Adapted from my book The Foods of the Greek Islands.

The cornerstone of Greek sweets are the preserves made with the fruits of every season.

Each home has several different jars of fruit in the pantry, and guests are offered a teaspoon with a glass of water as a welcome to the house.

I know that fresh sour cherries are not the easiest fruit for most people to get, and their season is so short, so I suggest you make the preserves with perokerasa (Rainier cherries) instead.

Unfortunately, the true color of the Rainier cherries preserves is a quite unattractive murky yellow, so you are better off adding a few drops of red food coloring.  Instead, I prefer to boil a red beet with the cherries, a trick I learned from Tunisian cooks.

Makes 3 cups

2          pounds firm cherries, such as Rainier or Royal Ann (not pie cherries or Bing cherries), pitted (see NOTE Sour Cherry preserves)     

2          cups sugar      

1          small red beet, peeled and quartered (optional)       

1/4       cup freshly squeezed lemon juice      

2–3      teaspoons pure vanilla extract

In a large bowl, combine the cherries and sugar and toss well. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, or for up to 2 days.

Transfer the cherry mixture to a large saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves.

Boil for 3 minutes, then remove from the heat.

Let cool completely. With a slotted spoon, transfer the cherries to a colander set over a large bowl. Bring the syrup to a boil and boil for 2 minutes. Add the beet (if using), the lemon juice and the syrup from the bowl. Boil the syrup until it reaches 235°F to 240°F on a candy thermometer.

Return the cherries to the pan and boil for 2 minutes more. Remove from the heat, add the vanilla extract and let cool completely. Discard the beet and pour the cherries into clean jars, filling almost to he top, then close he lids. As they cool, they will pop and seal so they will keep for up to a year, at least in a cool place.

If they do not seal, store in the refrigerator for up to 3 months.

NOTE: Vissino, Sour Cherry Preserves

As sour cherries are quite tart, you may need to double the amount of sugar. It all depends on your personal taste. The Greek tradition is to add 1 kilo sugar for each kilo of pitted cherries, but this is far too much for my taste.

No aromatic or coloring is needed here, of course.

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Unlike the boldly flavored cacik, the Turkish yogurt-cucumber-garlic soup, common throughout the Mediterranean –an ancestor of tzatziki– this older, fragrant Persian soup has no garlic.

I use almonds or pistachios instead of the walnuts the original recipe calls for, and I add preserved lemon, which enhances the soup with its salty-tangy flavor. I suggest you double the recipe and enjoy it the next morning for breakfast.

Serves 6

1/4 cup (25 g) dried rose petals, crushed

1/3 cup (40 g) almonds, or pistachios

About 1/8 of a  preserved lemon piece, briefly rinsed

2 cups (500 g) Greek-style yogurt

1 1/2 cups (360 ml) ice water

1/2 cup (80 g) golden raisins, finely chopped

1 1/2 cups peeled, seeded, finely diced cucumber (one small or 2/3 of a large cucumber)

1/4 cup (10 g) finely chopped fresh mint

1/4 cup (10 g) finely chopped fresh dill

1/4 cup (25 g) finely chopped chives or scallions, white and most of the green parts

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Sumac

2-3 tablespoons coarsely chopped pistachios (optional)

Garlic Blossoms (optional)

In a small bowl, soak the rose petals in slightly warm water until softened and cold, about 20 minutes. Drain and pat dry with paper towels.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Spread the almonds or pistachios on a baking sheet and toast for 8 minutes, or until fragrant and lightly colored. Let cool and chop finely in a food processor together with the preserved lemon.

In a large bowl, whisk the yogurt with the ice water. Add the raisins, cucumber, mint, dill, chives, rose petals, and almonds. Season with salt and pepper.

Cover and transfer to the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning, then serve in glasses or in shallow bowls, sprinkling generously with sumac, pistachios, and garlic blossoms, if you like.

