Greek identity with a difference, from the inside out and the outside in
(formerly Organically Cooked - Linking Greek food with Greek identity: you eat what you are, or who you want to be)
The Agia Marina Donkey Rescue is a registered Greek non-profit organisation which is run purely on donations and TLC, by the Doulyerakis family of South Crete since 2004. It is a haven in the sunshine for aged, abused and unwanted working donkeys. If you can make a donation to the donkey sanctuary, please contact Barbara through the site's facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Agia-Marina-Donkey-Rescue/225542274129832
In my fabric work, I don't let anything go to waste. I find a use for all my fabric scraps. Having recently tried out the log cabin patchwork design, I found myself with a bunch of log cabin blocks which I had no use for, as I had no project in mind when I started making them.
Then I came across the mug rug through a pinterest search. The mug rug is becoming increasingly popular in patchwork circles. It's a kind of nano-quilt, perfect for using as a large coaster which can also fit a biscuit, spoon or other culinary tool/comestible in its space. The mug rug could also be used as a pot holder.
My mug rugs, like practically all my creations, are made with reused, repurposed, recycled fabric and old spools of thread, which have all been upcycled. Nothing has been bought specifically for making them. Such creations are a sustainable way of reusing resources, creating something out of nothing, and ensuring that nothing goes to waste. It's not just the environmentally conscious that get satisfaction out of this. In these kinds of times that we are living in, I feel a sense of relief that I don't need to spend money that doesn't come so easily on my hobby work.
A lovely way to distribute this kind of creation is to make them for charity. I recently made some donkey purses for the Agia Marina Donkey Rescue, a charity I really believe in. Greece is full of abandoned abused donkeys, who are utterly helpless, crisis or no crisis. Thanks to the Agia Marina Donkey Rescue, some of those donkeys are being looked after, spending the remainder of their lives in loving care and comfort. I visited the donkey sanctuary last April and was overwhelmed by their presence:
"What do you do with a donkey you no longer want or need? You can give it away, or sell it, but this is difficult in our times, when the traditional use for donkeys is no longer needed. Some people set them free to roam, which sounds kind, but this is not really the case. A donkey that is set free by its owners will wander away and run into trouble. While it may find enough food to eat, it will probably not find enough water, so in the summer, it will die of thirst. They may also be run over by cars on the road: if they were used to being led by their owner, they will not sense the danger of passing vehicles. Other owners just tie them up to a pole and leave them to their own fate, which is certain death." http://www.organicallycooked.com/2015/04/agia-marina-donkey-rescue.html
In the mug rug, I have overlaid the Agia Marina Donkey Rescue emblem - a black silhouette of a donkey - on a patchwork block. The mug rugs are being sold at Agia Marina Donkey Rescue's Donk-E shop.
All proceeds go to the donkey sanctuary. To buy an Agia Marina Donkey Rescue mug rug, please contact Barbara at donkeyrescue at hotmail dot com.
Please support the Agia Marina Donkey Rescue through my charity venture and the Agia Marina Donkey Rescue Donk-E shop. You will be helping the truly helpless of Greece, animals that are unable to fend for themselves.
Please share this article so that the Agia Marina Donkey Rescue may benefit in any way.
The Agia Marina Donkey Rescue is a registered Greek non-profit organisation which is runs purely on donations and TLC, by the Doulyerakis family of South Crete since 2004. It is a haven in the sunshine for aged, abused and unwanted working donkeys. If you can make a donation to the donkey sanctuary, please contact Barbara through the site's facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Agia-Marina-Donkey-Rescue/225542274129832
The Agia Marina Donkey Rescue is a registered Greek non-profit organisation which is runs purely on donations and TLC, by the Doulyerakis family of South Crete since 2004. It is a haven in the sunshine for aged, abused and unwanted working donkeys. If you can make a donation to the donkey sanctuary, please contact Barbara through the site's facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Agia-Marina-Donkey-Rescue/225542274129832
There were many things I didn't want to do on Palm Sunday (ie this year's Calendar Easter Sunday - Greek Easter is next week) - I didn't want to cook the traditional fish meal for the occasion, I didn't want to play host to my daughter's friend, I didn't want to go shopping among the hordes at the start of Holy Week, I didn't want to spend my time cleaning the house all over again, plus I didn't really feel like going to a blossom water distillation festival that I was invited to (been there, done that).
Apollo - he was rescued after her owner could no longer afford to keep her.
I wanted a Mental Health day off, so I decided to accompany my son to his fencing competitions taking place in an area of Crete that I last visited 20 years ago: the Messara valley, in the Iraklio region. This way, I would have an excuse to read Captain Corelli's Mandolin during the 2.5 hour bus trip each way. When I looked up the journey on the map, I realised it would take me close to the Agia Marina Donkey Rescue, run by a Kiwi woman and her Cretan husband. My son did not really need me around to play well, so I decided that if I found a chance to get away, I would.
Areti - she was rescued when her 92 year old owner's family forbade him to ride her after suffering a heart attack while working in the fields. The old man was very happy that his beloved donkey was going to a great home.
