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Everything posted by athinaeos
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"Rofos" (Greek name) from the eastern coast of Rhodes, village of Afandou, Dodekannese, Greece. The taverna owner grilled the fish on charcoal over slow fire for 45 minutes. Its flesh was white, firm and full of aromas.
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I was in Rhodes last week and had the opportunity to taste the small shrimp from the island of Symi, Dodekannese, Greece. You fry it in olive oil without adding anything, and eat it as it comes out of the pan. No salt, or lemon, or anything else should be added. It is sweet and has a rich aroma. You can find it also in Rhodes, as it inhabits some rocky areas near the village of Lindos.
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Favorite Greek dishes for vegetarians
athinaeos replied to a topic in Elsewhere in Europe: Cooking & Baking
taste "fava" whic is a humous - like paste prepared from some special beans it must have a dark yellow colour and thick consistency also, try steamed green beans with garlic and lemon, and "keftedes" made out of tomatoes, zucchini, or chick peas do not forget to try "glyka tou koutaliou", which are primarily home made sweets based on fruits -
Salivating minds and enquiring mouths kindly ask that you provide more detail.
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Greece - Which Restaurant Guide is best?
athinaeos replied to a topic in Elsewhere in Europe: Dining
I am happy to hear of your nice memories from earlier trips in Greece. Some people have changed, others remain more or less the same in offering hospitality to our visitors. I hope your visit this year will add to the reservoir of good memories from Greece. Please feel free to send me your rough itenerary when it is ready, and let me know if you need any other information. -
Greece - Which Restaurant Guide is best?
athinaeos replied to a topic in Elsewhere in Europe: Dining
My suggestion is to use the "Ahinorama" Guides. They publish an annual restaurant and tavernas guide and also regional guides that are good. Unfortunately, they are in greek. In the link below you can see the winners of the Athinorama 2006 "Best Restaurant" awards: athinorama. Most of them are in the Athens area, but there are winners from Crete, Corfu, Rhodes, Santorini and Halkidiki. To make it practical, once you have a schedule for your visit, post it and I will gather suggestions for the places on your itinerary. You can thus have a basic contruct and embellish it when you come here. -
Wine Buying in Portugal and Spain
athinaeos replied to a topic in Spain & Portugal: Cooking & Baking
If you like full-bodied red wines that are totally unsuitable for the faint - hearted, I strongly recommend the following two gems: 1. Costers del Graver 2001 made by Celler de Capcanes, and 2. Masia Esplanes 2001 made by Celler Capafons - Osso. The Shop I recommend is "La Carte de Vins", across the street from Hoffmann's school and restaurant. Ask for Gareth York, an English lad who is knowledgeable and very helpful. The address is: Sombrerers, 1 (El Born)08003 Barcelona www.lacartedevins.com -
My last visit to "48", the restaurant where Peskias cooks was last June. I asked for a degustation of seafood menu, something that was not formally offered. I was very keen to see what the chef would bring. I report all I can remember. There were no amuse bouche. The first dish was a ceviche with anchovies. Very fresh and well balanced. It was followed by the star of the night, a seabass carpaccio that was melting in your mouth, full of flavor. Next was a dish with shrimp and green beans with tomatoes, which had no balance, I think it was too much on the sweet side and the tomato overpowered both the tastes of the green beans and the shrimp. The last dish was grilled amberjack,on a bed of tomato confit. The dish was a good source of protein, but in terms of excitement, I would call it a disappointment. I noticed that the chef did not tour the tables, nor did he make an even short appearance. Overall, the execution of the dishes was very good. I am not so sure about the concept behind the last two, if there was one. The ambience of the restaurant is cool and modern, but a little dark for my taste. With a bottle of wine (a Planeta white) and a chocolate gateau the bill for two came to over EURO 240. It just so hapenned, that two weeks after my visit to 48, I visited for lunch the little town of Itea, near Delphi, with the family of my visiting American cousin. In a little taverna by the sea, off the center of town, "Ta Kavourakia", we had amberjack grilled on charcoal that was in my humble opinion far better than the one I had in 48, at a fraction of the price. To summarize, I think Peskias is indeed one of the most talented chefs we have in Greece, but his talent will go to waste if he falls in the "show-business" trap. This is a very large trap in Greece, where people mostly go to the expensive restaurants like "48" to see and be seen and do not really care about the food and the wine. My suggestion to any talented chef in Greece today would be to open a restaurant where people who like good food can go without having to spend more than they would in Arzak or Mugaritz! There they should offer creative and inventive cuisine that is open to critique and public discourse, and not the domain of a small group of socialites and journalists.
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May I suggest that we admit as evidence and/or documentation all written and visual accounts of descriptive nature referring to the artifact that embodies or reflects the paradigm, and not the artifact itself.
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The preceding fascinating exchange of views and Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" have led me to suggest an approach whereby the proponents of various views can substantiate in a formal way their claims. Here it is. If we accept Kuhn's assertion that "The successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science", how would this apply to the various cuisines? If we take as example haute cuisine ini Italy, which are the paradigms of the 20th century and what is the prognosis for the 21st? I suggest that all paradigms are documented and then presented in a way that either verifies or falsifies the relevant claims. Paraphrasing Kuhn, "the paradigms must be sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of practitioners away from competing cuisines and sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners (and their students) to resolve". It would be very useful to link each paradigm to a chef or cook so that we can then also discuss the contribution of the individual in the formulation of the paradigm, and the link(s) to the paradigm(s) that followed it, when it became obsolete.
