Would you care for a Greek meal with that garlic, madam?

I'm interrupting our on-going Indian fest for a quick diversion into Greek gastronomy.

You might remember a while back I mentioned looking forward to learning more about Greek cuisine from Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries. I haven't forgotten, and with the weather warming up, it seemed like the time might be right to pick up that thread again.

These two dishes of Tessa's to me are perfect partners; both luscious and fresh tasting, with a nice lemon tang, but you might want to try each separately first, as they both use a very liberal hand with the garlic (raw and cooked) and might be a little overpowering together for some. They certainly were for the Young Man, which is a shame because I adored both of these and want to make them together again. Perhaps we'll have to wait till he goes away for his summer holidays...

I used trout in the fish dish (and far less than 1 kg) and it was superb. I may have had it in the oven for slightly less time than specified in the recipe; just keep an eye on it toward the end of the cooking time and you should be set. Although both this and the potatoes contain some celery, it is very subtle, and the celery-averse YM had no complaints in that department.

The potatoes are another one of those why-didn't-I-think-of that recipes that you sometimes come across. In essence, you make a veggie stock to cook the potatoes in. Don't throw this away after the potatoes are cooked; it will give you almost enough to make risotto (or whatever) with at a later date. Two dishes from the one stock. Who could complain about that!

My innovation was to dice the carrot and onion finely from the stock and add it to the mash (actually the onion didn't need to be diced, but you know). Mainly it was to add some color for the photo, but I think I like the little change in texture that these brought. To make the garlic paste, I crushed the garlic directly into a handy-dandy little mortar and pestle I use for saffron, and smooshed it around a bit with the pestle. I did pretty much the same with the potatoes. A big wooden pestle (which is easier to get at than my seldom-used potato masher) made short work of pureeing the spuds.

My other suggestion would be to taste each time you add the garlic and lemon, and stop when it tastes about right to you. This is raw garlic, after all.

Greek oven-baked fish with tomato & parsley

1 kg firm white fish fillets
400 g tin tomatoes with juice, chopped, or very ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
15 g/ 1/4 cup chopped parsley
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
juice of 2 lemons
2 celery stalks, chopped with some leaves
1 tsp sugar
3 tbsp olive oil
crusty bread, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Put the fish in an oven dish where they will fit in a single layer. Mix together the tomatoes, parsley, garlic, lemon juice, celery, sugar and olive oil and taste for seasoning. Pour over the fish to cover all the pieces, shaking the dish from side to side. Cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes.

Remove aluminium foil, increase the heat to 200 degrees Celsius and bake for another 40-50 minutes, or until the liquid is thickened and the top of the fish is golden in a couple of places. Serve with crusty bread to mop up the juices.

Skordalia: Greek garlicky and lemony mashed potatoes

1 large carrot, cut in half
1 small celery stalk
a few parsley stalks
1 small onion
a few black peppercorns
500 g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
5 garlic cloves
185 ml/ 3/4 cup olive oil
juice of 1 lemon

Place the carrot, celery, parsley and onion in a fairly large saucepan of water, add some salt and a few peppercorns and bring to the boil. Boil for about 15 minutes before adding the potatoes and then boil for another 25 minutes or so, until the potatoes are very soft.

Meanwhile, crush the garlic completely with about 1 tsp of salt to make a puree. Put the garlic in a small bowl and ad a couple of tbsp of the oil.

Take out one third of the potatoes with a slotted spoon and mash in a large wide bowl with a potato masher, or put through a food mill. Add the garlic, then mash another third of the potatoes with more of the olive oil and a little of the lemon juice. Carry on until you have used all the potatoes, lemon juice and olive oil and have a smooth puree. Taste for salt. The skordalia should have a fairly soft consistency and can be eaten with fried or grilled fish, meatballs or just bread.

Serve at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Traditional Japanese New Year cuisine 2: Ozoni soup and Gochiso buri daikon

As mentioned in a previous post, we were a bit ambitious with our New Year cooking plans this year. Not to worry. By the time it was all ready we could have eaten a scabby horse! (as Saffron-papa so poetically puts it). Luckily, we didn't have to as we had these two lovely dishes to munch on instead.

Edo zoni (Edo-style New Year's hotchpotch)

Ozoni is a lovely little soup, versions of which vary the length and breadth of Japan. Since we are in the Yokohama/Tokyo area, I decided to give Edo zoni a go (Edo being Tokyo's moniker, long before it became the megalopolis it is today). The prawns (shrimp) are for long life, and the yuzu (citron, a small citrus fruit) peel added to ward off colds. You could substitute lemon peel, but it will not have the distinctive scent of yuzu.