The route took us from Hania onto the highway, leaving it just before Rethimno, where we turned into the historic village of Archanes, then right down to the south coast of Crete at the picturesque summer resort village of Agia Galini, continuing along the coast to the greenhouse area of Timbaki, and on to the south Cretan town of Moires where the competition was being held - the donkey sanctuary is located between the villages of Sivas and Petrokefali, just 5 minutes away from Moires. It's been a long time since I have been down here, so I stopped reading my book and just admired the scenery. The villages in this area are large, easily spotted on the hillsides, tucked neatly away below the mountain peaks. The fields of the Rethimno region, leading onto the Iraklio region, are more verdant than in Hania, and the rivers much wider. Given so much rain this winter, they were full and moving fast. (The one crossing Rethimno is actually called Platis Potamos - 'wide river' - and the one crossing Iraklio is Geropotamos - 'old river'.) The rivers both run into the Libyan Sea - the Liviko, as we know it - which looked very calm among the tranquil surroundings, while a light drizzle was falling at that moment. It's really the calm before the storm, as the tourist season is about the start, with its onslaught of rental cars jamming the narrow roads.
Iphigeneia - she arrived at the sanctuary in an emaciated state. No one realised she was pregnant. The next day, her foal, Ero was born.
The roads leading to the games after we got off the motorway were all ours. Few people were driving at that particular hour of the morning (we left Hania just before 7am), it was raining, and it was Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, when not much is happening. With the knowledge that there would be no buses running, once we passed Timbaki, I decided to ask the bus driver if we would be passing any of the above-mentioned villages. "Never heard of them," he said. I had looked up the google map for the area the night before, and knew the villages we should be passing (there was no GPS on the bus), yet the driver had no idea. We were now on the road towards the ancient palace of Phaistos (of Linear A disc fame). So when we passed a sign on the road pointing to Sivas (6km), I knew another sign would follow, pointing to Petrokefali (4km). As I passed those signs, I decided that the consequences of yelling 'STOP!!!!!!' to the driver might have deleterious effects. Plus, everyone would think I was mad, which is not a bad thing at all, but having lived in Crete for over two decades, I knew that it was not the right time for me to show this side of my personality since my 14-year old was on the bus with me. (I'm sure he knows I'm mad, but he wouldn't want me to advertise it.) Despondently, I let the bus carry on to our final destination, which I could discern before we got there: from google maps, I could see the red dome of the sports building among the valley's fields of olives and grapevines.
Ero - this is the first donkey to be born at the sanctuary. She is Iphigeneia's daughter.
Once off the bus, I could see hillside villages dotted around the valley from the point where I was standing. They didn't look too far away to walk, but the light drizzle didn't make the walk look enticing. By chance, Dimitris, the fencing coach from the Messara team, had just come out of the stadium. "Is that Petrokefali?" I asked him, pointing to the cluster of white buildings in the distance. I was in fact looking at Pombia, a neighbouring village due west of Petrokefali.
Agapi - she was found tied to a tree without food or water. The owner had left both the donkey and the village.
"Do you want to go there?" he asked me. "Do you know someone there? Who do you know? How do you know them? (etc) Hop in, I'm in a rush, but I can drop you off there." My husband often considers me to be very lucky, luckier than him. I agree, although my luck is usually a case of good planning. Dimitris dropped me off at the path that led to the donkey sanctuary. It was lined with redolent wild fennel, which I hoped I would remember to forage before I left the area.
Phaedra - when she arrived at the sanctuary, she was old, very shy and frightened of humans.
I heard about the donkey sanctuary through facebook, so it was always on my mind to visit the sanctuary some time. Crete is a big island, and the distances seem even greater in bad weather. The roads of Crete are all in good shape now (in Greek terms), but they are all full of bends and slopes. In the winter, some landslides occur; between Agia Galini and Timbaki, we were diverted because the road had sunk from this year's unprecedented heavy winter storms. So it isn't that easy to simply go for a spin to the other side of the island. A distance of greater than half an hour on these kinds of road conditions saps away our energy. The bus ride gave me a chance to enjoy my Mental Health day with greater freedom.
Talos - he gets a bit obnoxious. As I was saying hello to the other donkeys, he moved in and pushed my hand off them. Along with his name necklace, he also wears another one saying 'I may bite'.
At the gate of the sanctuary, the customary large guard dog met me, together with a couple of smaller doggies, all of whom bared their teeth to me and growled, as a way of saying hello. This was followed by a bray of unison from the 20 donkeys at the sanctuary as they saw me approaching. They had all lined up outside the fencing sectioning them off from the home of their carers, Kiwi Barbara and her Cretan husband Fanis. Barbara and I met on facebook: we are both New Zealanders, and we left New Zealand and came to live in Greece at about the same time, so we have a lot in common.
