My mother used to bake a cake similar to this during Lent. We were not so religious as to follow the rules of the Church, which prohibited eating any food derived from animals during the forty days before Christmas and before Easter (and on many other occasions). We were simply continuing a family tradition which dictated that various foods or sweets should be made at a particular time of year.

The caramelized ginger, my recent addition to the recipe, enhances the rich flavor of this cake that has a dense texture, somewhat like an English fruitcake. 

Makes one 12 X 5 inch (30 X 12cm) cake

3 1/2     cups all-purpose flour

4   Tablespoons corn starch       

1    tablespoon baking powder

Pinch of salt             

1 1/2            teaspoons ground cinnamon     

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1     tablespoon grated orange zest

1/2 – 2/3  cup sugar –depending on how sweet you like your cakes

1     cup light olive oil, or a mixture of olive and safflower oil

1  teaspoon baking soda

1/2  cup brandy       

1  2/3    cups freshly squeezed orange juice         

1/2 cup golden raisins

10-12  dried apricots, chopped, about 2/3 cup         

1/2 cup  chopped crystalized ginger 

2/3 cup   coarsely chopped unsalted pistachios                         

Confectioners’ sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180 C).

Line the deep loaf pan with parchment paper and lightly oil it. This will make removing the fragile cake from the pan easier.

Toss together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and cloves in a large bowl.

Stir the sugar with the orange zest, rubbing with your fingers to mix and release the orge flavor. In a medium bowl, whisk the oil and sugar until well combined.

In a cup stir the baking soda with the brandy and add it to the oil-sugar mixture. 

Make a well in the flour mixture and stir in the oil and sugar, as well as the orange juice, stirring  just until smooth. Add the dried fruits and nuts and stir just until evenly distributed.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for ONE hour or more, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out almost clean.

Transfer to a rack and let cool 10 minutes before carfully removing from the pan, lifting the parchment paper. Let the cake cool completely before cutting, and better show restrain and only cut after a few hours, or the next day…

If you like, sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar. Slice and serve.

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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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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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Cut into chunks a couple of small, longish, tender eggplants, some peeled butternut squash, one or two bell peppers, add a sliced onion and a couple of garlic cloves and douse them all with olive oil; sprinkle with some cumin, ground coriander seeds, oregano or thyme, plenty of Aleppo (or Maras) pepper flakes and of course salt, and bake in the center of the oven for about 45 minutes, tossing once after 30 minutes or so.  

For my 15×12 inch (37×32 cm) deep pan I used about 1 1/2 pounds squash and more or less the same weight of tender (no seeds) eggplants.

I find that squash and eggplant complement beautifully each other! But by all means, if you want to use any other seasonal vegetables, the same formula more or less works for zucchini, or with sliced fennel bulb instead of the squash etc. 

A medium onion, thickly sliced, and a couple of coarsely chopped garlic cloves are essential. Add 2 or 3 bell peppers, any color you like, and drizzle with plenty of olive oil –I would say that I used about 1/2 cup. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon cumin, plus about 2 tablespoons ground coriander seeds, and 2 teaspoons oregano or thyme. Add salt and pepper of course and toss very well –your hands or 2 large spatulas are needed here. 

Bake in a medium-high oven (about 400F, 200 C) for about 45 minutes.

Just before serving, sprinkle with plenty of fresh or dried thyme or oregano. Adding it at the end enhances the aromas and flavors tremendously. 

Don’t forget to line your pan with parchment paper so that cleaning it afterwards is dead easy!

These roasted vegetables are great hot, warm or room temperature. If you refrigerate the leftovers, heat in a low oven or in the microwave. 

You can also use them as the base to make an omelette, especially my favorite Frittata-stratta. 

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I got the recipes from my mother and grandmother and I only slightly tweaked  them.

Both most favorite cookies –the Koulourakia with Orange, and the dark deep-flavored Moustokouloura Cookies, were baked using olive oil and no eggs.

Americans and northern Europeans are not the only ones loving their crunchy, fragrant cookies. Greeks usually accompany with cookies their coffee in the morning or afternoon. Home cooks, who used to make them all year round, kept them in a jar or tin box and we enjoyed them any day of the year, including the lengthy Lenten periods, like the days before Easter when all kinds of foods deriving from animals were avoided.

