The Tas Kebap

Last week, I was waxing poetic about the arrival of spring and the anticipation of all that it would bring. Well, let me tell you, it has brought many things alright, just not what I was expecting. It brought snow, and cold, and chapped lips, and pairs of boots that need to be thrown away because they have been worn for six months already. I’m not going to tell you that I don’t like this weather; I’m going to tell you that I hate it. Enough is enough!

As it is understandable, this northern European spring is making me crave all kinds of wintry things like stews and soups and warm cocoas. I know for some of you all these may not sound that appealing anymore, but for those of you living in places that spring has forgotten, you get me, I know you do.

So, I give you my version of comfort food. A traditional Greek dish of the Politiki cuisine, the kind of Greek cuisine I grew up with (you can read all about it here). This dish is called Tas Kebap and the name is not Greek but Arabic. It’s a dish that was brought to Greece from Greek refugees leaving Constantinople (Istanbul) and Asia Minor, and it has since become part of the Greek culinary heritage.
You may know of the Turkish version of the dish which is heavier as it uses butter and is made with lamb, whereas the Greek version is made with olive oil and the meat of choice is veal.

When someone hears the word kebap or kebab, what jumps into their mind are images of meat skewers being grilled over an open fire and yes, in some cases this is true, but kebap actually refers to numerous dishes containing cubed meat, and different varieties of kebap can be found around the world.

The Greek Tas Kebap is a hearty stew of cubed veal cooked in a thick and rich tomato sauce flavored with spices and red wine. The meat is cooked slowly over a low heat until succulent and at the end you have a luscious, glistening red sauce with the tangy and sweet taste of tomato and spices warming your soul, comforting you in all the right ways.

This unassuming dish is for me the epitome of comfort food, with all the smells and flavors of my grandmother’s kitchen. It is a dish my mom always made and still makes for me whenever I have meat cravings. A dish I grew up with and one that I love. It is, after all, my favorite meat dish.

Tas kebap is traditionally served with pilaf rice, a simple white rice, or with eggplant purée thus creating the famous hunkar begendi, another dish I grew up with and for which the recipe I need to share with you. In the case of hunkar begendi, I change slightly the recipe for the tas kebap, but I will tell you more about it when the time comes. For now, enjoy a taste of traditional Greek Politiki cuisine and let’s hope that spring will make its way here soon.

Tas Kebap (Greek Veal Stew in a Tomato Sauce)

Greeks always choose veal over beef, we don’t particularly enjoy the mature flavor of beef, but you can use either.

For me, the best accompaniment to this stew is white medium-grain rice that’s cooked al dente to add texture to the dish. Serve the meat on top or next to the stew but make sure to mix it all up as you eat it so that every grain of rice gets coated with the scrumptious sauce; that is the way to eat this dish.
Other options include a potato purée or fried potatoes, which are traditional Greek accompaniments to all kinds of stewed meat in tomato sauce.

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients
1 kg boneless veal (or beef) stewing steak, like chuck steak
120 ml good quality olive oil
2 medium-sized onions, grated
2 large garlic cloves, mashed
½ heaped tsp ground allspice
½ heaped tsp ground cumin
400 g fresh tomatoes, grated, or canned diced tomatoes, puréed in a food processor
1 heaped Tbsp tomato paste
⅛ tsp freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of sugar
50 ml dry red wine
250 ml hot water
2 tsp salt or to taste

Special equipment: box grater or food processor


Preparation
Take the meat and cut with a knife the large pieces of fat off, leaving a fair amount of fat on in order to flavor the dish. Cut the meat into pieces, about 2cm each. Place them on paper towels and pat them dry. This is an important step because the meat will not brown properly if it's damp.