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Up until recently our book editors had stricken out of our recipes the mere mention of boiling any vegetables or greens, replacing it by ‘blanching’ or ‘steaming…’

“Today we are starting with a very controversial statement — I boil my vegetables,” writes José in his always exciting Newsletter Longer Tables with José Andrés. “You may not believe me, but it’s true! I would not lie about something important like this,” he continues. “I was shocked when I came to America and saw many restaurants and people, and even cookbooks, roasting the whole carrots and roasting whole beets and roasting all their tubers, including potatoes. I will not lie to you that more than once I told my friends: Are you crazy? Roasting carrots?” he writes.

Last week, after the end of the fascinating Symposium in Oxford I had the privilege to be invited for lunch by the symposium’s president, the unsurpassed food writer and researcher Claudia Roden –a friend since the early ‘90s.

It was a hot, humid day in London, and along with the brilliant Alicia Rios we sat at Claudia’s inspiring kitchen and enjoyed a lovely salad of boiled beets, asparagus, carrots, and zucchini, topped with fresh pea shoots, and accompanied by thick yogurt, before the main course of a fragrant bulgur pilaf with chickpeas, tomatoes, and eggplants that she has described in her fabulous book MED.

Of course, we aptly commented on the fact that boiled vegetables have now become the IN thing! Up until very recently our book editors had stricken out of our recipes any mention of boiled vegetable or green, replacing it by ‘blanched’ or ‘steamed.’  

“Boiling is something I saw my mother doing often when I was growing up,” writes José. “Green beans and potatoes will go into a pot. Some salt will be added, and love, yes, too. […] She would add olive oil, some pimentón, the beautiful deep red paprika from Spain that is lightly smoked, and some salt and a drizzle of sherry vinegar,” and he proceeds posting the recipe.

My mother taught me to do exactly that as well, the basic difference being that instead of vinegar, along the fruity olive oil, we drizzled the boiled vegetables with fresh lemon juice –see Lemon is a Greek perversion— and of course we had no pimentón…

We discard nothing in our part of the world, and we have learned that for example the root-ends of spinach are delicious when fresh, especially from our or some local garden, so we carefully wash them, and boil them for a few minutes longer than we boil the large fleshy spinach leaves. Baby spinach is not what you need for this delicious salad. 

RECIPE/Description: My Boiled Mixed Vegetables

Tahini Yogurt Sauce, the same that flavors the Roasted Squash and Bread Salad.

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Serves 6-8

8-10 medium-small calamari (1 ½ -2 pounds), cleaned, bone discarded, heads separated

Marinade

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Good pinch Aleppo or Maras pepper, or Pepper Flakes to taste

Stuffing

3 tablespoons dried whole-wheat breadcrumbs or ground barley paximadia 

1/4 cup raw almonds (not peeled)

½ cup pitted firm green olives

Zest of 1 non treated lemon

2-3 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped

1 ½ – 3 teaspoons Aleppo or Maras pepper, or pepper flakes to taste

Salt

Wash calamari in and out and pat dry with paper towels. With scissors or a very sharp knife cut a ¼-ich slit on one side, near the pointed end of each calamari tube.

In a bowl mix the olive oil, lemon and chili to make the marinade. Toss the calamari (body and heads) in the marinade, rubbing with your finger and making sure that they are moist inside and out. Set aside for about 20 minutes.

In a blender pulse together the breadcrumbs, almonds, olives, zest, thyme and chili. Add salt sparingly, olives are usually quite salty.

Light the barbeque or heat the griddle.

Stuff each calamari tube with about 2 teaspoons stuffing and secure the top with a toothpick.

Place the stuffed calamari, cut side up, together with the heads on a well-oiled rack,  close to the burning coals, or on an a very hot griddle.

 As the calamari tubes puff up, press carefully with tongs to extract the air. Grill until firm and marked, turning once or carefully rolling, to cook and mark on all sides, brushing every now and then with the marinade, about 8 minutes total.

Slice and serve.

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Obviously, whoever first combined these basic ingredients created a salad delicious enough to be copied, improved upon and even exported and become a household dish all over the world!