The recipes didn’t change, and our most favorite cookies –the Koulourakia with Orange, and the dark deep-flavored , Moustokouloura Cookies, were both baked using olive oil and no eggs.

These days more and more people have started to bake with olive oil;  it is not just me any more. Cooks all over the world bake lovely, moist olive oil cakes, and I hope soon they will also make variations of these traditional Greek cookies that I have learned to make, or at least help shape since I was a child, together with my grandmother, and my mother.

Try also my older recipe for the traditional Easter, yellow Saffron, Allspice, and Pepper Biscuits, from the island of Astypalaia. They are neither vegan –they have yogurt and cream– and they are savory, perfect to serve with drinks and meze, especially with fresh, creamy cheese.

I am sure you will love them!

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The cookies are deep-flavored and delicious. The grape must is boiled down to become thick petimezi (grape molasses) an pantry item in most traditional homes. Syrupy petimezi is diluted with an equal amount of water to make the cookies.

Grape must cookies, right, and Orange Koulourakia, left. 

The sweetness of the petimezi determines their taste, as moustokouloura have no additional sugar.  Commercial moustokouloura are usually large, but the homemade ones are smaller.

See also the Ginger and Grape Molasses cookies, my variation of the Ginger Snap ones.

To get 2 1/2 cups traditional petimezi (grape molasses) you need to simmer for about 1 hour or more 2 ½ kilos (5 pounds) grape juice. But to achieve the taste of my favorite island moustokouloura, made in August with the local fresh grape must, or with thinned down petimezi (grape molasses), I boil ordinary grape juice with sultanas and/or currents, and the result is great (see Note).

Makes about 3 dozen large cookies

4 cups all-purpose flour or more, as needed

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

 1 1/2 cups fresh sweet grape must (see note)

 2/3 cups olive oil

 1/3 cup brandy

  1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Mix 4 cups flour with the salt and the spices. Make a well in the centre and add the grape must and olive oil. In a small bowl stir the baking soda into the brandy and stir the bubbly mixture into the flour. 

Knead, briefly to form a soft dough. If it is too sticky, add more flour.

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Cut pieces of dough and roll to make 1/3-inch thick and 5- or 6-inch-long ropes, or shorter. Stick the two ends together or tie a knot or roll, snail-like the dough ropes, to form moustokouloura.

Place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes or more, until firm.

Let the cookies cool completely on a rack, and store in airtight boxes.

NOTE:

To make petimezi (grape molasses) juice fresh grapes to get 4 cups of juice, or use 4 cups commercial grape juice. Add 2 cups currants or sultanas and bring to a boil. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Process in the blender and pass the liquid through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. Tie the end of the cheesecloth and squeeze the pulp to extract all the juices.

Measure to get the amount needed and freeze the rest for future use.

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A humble leftover lentil soup becomes a delicious vegan pasta with complex flavor, while in my Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts  I created the Lebanese-inspired Linguine with Spicy Lentils and Caramelized Onions. 

Our plant-based, vegan dishes are not contrived, but created by the women who had to bring a delicious, filling dish to their family’s table.

More than twenty years ago, in my Foods of the Greek Islands I included the delicious Pasta with Olive Oil, Onions and Spices from the island of Karpathos, which is very similar to my later, Lebanese-inspired one.

I often make pasta with greens and lemon. Recently I found a recipe for pasta with green olives and feta in the NYT which was very close to what I often whip up.

But I wanted to try and make a completely plant based dish, with no cheese at all.

I was intrigued by a vegan pasta with greens and lemon in Food and Wine: It had white miso to add umami, but this ubiquitous Asian component is not part of our everyday ingredients, so I decided to use sliced Kalamata olives, the Mediterranean umami equivalent…

The resulting Olive and Greens Pasta with Garlic and Lemon is truly delicious, even for non-vegans like us!

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I prefer it warm, but you can always re-heat the potato salad you store in the refrigerator.

Serves 4-6

2-pound small or medium-size potatoes, cooked in salted water until tender, and drained

Fruity Olive oil

Tahini Sauce

1/2 cup (about 130 g) tahini paste well-stirred

5-6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice or more, to taste

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

About 2/3 cup cold water, or more as needed

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cups finely chopped green onions, white and most of the green part

3-4 sprigs fresh thyme

Aleppo or Maras Pepper flakes

In a large bowl drizzle the very hot boiled potatoes with olive oil and toss.

