My family comes from northern Greece (province of Macedonia) and it’s capital is Thessaloniki. It’s a city of 1.5 million and it’s still considered a big town where you’ll always bump into someone you know!
Our summer beach home is close to Thessaloniki and my brother and I went into the city to have a walkabout, grab a bite and have a few drinks.
We were dropped off in the suburb of Kalamaria and we were famished. We tripped upon a busy eatery called “DERLICATESSEN”, Kouskoura 7, Thessaloniki and it was 9ish (early for a Greek dinner but we were hungry).
One of the food items that were flying out the doors of this bustling eatery was their baked potato. These guys were using old, cast iron ovens to slowly baked these spuds to perfection.
Think baked potato as a Greek would do it…a Mr. Potato-head sized spud, a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, coarse salt, cracked black pepper, creamy feta sauce mixed with Greek cream cheese and lots of scallions to top off this tasty side.
Baked Potato a la Greque
4 large baking potatoes, skins scrubbed and washed
extra virgin olive oil
coarse sea salt
cracked black pepper
1 slab of good Greek feta
2 Tbsp of milk
1 tsp of lemon zest
2 Tbsp. of cream cheese
2 Tbsp dried Greek oregano
chopped scallions
Preheat your oven to 450F
- Adjust the rack to the middle position. Rinse and scrub each potato as skins are delicious to eat too. Dry each potato thoroughly.
- Pierce each potato with a fork or knife a few times on each side to allow the steam to escape and prevent the potatoes from exploding. For a soft skins, rub the skins with olive oil.
- Bake on the middle rack for 60 minutes.
- Make your feta sauce by first adding your milk and feta into a bowl and mash the feta into the milk with a fork. Now add your lemon zest, cream cheese and oregano and mix well.
- Assemble your baked potatoes by cutting a slit into the top of the potato and use your hands to squeeze in the potato and open it up.
- Drizzle each potato with extra virgin olive oil, season with salt and pepper, spoon over some feta sauce and top with lots of scallions.
These potatoes will be on my table tonight Peter!!!!!Give me a bottle of Mythos or a glass of raki and I will be set for the evening. I have no Raki only Citron from Naxos.
Peter, I can’t keep up with you: your recipes are so tempting, I want to make them all. I wanted to let you know that thanks to your earlier post, the other night I made the onion soup: it came out great. I have a few others of your recipes in my to-do list and now I am adding this too. Thanks!
Those look so good! I love roasted potatoes but never thought of adding scallions.
Simona, that’s wonderful that the onion soup turned out well..it’s a favourite of mine in these cooler months and easy!
Peter, I love the sound of the feta cheese sauce! I can’t wait to try it instead of the usual sour cream and butter.
I love baked potatoes sometimes I rub them with olive oil too, it depends how I want the skin. Your picture looks amazing that Greek cheese topping sounds fantastic. :)
9 p.m. is early for a dinner in Greece??? WoW and Oh my Goodness! How cool is that? I love your heritage and I can tell that you do also. . .along with the fact that this recipe looks delicious and do-able for a week night dinner. Thank you. BTW, how do you do it? You post every day, at least once, and the posts are beautiful along with fantastic recipes. . .I am so impressed! =D
Peter, I love baked potato, but I never try put Greek feta, it must be delicious
Peter it looks delicious. Haven’t tried it with feta before. Do you wrap the potatoes before placing in oven?
These look and sound delicious! We have some family in Thessaloniki, too!
Peter, as always my mouth opens when the picture of your last recipe shows… and it’s not gravitational force… ;-) Just so easy and so beautiful!!!
We get all sorts of yummy potatoes here…but bakers aren’t on the list. That looks wonderful! I wouldn’t think of it as being ‘Greek’, though; there’s my something new for today.
When we lived in Ireland ‘jacket’ potatoes were everywhere all the time (as one would expect!)
Peter, Peter, Peter – my goodness that looks delicious! I’m going to try that soon!
Peter, I love recipes with potato and the ingredients you used here are wonderful!
I’m so hungry right now. Peter your food is always so gourmet with a homey appeal and the pics just make you want to tuck in right away, the jump off the screen. I mean, look at this baked potato!
This sounds like a great way to dress a baked potato!
This comment comes a bit late (as in, years after you posted this recipe), but mmmm. I love Delicatessen’s baked potatoes. Now, thanks to you, I know how to make them. To be honest, however, yours look MUCH nicer than theirs do. I know what’s on my dinner menu this week!