In a large, deep, heavy-bottomed pan or preferably in a Dutch oven, add the olive oil and heat over medium-high heat. When it starts to shimmer, add enough meat pieces to cover 2/3 of the bottom of the pan (do not overcrowd the pan because the meat will boil rather than brown) and brown the pieces on both sides. Remove the browned pieces from the pan and place them in a bowl. Brown the rest of the meat pieces in the same manner and place them in the bowl.

Add the grated onions and mashed garlic to the pan and sauté on medium heat for about 4 minutes, stirring continuously. Add the ground allspice and cumin and stir continuously for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and stir continuously for 1 minute. Add the browned meat pieces along with the juices accumulated in the bowl you kept them in, stir well and add some freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of sugar. Turn heat up to medium-high and add the wine and the hot water (hot so the cooking process doesn't stop) and stir well. Let it come to the boil, then turn heat down to the lowest setting, put the lid on and let the meat stew for 1 ½ hours or until it is tender. Check the meat every 20 minutes or so, stirring it around a bit so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. When the meat is almost done, season with salt. The reason you're adding the salt now is because if you add it at the beginning of the cooking process, the veal (or beef) will become tough and chewy.

In the end you will have tender, melt-in-the-mouth meat with a rich, thick tomato sauce.

While the meat is cooking, prepare your rice, your potatoes or whatever your accompaniment to the dish is.

Serve and enjoy with some good crusty bread and feta cheese (you know it goes with everything!).

Tas Kebap will taste even better on the second day.

On the first day of spring

The sun was out on the first day of spring, March twenty-first. The temperature was still low, it was terribly cold out, but there was something in the air that made me acutely aware of the change of seasons and what that would bring.

More sunshine, more light, more open windows and the sweet smell of flowers wafting in, berries, spring vegetables, and all the possibilities for delicious and colorful plates of food.

I turned my gaze to the dining room table and my eye caught a glimpse of the fruit basket. It was filled with grapefruits, tangerines and blood oranges and I immediately became aware of yet another thing. Of all that I would be missing once spring would arrive for good.

The citrus fruits, the cold nights sitting by a warm fire, the citrus fruits. Yes, I know I’ve said that twice but really, that’s all I’m going to miss from winter. The rest I’m sick of already.

I never get tired of citrus fruits and I always seem to rediscover their beauty once their season is almost over. I feel like I need to get the best out of them to last me for a whole year. I love their versatility, their aroma and vibrant color, their unique flavor and all that they can bring to a dessert, a cake, a granita.

On the first day of spring, I made a cake; a blood orange and Campari cake that was dreamy and everything it promised it would be. A luscious semolina and almond cake with Greek yoghurt and zest of the citrus fruit; with a syrup made with blood orange juice and the highly aromatic apéritif that soaked the cake, balancing the contrasting flavors and rendering a slight bitterness.

Filled with the sweet and acidic taste of blood oranges, the bitterness and spiciness of the Campari, the crunch of the semolina and ground almonds, it was overwhelmingly flavorful, so much so that S and I couldn’t stop eating it. And the color, oh the color, it was something truly inspiring.

Without a doubt, the best dessert I’ve tasted in a while, it surely deserves a place in your heart as well. Hurry now, grab those last blood oranges and make this.

Blood Orange, Campari and Semolina Syrup Cake
Slightly adapted from Polpo

Even though this is a syrup cake, it is not too sweet, as the bitter and acidic notes harmonize its flavors. Make sure to pair it with clotted cream (if you can find it, thankfully I can) or vanilla ice cream.

I always grind my own blanched almonds because the already ground ones are more expensive and not as fresh. You too can grind your own almonds in a food processor, being careful though not to turn them into a paste.

Yield: 10-12 servings

Ingredients

for the cake
Zest of 4 blood oranges
350 g Greek strained yoghurt, full-fat
300 g caster sugar
4 medium-sized eggs, lightly beaten with a fork
250 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
350 g fine semolina
100 g blanched ground almonds

Unsalted butter for greasing the pan

for the syrup
680 ml fresh blood orange juice (from about 8 fruits)
110 ml Campari
300 g caster sugar

Special equipment: round springform pan 22-23 cm in diameter, rasp grater


Preparation

for the cake
Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius / 340 Fahrenheit.

