Fillet of Sole With a Tomato and Olive Sauce
Sometimes the easiest, most straightforward dishes can provide you with the biggest culinary surprise. Such was the case recently when I was flipping through one of the cookbooks I brought back from Greece. I had some fillets of sole but I just couldn’t decide how to prepare them…until I saw “the recipe.” Here’s the humble […]
Papia Portokali (παπια-πορτοκαλί)
Greece’s cuisine also has a good roster of wild game recipes and one of the more universally enjoyed meats has to be duck. A couple of weeks ago I seared some breasts that I carved from a whole duck. I was left with a carcass, wings, duck fat and duck legs. When one has duck […]
Back in Black
Today, I’m cooking with a black ingredient, a new ingredient. I’m talking about black trumpet mushrooms. The black trumpet is a Chanterelle mushroom and although you may not find them fresh at your market, one can easily find the dried variety (which I bought at my local Asian store). I don’t think I’ve ever cooked […]
Pasta Shells With Fresh Tomatoes & Feta
One of my favourite pasta shapes of late, are shells, or “kohilia” in Greek. This shape of pasta is great for trapping the sauce and cheese inside the shell, making for a very falvourful meal. This is one of the quickest sauces you’ll ever come across but I remind you that this dish only works […]
Chianti Chicken
I’ve had my eye on this dish for awhile. We’re at the end of summer and here in Ontario the harvest is in full swing. Grapes are at their peak and this next dish marries sweet with savory. As you can see, we have a show-stopper here but this ain’t just another pretty dish it […]
Garidomakaronada With Ouzo and Fresh Tomato
Now isn’t this title a mouthful? Garidomakaronada is a compound word in Greek meaning “pasta & shrimp”. Garides are shrimp, makaronia is general word, like pasta. The bounty of fresh tomatoes is here and for this very short window of time, a tomato sauce can be made from fresh tomatoes and one can actually pull […]
Seared Duck Breast with Grilled Polenta and Wild Mushrooms
One of the new avenues I’ve chosen to connect with friends and fellow food bloggers is through a program called Twitter. Here you can read up on what your friends and favourite bloggers are doing. If you’re on Twitter, look me up under “Kalofagas”. One such friend is Heather from Gild the Voodoolily and we’ve […]
Sardines, Mt. Olympus and the “Gri-Gri” boats of Greece
As I’ve written before, the town Nea Kallikratia where our summer home is located is a vibrant tourist and fishing town. Nea Kallikratia is located about 3o minutes south of Thessaloniki and it’s situated on the Thermaic Gulf. On a clear day one can see clearly across the Gulf and almost touch Mount Olmypus. With […]
Soutzoukakia Smyrneika With Olives
Homebase for me when in Greece is the fishing and tourist town of Nea Kallikratia in Halkidiki. It’s situated about 30 minutes south of Greece’s second largest city, Thessaloniki. It’s home away from home and I’m welcomed by family and friends. The people who have summer homes here are mostly from Thessaloniki and the rest […]
Frying Oysters
I do enjoy eating raw oysters on the half-shell but I admit, I’ll pay someone else to shuck them. However, one can enjoy oysters in other ways and frying them up has to be one of the tastier alternatives. The neighborhood Asian market always sells tubs of shucked oyster meat and from reading the label, […]