You will also need kamaboko, a cooked fish paste that is sold on a wooden block (I used a trendy scallop and parsley one which was devoid the oh-so-unnatural fluoro pink outer layer); mochi, or pounded sticky rice cake; and dashi, Japanese fish/sea vegetable stock (either made from scratch, from granules, or with a dashi "pack" (teabag), as I did). If you use dashi pack, you may find like I did that you need to use more salt. The flavour was very subtle, even for me and I use a light hand with salt as a general rule.

Ingredients (for 4)

4 blocks of mochi
4 small whole prawns
(2 tbsp sake
1/5 tsp salt (a pinch)) = A
2 chicken fillets (or a similarly small amount of chicken leg (I use 1 thigh))
1 small bunch komatsuna greens (or substitute spinach)
4 slices kamaboko (there is not really a substitute but you could try a small piece of cooked white fish)
1/2 a sheet of Asakusa nori (dried laver) (optional)
(5 cups dashi (see above)
1 tsp usukuchi (light) Japanese soy sauce (or to taste)
1 tsp salt (or to taste)) =B
Small amount of yuzu peel

1 Peel and de-vein the prawns (you can leave the heads on). Form into "U" shapes and cook until pink in a small pot with the sake and the salt (A) and about 1/4 cup of boiling water. Trim the chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces and sprinkle with salt. Cook briefly in boiling water.

2 Blanch komatsuna in boiling salted water, drain, squeeze out the excess moisture by hand and cut into 3 cm lengths. Separate into 4 bundles.

3 Crispen the nori by waving it over the heat on both sides, only until the colour changes (a matter of a couple of seconds). Cut into 4 squares. Cut skinny rectangles of yuzu peel and make two cuts lengthwise almost to the end, one from each end of the peel. This will allow you to make a "triangle" with the peel like the one in the photo (admittedly not very professional looking, but it was my first effort, too (g)).

4 Heat the dashi, the usukuchi Japanese soy sauce and salt (B). Add the chicken and simmer briefly.

5 Grill the mochi on both sides, (take care, as it puffs up and burns easily) and arrange in bowls together with the prawns, komatsuna, chicken and kamaboko. Check and adjust the seasoning of the soup, and ladle into the bowls over the over ingredients. Garnish with nori and a yuzu triangle.

Gochiso buri daikon (Special occasion yellowtail with daikon)

I was never really into cooking fish until a few years ago. Something about a residual fear of bones, after being rushed to hospital with one stuck in my throat as a child, I suppose. That and the young man of the house not being much of a fan. However, getting him to eat buri, or yellowtail, has never been a problem. He even fights to get the biggest piece!

We love this unctuous, melt-in-your-mouth fish with its moreish dark bits. Gochiso (a special treat), indeed!

Ingredients

4 slices of buri (around 400 g)
(3 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
2 tbsp each sake and mirin) = A
600 g daikon (less than half a big one)
3 cups dashi (see above)
(1 tbsp sake
2 tsp usukuchi (light) Japanese soy sauce) = B
3 tsp vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
(1 tbsp each Japanese soy sauce, sake and mirin
1 tsp sugar) = C
Finely slithered yuzu peel to garnish

1 Marinate buri in the Japanese soy sauce, sake and mirin (A) for at least 30 minutes.

2 Peel daikon and cut into rounds about 2 cm thick. Place the daikon with the dashi in a pot and heat over a medium flame. When it comes to a boil add the sake and usukuchi Japanese soy sauce (B). Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the daikon is tender.

3 Remove daikon with a slotted spoon and drain well. Arrange the daikon slices in a dry frying pan and heat over a low flame. Brown, covered, on both sides until soft. Drizzle over 1 tsp of the oil and swirl the pan. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

4 Remove buri from marinade. Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and cook the buri until nicely browned on both sides. Add the Japanese soy sauce, sake, mirin and sugar (C) and continue frying until the sauce reduces (I had my first flambe experience with ours; perhaps the heat was a bit high).

5 Arrange daikon slices (I used 2 per slice of buri) on a plate, top with the buri and garnish with slithered yuzu peel.

Note: All Traditional Japanese New Year cuisine 1 and 2 recipes are from Osechi to kigaru na omotenashi 2008 (Osechi and easy entertaining). Translating them has been a lot of fun because the recipe-writing styles of Japanese and English are so different. Hopefully the transfer was successful.

Enjoy!