Prepare your pan by greasing the base and sides with butter.

In a large bowl, add the zest of the blood oranges, the yoghurt, sugar, the lightly beaten eggs and the melted and cooled butter. Stir well with a spatula until you have a homogenous mixture and add the semolina and ground almonds. Mix well with the spatula and empty the mixture into the prepared pan. The mixture will be thick and you will need to level the top with the spatula or the back of a spoon.

Place the pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 30-35 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Remove the pan from the oven and onto a wire rack. Leave the cake to cool in the pan.

for the syrup
While the cake is cooking, prepare the syrup which should be poured hot on the warm cake.

In a medium-sized, heavy-based saucepan, add the blood orange juice, Campari and sugar and place over a medium heat. Stir with a spoon until the sugar melts and bring syrup to the boil. Turn heat down to low and simmer the syrup for 30 minutes, or until you have a slightly thick syrup, skimming the white foam that gathers on top.

Prick the cake all over with a skewer and pour the hot syrup over the top in two batches, waiting until the cake absorbs it before adding more. Allow the cake to absorb the syrup and cool down completely. Then remove the interlocking side band of the pan and serve the cake, cut into slices.

Serve with clotted cream, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

The cake will keep for 4-5 days, covered, at room temperature and it doesn’t lose its wonderful flavor, on the contrary it becomes even better.

The Lagana

Tomorrow is Kathari Deftera, which means Clean Monday (you may know it as Ash Monday), and it is the first day of the Orthodox Lent. It is a moveable feast which occurs always forty-eight days prior to Easter Sunday and it’s a day of purification, both spiritual and physical as the great fasting period begins.

Kathari Deftera is a public holiday in Greece, and people traditionally go out for a picnic and to also engage in the custom of kite flying. If you are ever in Greece on this day, you’ll see the sky filled with kites of every size and shape and children as well as adults running around, trying to fly them as high as they can.

As with all holidays in Greece, this one too revolves around food. No fish, meat or dairy products are permitted but we can have shellfish since they don’t have any blood. The traditional foods that are eaten on the day are the sweet tahini halva, or the one I always make, semolina halva, shellfish like octopus, shrimp, mussels, calamari and squid, prepared in various ways, taramosalata which is a carp roe dip, olives and of course the main attraction, the lagana.

Lagana is a large, flat, elongated rectangular bread with rounded sides and sesame seeds on top, and it is made and consumed only on Kathari Deftera. The word lagana (plural: laganes / Greek: λαγάνα) derives from the ancient Greek laganon (Greek: λάγανον) meaning a thin, flat and unleavened bread. Once upon a time, lagana used to be unleavened as well, but today yeast is added to the dough to make it lighter.

Lagana is reminiscent of focaccia and it has a crunchy crust and a soft and airy crumb. It is ever-so-slightly sweet in flavor, with nutty accents from the sesame seeds, and sometimes spices such as aniseeds are added to the dough mixture.

On Kathari Deftera, lagana is sold in every bakery in Greece but many people choose to bake their own. In Greece, I rarely make my own lagana, there are so many foods to be prepared on the day it’s quite difficult to make bread as well, and the truth of the matter is, the ones from the bakeries are excellent.

Ever since I moved to Holland five years ago though, if I want to enjoy lagana, I have to make it myself. That’s the curse of the expat. Thankfully, it is not at all difficult to prepare and besides, I always enjoy making my own bread. This one in particular is among my favorites and I crave it throughout the year. I never liked the fact that it is only consumed on Clean Monday but, well, I suppose it gives me something to look forward to.


Have a good Kathari Deftera!

