on the middle rack of the oven. Bake them for about 45 minutes, until they soften but are not cooked all the way. You don't need them to be overly soft because they're going to bake for another 30-35 minutes.

Meanwhile, start preparing the filling. Heat the olive oil in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan, over medium-high heat. Sauté the onions for about 5 minutes, until they become soft and transparent and then add the garlic. Sauté for 1 minute and add the minced beef. Sauté the meat for 4-5 minutes, stirring continuously with a spoon or spatula, until browned. Season with salt and black pepper, add the tomatoes and tomato paste and stir well.
Then add the thyme and sugar and pour the water all over the ingredients. Stir well and let the mixture come to the boil, uncovered. Once it does, cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes, or until the meat is almost cooked.
While the filling is cooking, you need to keep an eye on it, stirring occasionally, because it might need more water.
Once cooked, the filling should not be dry. It must have an average amount of liquid in it in order to permeate the eggplants and give them extra flavor.

Press the inside of the partially cooked eggplants a little bit with a spoon to create a shallow shell and add the filling on top of the whole eggplant**. Place the baking pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 25 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Take the pan out of the oven and add a generous amount of grated cheese on top of the filling. Bake for another 10 minutes until the cheese has melted and has taken on a golden color.

Place stuffed eggplants on individual dishes and serve immediately.


*In case you want to make this dish for 2 people, you can buy and cook only two eggplants and use the rest of the beef-tomato sauce the next day, on top of a nice big bowl of spaghetti. Don't forget to grate your favorite cheese on top.

**Variation: At this point you can also add a béchamel sauce on top of the filling, but I usually avoid doing that because the dish becomes too heavy.