Probably the famous Greek Salad was actually inspired by the summer salad-meals of the peasants. Its main ingredient, the juicy vine-ripened tomatoes, complemented with onions and all kinds of garden vegetables and greens –cucumber, purslane, or some flavorful pickled green, like kritama (rock-samphire) that was originally a Chios island addition, and now has become part of the ‘exotic’ creative salads served in Mykonos and Santorini.

The salad has sweet and sometimes mildly hot peppers, and it is always topped with feta.  In its original village past the salad/meal could have any kind of local cheese, as well as olives, and maybe capers or caper leaves. Horiatiki is scented with dried, wild oregano or savory, and doused with plenty of fruity olive oil. It might also contain salted sardines, and was often made more substantial with the addition of stale bread or crumbled paximadia (barley rusks), which soak up the delicious juices.

I vaguely remember my parents snubbing horiatiki, as an overpriced salad created by sly tavern owners. Up until then in the summer one ordered a tomato salad, with or without onions and cucumber, and separately a slice of feta cheese which came drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with oregano.

My parents, along with other people we knew, had come to the conclusion that horiatiki’s cost exceeded that of the usual salad and feta combination.  It was a gimmick for the tourists, according to my father, but also later on some of my friends, who refused to order it; they thought that even when the salad became cheaper and a kind of standard all over Greece, taverns adopted it as a way for to serve inferior quality, and  smaller pieces of feta; my parents kept on ordering tomato salad and feta, separately.

Eventually, though, the horiatiki invention backfired. Budget tourists were feasting on this horiatiki/Greek salad, ordering it as a main lunch or dinner and tavern owners started to complain about ‘the horiatiki tourists’ who were almost ruining their business during high season…

Of course the taste of Greek salad depends entirely on the quality and freshness of its ingredients. The traditional Greek winter version, not called horiatiki, is based on crunchy leaves of Romaine lettuce, that are complemented with spicy wild arugula, and fragrant herbs (fennel, dill, mint, borage and plenty of scallions). This salad seldom has tomatoes, and never depends on the tasteless, pale green-house tomatoes sold in supermarkets…

RECIPE: Paximadia Horiatiki or Greek Salad with Rusks, Feta and Capers

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Make the mousse a day ahead, or even a couple of days before. When you are about to serve the dessert, assemble the pre-baked puff pastry and serve the mousse on the side.  

Serves 6-8  

About 15 -20 apricots, halved, pitted and roasted in the oven until soft. If they are unripe and sour, sprinkle with some sugar, if you like.

Pre-baked Puff pastry

1 1/2-2 cups  apricot jam, preferably homemade or good quality store-bought

The Mousse

1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup sugar

6-10 rose geranium leaves or more, to taste, or use a few teaspoons store-bought rose geranium syrup, to taste

1 1/2 cups full-fat Greek yogurt

3/4 cup chilled heavy cream

Apricot Jam for serving

Coarsely chopped pistachios for serving

Make the Mousse: Sprinkle the gelatin over 1/4 cup milk in a small bowl and let stand for 2-3 minutes to soften.

In a saucepan, over moderate heat, bring the remaining milk, the rose geranium leaves and all the sugar to a boil. Simmer and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the gelatin mixture and turn off the heat. Stir vigorously on the stove until the gelatin dissolves completely. Pour the mixture into a metal bowl, add place it over an ice-water bath to cool rapidly.

Let cool for 15-20 minutes, stirring often until cold. Remove the leaves, if you have used them, add the yogurt and whisk to incorporate. Taste, and if you had not geranium leaves, add a couple of teaspoons rose geranium syrup, to taste.

Whip the heavy cream with a hand-held mixer until it gets a good amount of body. Fold the cream into the cooled milk-yogurt mixture. It must be completely incorporated. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate for about 30 minutes, or until it starts to set.

You can let the cream set overnight in the bowl. Take out of the refrigerator and stir the cream a few times before assembling the mousse.