Lagana (Greek Lenten Yeasted Flatbread)

This recipe for lagana gives you the perfect, authentic and traditional flavor of the unique Greek bread; crusty, with a soft and open crumb and nutty sesame seeds on top.
Eat it with dips of any kind and know that it makes the best vehicle for every type of sandwich. This is exciting bread.

Lagana is a large-sized bread but my oven is small; I can’t fit one large lagana so I make two smaller ones. You can choose either, depending on the size of your oven.

Yield: 1 large or 2 small laganes

Ingredients
250 g all-purpose flour
250 g semolina flour (from durum wheat)
9 g instant dried yeast
1-2 tsp caster sugar (add 1 tsp if you prefer not to taste any sweetness)
1 tsp sea salt
30 ml (2 Tbsp) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing the bowl
330 ml lukewarm water
Sesame seeds for sprinkling over the top

Special equipment: stand mixer with dough hook attachment (optional), plastic wrap, pastry brush, large baking sheet or two smaller ones, baking paper


Preparation
In the bowl of your stand mixer or in a large bowl, add the yeast, all-purpose and semolina flour, the sugar, salt (making sure it doesn’t come in contact with the yeast), olive oil and the lukewarm water.

If you’re kneading in a stand mixer, attach the dough hook and knead for about 7 minutes, on the lowest speed, until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl, remains moist and it is smooth and elastic. Empty it onto a lightly floured surface and knead it a little to see how it feels. It should feel a little sticky to the touch.

If you're kneading by hand, once you have mixed the ingredients together into a rough dough (it will be quite runny and sticky), take the dough out of the bowl and onto a clean surface and knead well. It'll take 10-12 minutes. What you're aiming for is a soft and pliable dough that's sticking slightly to your hands and that remains moist but not overly so that you can’t knead it.
The reason you want the dough to be moist is because you want a soft and airy crumb. If the dough is heavy, the bread will be heavy as well. Furthermore, in combination with a good kneading, you will accomplish many large and small holes in the crumb.

Note: Not all flours are the same, so if your dough is very wet, don't be afraid to add more flour (all-purpose flour). Add a little at a time though, testing the consistency of the dough. You don't want to end up with a stodgy, stiff dough.

Shape the dough into a ball, lightly grease the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large bowl) as well as the dough ball with olive oil and place the dough inside the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in a warm place, allowing the dough to proof and double in size. It will take about 1 hour to proof, depending on how warm the room you leave it in is.
During the winter, I always leave my dough next to a working radiator. Not on top of it but on a chair and right in front of it.

Note: If you want to test whether your dough has proofed correctly or not, do the finger-poking test. Gently poke the dough with your finger and a) if the dough springs back immediately, it is under-proofed, b) if the dough springs back halfway, it's perfectly proofed.

Line your baking sheet(s) with baking paper.

Once the dough has proofed, take it out of the bowl and knead it for a couple of seconds just to deflate it a bit. It should feel smooth, pliable and soft.

If you want to make two smaller laganes, divide the dough into two equal pieces.
Using your hands (or a rolling pin), form your laganes into an elongated rectangular shape with rounded edges with about 1.5 cm thickness.
You can either form the laganes on a clean surface or on the baking paper (they will be easier to transfer). Transfer the breads onto the baking sheets and cover with plastic wrap.
Leave them to proof in a warm place (they will not double in size though just proof a bit), for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius / 390 Fahrenheit.

Once the breads have proofed, remove the plastic wrap and brush them lightly with water, using a pastry brush. Then, poke the tops of the laganes with your fingertips to make indentations, being careful not to pierce through the dough and deflate it, and sprinkle liberally with sesame seeds.

If you make one large lagana, place the baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. If you make two smaller ones, place one baking sheet on the low rack of the oven and the other baking sheet on the middle rack. Bake for 15 minutes and then switch positions and bake for further 15 minutes, until the laganes have taken on a golden-brown color.

Remove the baking sheets from the oven, place laganes on a clean surface and allow them to cool.

Enjoy them!!

More Lenten recipes