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Spanish cuisines and dependency on raw ingredients
athinaeos replied to a topic in Spain & Portugal: Cooking & Baking
after reading through his very interesting thread, one question crystallized in my mind: "can terroir be exported?" it is obvious that some prime ingredients can be exported fresh and others are exported preserved, but the culinary experience cannot be replicated in a process that is a challenge for all senses, as is the appreciation of a nice dish with the pairing wine in an appropriate environment, al fresco, by the sea, in the mountains, you need all the components and not just a few even the intensity of light, the humidity and air temperature play a role in the enjoyment of a dish as you need the proper wine to pair it with, you need the proper view, air, colors, smells, sounds in short, in my humble opinion, terroir cannot be exported, even if some products are the consumer has of course the option of indulging in some sort of hallucination and transpose the real environment of the experience with the "original" one however, he/she should be aware that this is more a mental and psychological trip rather than a culinary one -
In Greece we prepare quince stew with beef and pork. I have tried it once with wild boar that was marinated in red wine for 24 hours, and the boar, wine and quince flavors were quite harmonious together.
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I cure a lot of fish in salt but not cod. My objective for doing that is to eat the cured fish without any further cooking. The length of the curing and the density of the mix in salt depends on the kind of fish and its volume. The major prerequisite for curing fish in salt is that it is very fresh. The flesh must be firm and bright. Having said all that, I would agree with "busboy" who questioned the approach of preparing your own salted cod, only to de-salt it and cook it. It appears to me that the option of buying the stuff salted is much better in terms of price and quality. In Spain, I have seen about 10 different cuts of salted but not dried cod in the market, ranging from 30 EUROS per kilo for the prime fillet to 4 EURO per kilo for the worst bits that are full of bones. This is to indicate the complexity of the process and the knowledge required to do it properly.
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Eel from the Pamvotis lake in Epirus. This one is 1,5 meters long and weighs 2,5 kilos. And the cuts.
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In Season: Horse Mackerel (Savridi in greek) from the Central Fish market in Athens. Each one weighs about one kilo. The price per kilo is EURO 8,5.
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I have tried the following for cod cheeks and I liked it. I think it should work with halibut. Prepare duck or goose liver mousse or terrine. Slice thinly. Sear fry the cheeks in butter. Once they have cooled off, serve on top of the sliced mousse or terrine. Accompany with Gewurtztraminer.
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Adam, the name in greek is "soupies me spanaki".
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The recipe's name (surprise!) is "cuttlefish with spinach". My interpretation uses fish stock and does not add tomatoes.
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Baby cuttlefish from the Central Fish Market in Athens Cleaned and ready to cook Cooked with baby spinach
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your best and worst greek food experience
athinaeos replied to a topic in Elsewhere in Europe: Dining
The Hydra thread Adam is wonderful! Many thanks for the suggestion. Regarding greens and vegetables, they are a treasure all over Greece. For example, in Santorini they have white aubergine, in Tinos they have green aubergine. And as you say the rule is you cannot find them in restaurants and tavernas, except near the place where they grow. -
I would use flat round "pita" bread that is really thin and can be folded quite easily. It goes well with chicken, avocado, mayo, shrimp, feta cheese, lettuce, and remains fresh for a few hours. With it you can prepare very nice rolls. If you actually use them, prepare your rolls around midnight, take it easy on the mayo and other liquid stuff, and make sure all the lettuce you use is dry. Use a plastic sheet to wrap around the rolls and lock the flavours inside. Do not use aluminum foil. Keep the rolls in a cooler with a temperature of 5 degrees. Avoid lower temperature, as they may freeze. I wish you good luck.
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joselito and bacalao over the internet
athinaeos replied to a topic in Spain & Portugal: Cooking & Baking
Thank you for the tip, but they do not seem to ship to Greece. I used to buy cuts of joselito, but in one of my trips to Sevilla, I decided to buy the whole leg and have not regretted it. I live in Athens, Greece and the weather is not helping as it gets hot for many months during the year. So I used my Liebherr Wine Cooler. The leg was wrapped in grease proof paper and rested nicely on a shelf and left space for a few botles. My best man lives in Munich and kept a leg for a year in his basement for the whole year. The average temperature in his basement is 14 degrees on the Celsius scale. As I understand you are based in England. Unless you live in a greenhouse I see no reason for you not to become a proud owner of a joselito leg. Let me know if you need more information. -
joselito and bacalao over the internet
athinaeos replied to a topic in Spain & Portugal: Cooking & Baking
thank you Rogelio, I looked them up, but they do not seem to ship outside Spain -
your best and worst greek food experience
athinaeos replied to a topic in Elsewhere in Europe: Dining
I would like to add an observation following the thoughts and experiences expressed in recent messages. One of the key features of the greek cuisine is the relative simplicity of the cooking process and the prominence of the quality of the ingredients. If you have tasted a baby lamb roast that was melting in your mouth radiating the aromas of the land you know what I mean. Some with grilled baby squid that you grill as they came out of the water. I could even remember the sublime taste of a tomato that was served cut in four pieces and sprinkled with coarse sea salt. In my experience the best tavernas and restaurants in Greece serving food with the above features are away from tourist areas, away from monuments and temples, hidden somewhere in the back streets of low to middle income urban neighbourhoods or villages. Outside Greece the issue is far more challenging! Simply because the provisioning is iin most of the cases from the local markets. -
Dear Friends, Kindly take a second or two to become aware of my serious condition and its remedy. I have just finished a leg of Joselito's Gran Reserva. It was 7 1/2 kilos and lasted almost a year. At the same time, another blow hit my larder. With tears in my eyes I had to cook the last four remaining pieces of bacalao, the pil-pil cut. As my travel plans will not take me to Spain for a few months, is there any decent e-shop you know that I could buy joselito and bacalao from? I hope there is at least one noble and able soul, who will help me resolve the urgent condition I am confined in. Thank you