The Tart: On a square or rectangular plate place a piece of the pre-baked puff pastry. Spread generously with apricot jam and place one more piece of baked puff pastry on top. 

Spread generously with more apricot jam and arrange the roasted apricots on top. 

Sprinkle generously with pistachios and serve with the mousse.  

Assembling the mousse:
Add 1-2 tablespoons of apricot jam at the bottom of each serving glass and then divide the chilled mousse evenly among them. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-3 hours, preferably overnight.

Serve sprinkled with pistachios, if you like.

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In Israel you will most often find the vivid pink ‘borani’, made with beets and beet greens instead of spinach (see variation). 

As an alternative to the traditional pita bread, I prefer to spread it on toasted whole wheat or multi-grain bread, rubbed with a clove of garlic.

It can also be a side dish, accompanying poached or grilled fish or chicken.

Makes about 3 cups.

1 1/2 pounds spinach leaves, washed and coarsely chopped

1 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

½ cup cilantro chopped

3 cups thick yogurt

2-3 garlic cloves, minced, to taste

1-3 jalapeňos, finely chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped (optional)

Borage flowers, and mint (optional) 

Place the spinach in a saucepan over high heat, cover, and let it wilt without adding more water than what clings on the leaves. It needs only 2 to 3 minutes. Toss once or twice while cooking, and be careful not to let it burn. Remove the spinach from the heat, place in a colander, and let cool and drain. Press with your hands to remove as much liquid as possible. Chop finely.

In a bowl, combine the spinach with the parsley, cilantro, yogurt, garlic, and chilies, stirring well. Add a little salt and taste. Adjust seasoning with more salt and a little black pepper. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Spread on toasts, sprinkle with walnuts and serve as an appetizer, or transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with walnuts, or decorate with borage flowers and mint.

VARIATION:

Pink Borani with Beets

Dice 4-5 large cooked and peeled beets (together with their cooked stems and greens, if you like) and mix with the garlic, yogurt and jalapenos (as above).

Omit the parsley and cilantro, and flavor with ½ cup chopped dill, some chopped fresh mint, and the zest of ½ lemon. Sprinkle with sumac, if you like. 

I add 2-3 tablespoon lemon juice, as beets are quite sweet for my taste, but you may not agree with me…

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I caramelized some sugar, then laid the peach or apple segments on it and cooked for a few minutes, before covering with two layers of pastry and baking. 

I bought quite a few nectarines the other day, as we at end of October, far beyond peach season. Although they looked unripe, when cut, their flesh was overripe, almost rotten around the stone –probably because they were refrigerated for far too long.

Since they were not good to enjoy as part of my morning fruit-plate, I thought of using them to make an upside-down tart, using frozen, store-bought puff pastry as the crust.

I have had quite a lot of misses in the past trying to bake upside-down fruit tarts, but this time I used my new, very light, aluminum, non-stick Neoflam skillet which made it so easy to bake and invert the tart perfectly, for the very first time…

Serves 8-12

5 Nectarines, halved and pitted; each half cut into 3-4 segments, OR 3-4 apples (any kind), peeled and halved, then each piece cut into 3-4 segments (see NOTE)

2/3 cups sugar, divided

2 -3 rosemary sprigs 

1 cup golden raisins

2 pieces frozen puff pastry (500 grams, about 1 pound) thawed according to package instructions 

Vanilla, Mastic-scented ice cream, or whipped cream, to serve (optional)

Spread 1/2 cup sugar in a 10-inch (26 cm) non-stick  light pan and heat in medium high, spreading the sugar with 2 teaspoons water and tossing, every now and then with a wooden spatula for 15 minutes or more,  until the sugar caramelizes, turning a dark amber color.  

Preheat the oven to 400 F (220 C).

Remove the skillet from the heat, and wearing gloves, carefully arrange the nectarine or apple pieces over the caramelized sugar syrup. Sprinkle with rosemary leaves, scatter the raisins over the nectarines and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar, then cook in medium-high heat for 10 minutes. Cover the fruit with a piece of parchment paper and the lid, and cook another 10 minutes, until the nectarines or apples are quite soft. Remove from the heat.