Make the Tahini sauce by whisking all the ingredients, minus the onions and thyme, in a bowl. Using a stick blender you will get a lovely, smooth sauce.

Taste and adjust the taste and consistency adding more lemon, water, salt, pepper, or mustard.

Pour over the potatoes and toss, adding the chopped scallions and sprinkling with fresh thyme and Aleppo pepper flakes.

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But I wanted to try and make a completely plant based dish, with no cheese at all.

I was intrigued by a vegan pasta with greens and lemon in Food and Wine: It had white miso to add umami, but this ubiquitous Asian component is not part of our everyday ingredients, so I decided to use sliced Kalamata olives, the Mediterranean umami equivalent…

The resulting pasta is truly delicious, even for non-vegans like us!

See also my humble leftover lentil soup and the Lebanese-inspired Linguine with Spicy Lentils and Caramelized Onions. 

Serves 4-5

1/3 cup olive oil

2 cups chopped leeks, white plus light green parts

5 medium garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

4 cups bitter greens (like chicory or dandelion), or a combination of bitter greens and Swiss chard.  All stems separated and thinly chopped; the leaves coarsely chopped

1 ½ cup pitted, sliced Kalamata olives, drained

Zest from 1 lemon or more, to taste

Salt to taste

1 package Penne or other tubular pasta

¼ cup or more lemon juice, to taste

Fruity olive oil to drizzle over the pasta

Aleppo pepper, or freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Heat the oil in a deep, large skillet over medium heat, add the leeks and cook stirring often until soft. Add the garlic and cook, stirring often, until it is tender and translucent. Do not let it color.

Add the stems of the greens and 3 tablespoons water and cook for a couple of minutes, until tender. Add a little more water, as needed. Once the stems are tender add the leaves and stir a few times, just to wilt them.

Stir in half the lemon zest and the olives. Let them sizzle for a few seconds, then remove from the heat.

Salt the boiling water and cook the pasta 2 minutes less than the package instructs. Drain, reserving about 1 cup cooking water.  

Add the pasta to the skillet with the greens and olives, and toss, adding ½ cup of the cooking water and the lemon juice. Drizzle with fruity olive oil and cook, tossing often for 1 minute, adding a bit more water if too dry.. Taste and add pepper and salt –the olives are quite salty— or more lemon, as needed.

Drizzle with more fruity olive oil, toss and serve the pasta sprinkling with Aleppo pepper and more lemon zest if you like.

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They come in various shades of pink, and some are pure white. I guess the people who planted the trees, many years ago, chose different kinds; some produce small round fruit, others larger, elongated and very hard, difficult to crack. In the old days almonds from the islands were considered particularly delicious and fetched high prices. Now, with plenty of cheaper imports, people don’t even bother to harvest and crack them…

In a few weeks, when the green almonds reach the size of a small bean, or the nail of my small finger, as my neighbor says, I will collect a few to pickle. It is important to select green almonds that are crunchy but tender –before their shell hardens, and while the nut inside looks like a translucent jelly.

To select green almonds for pickling I have to observe carefully their growth, and pick them when they are half an inch long. In just a couple of days they may grow too large and tough, unsuitable for pickling.

Throughout the Middle East, the green almonds of early spring are nibbled raw, are added to salads or they are cooked together with lamb in a lemony sauce. In Greece they are preserved in heavy syrup, as yet another spoon-sweet, like karydaki (green unripe walnut), or melitzanaki, tiny eggplants, the most exotic of our spoon-sweets. Green almonds are also pickled. Unusually delicious and crunchy pickled green almonds are served as an appetizer, together with the various kinds of olives, and mixed vegetable pickles of cauliflower, peppers and carrots. Their sour taste complements perfectly the sweet and strong anise-flavored ouzo or raki.

My marinade, is sour-sweet (agro- dolce) inspired from the Ligurian tiny pickled peaches. Peach growers have to alleviate the trees of the abundance of fruits in early spring, so that the right amount of peaches ripen to perfection. The tiny crunchy pickled peaches look and taste very much like tsagala, our green almonds. Both trees belong to the same family anyway…

RECIPE: Pickled Tsagala (Green Almonds)  

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