Unroll the puff pastry and cover the fruit with one piece, pushing it with a spatula to go deep all around the fruit pieces. Sprinkle with the rest of the sugar and lay the second piece of pastry over. Use the pieces you cut off to make sure there is quite a bit of pastry around the sides of the skillet, and the fruit is well covered. Any leftover pastry can be added on top of the 2 layers. 

Place the skillet in a larger pan or baking sheet lined with parchment paper, to prevent any syrup spilling into your oven as the tart bakes. Spray the pastry with water, using a plant spritzer, and prick in several places with a sharp knife. Bake for about 30 minutes, in the middle of the oven, or until the pastry looks dark brown and well done.

Remove from the oven. Wearing gloves, and using thick oven-mittens invert the tart on a platter. If a couple of fruit have stuck in the pan, carefully remove them and place in the gaps on the tart.  

Let cool for 15-20 minutes, then cut to serve, accompanying with ice cream or whipped cream, if you like. 

NOTE: You can also use canned peaches. Drain and cut into segments. Canned peaches don’t need additional cooking, just warm-through in the caramelized sugar before covering with the puff pastry. 

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The other day I came upon a couple of small jars of Rose Petal Jam that I had made a few seasons ago, and totally forgot.

Tasting them I found that they were still nicely fragrant, although their color had darkened somewhat. ‘Why don’t I use them, together with pomegranate juice, to make a rose-scented granita,’  I thought, and so this one was created.

You may need to add some good quality rose water, depending on the fragrance of the rose petal jam you use.

Our friends and guests loved this very fragrant granita, so here is my very simple basic recipe. You can adapt it  depending on how sweet or tangy you prefer your desserts. 

Serves 8-12

3 cups pure pomegranate juice –not sweetened or diluted 

2/3 – 1 cup rose petal jam (homemade or store-bought) or to taste, depending on how sweet you like it

1-2 tablespoons rose water (optional)

2 tablespoons gin

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, taste and adjust the sweetness with more rose petal jam. If your jam is not fragrant enough, add a little rose water, to taste.

Transfer to one or two shallow containers so that the liquid is not thicker than 2/3 inch.

Freeze until solid, probably overnight. At some point most granita recipes suggest that you scrape with a fork the solidified concoction after 2-3 hours. But if you forget about it, just leave a few minutes at room temperature to soften, before you serve it, then scrape it. 

Store in the freezer in a container with a tight fitting lid; it keeps for up to 6 months, if you manage to resist devouring it… 

Serve decorating with rose petals, if you like. 

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Last winter we did not get much rain in Kea, and this, the 2021, summer was particularly hot for more than a couple of days: for about two exhausting weeks the temperature remaining very high, even at night, something quite rare.  

Back in the spring, we had already noticed that the vegetation was far from lush this year, and  then by June we realized our trees were not doing well at all.  The big fig tree, whose particularly large leaves Costas uses to wrap the sea bass for grilling, had fewer and much smaller leaves, and the figs were tiny and far from abundant.  

And our lemon trees that produce wonderfully aromatic thick-skin lemons look particularly tortured.  

The only thing that is thriving this strange summer is our small, much-pampered vegetable garden, where we added extra compost and organic fertilizer –basically dried sea weeds.

Every cloud has a silver lining

On the other hand, less rain and humidity brought less bugs, and with the appropriate drip irrigation we managed to produce more vegetables. Our heirloom rose bushes, planted next to the vegetable patches along with other flowering plants, and most importantly, various aromatics like basil, oregano, European thyme, mint, and rose geraniums, were thriving as well in our small vegetable garden! And no beetles around to devour the roses, for a change..

As we are collecting our tomatoes, squash, peppers, and Sicilian eggplants, we remember that every cloud has a silver lining; yet still, we do hope for more rain and less heat next year!

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