Haritomeni (meaning sweet-joy) - she came to the sanctuary in April 2010, lying in the back of a truck crippled with arthritis. Her owner who loved her (she even had a name!) could do nothing to ease her pain so he brought Hari to Barbara and Fanis. Within a month after medication & therapy there was a big improvement in her mobility although she cannot get up on her own after lying down. Hari is old now and tires easily. She is always found lying down every morning and is helped up. Donkeys form lifelong friendships with other donkeys; Haritomeni is nearly always seen with Pandora (below).
Barbara was very involved with horses during her New Zealand years, which is how she got the idea for a donkey sanctuary. Horses are uncommon in Crete - they are not suited to the mountainous terrain. They are mainly used in urban environments in the tourist trade, similar to other urban centres around the world. An example of their use is the horse and carriage rides around the Venetian port in Hania, and for weddings. But donkeys are perfect for village work. The only problem is that nowadays, cars are more readily available and their maintenance is cheaper and less time consuming than the needs of a donkey. Donkey milk farms have opened up and closed down in very little times; such business ventures easily go bust because the business people don't realise how much work is involved in such a business. Donkeys are now mainly used as fairground material, while the (recently impoverished) owners of the working village donkeys are getting too old to care for them.
Afroditi - her owner was abusive and beat and neglected her. Eventually he left her tied to a tree without food or water, but a villager took care of her. When he was no longer able to due to work commitments, he asked the sanctuary to take her. This is their morning feed: the local mills grind a mixture of grains for their breakfast. This 'muesli' has a very sweet natural smell. They eat hay in the afternoon.
What do you do with a donkey you no longer want or need? You can give it away, or sell it, but this is difficult in our times, when the traditional use for donkeys is no longer needed. Some people set them free to roam, which sounds kind, but this is not really the case. A donkey that is set free by its owners will wander away and run into trouble. While it may find enough food to eat, it will probably not find enough water, so in the summer, it will die of thirst. They may also be run over by cars on the road: if they were used to being led by their owner, they will not sense the danger of passing vehicles. Other owners just tie them up to a pole and leave them to their own fate, which is certain death.
Donkeys often arrive in emaciated states. Once a donkey arrives at the sanctuary, it is given a beautiful ancient Greek name, All the donkeys have their own personal history. Some tales are sad, but many also resemble the human side of life: birth, work, retirement, and eventual death from natural causes. One thing is sure at the sanctuary - the donkeys are cared for by Barbara, Fanis and their growing family of children and grandchildren. They receive a lot of attention from the many visitors that come to see them throughout the year. While I was there, various tourists visiting Crete during the Easter break came to the sanctuary - for some, it is not their first time.
During my visit, Barbara and I had a good strong cuppa tea together, and reminisced our Kiwi life, which for both of us, forms our irrevocable history. It's a part of our life that has finished now, because now that we live in Crete, we are here to stay, a bit like the donkeys at the Agia Marina Donkey Sanctuary. It's most likely our last stop. It's so nice here, we really don't want to leave.
Achilleas - originally from the island of Patmos, he lost his hoof due to being tied up by his leg with wire. Donations have saved his leg and helped him to regrow a hoof. Although Achilleas' health was improving, he suddenly crossed the rainbow bridge on 27 April. I was very lucky to have met him during his short stay at the Agia Marina Donkey Rescue.
The Agia Marina Donkey Rescue is a registered Greek non-profit organisation which is runs purely on donations and TLC, by the Doulyerakis family of South Crete since 2004. It is a haven in the sunshine for aged, abused and unwanted working donkeys. If you can make a donation to the donkey sanctuary, please contact Barbara through the site's facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Agia-Marina-Donkey-Rescue/225542274129832
Bonus photo: This is Mr Prickles, a cat that a tourist brought to the sanctuary because he felt that it would be mistreated if left to survive on its own. Mr Prickles has cerebral palsy. Now two years old, it took him a while to learn to walk, as he kept falling down.
Mr Prickles
He walks just like a human being who has cerebral palsy. He reminds me of Beri, our lame cat, who adopted us six or so years ago (Beri still walks with a limp). Mr Prickles also reminds me of the disabled people I see living among us. Apart from a modest pension payment, they don't get other help from the Greek state, ie there is little in the way of assisted housing, so they are generally allowed to live a normal life among the people they have grown up with and are accustomed to seeing. Mr Prickles and Beri are no different. They just plod on stoically.
The Agia Marina Donkey Rescue is a registered Greek non-profit organisation which is runs purely on donations and TLC, by the Doulyerakis family of South Crete since 2004. It is a haven in the sunshine for aged, abused and unwanted working donkeys. If you can make a donation to the donkey sanctuary, please contact Barbara through the site's facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Agia-Marina-Donkey-Rescue/225542274129832
At the end of the service, apart from the regular sweet offerings, a basket of love cookies was being handed out to the congregation. The cookies were made the children attending Sunday School in the area.
"Please take one!" the little girl said. "It has the recipe my mother wrote!" The icons came with a cookie, the recipe and a matchstick with cotton dipped in oil from a candle.
Not being a church goer, I missed out on gettingmy share, but my friend managed to get one, which came along with the recipe. Love cookies are made with ingredients not commonly found in the supermarket.
You need: 3 water glasses of peaceful conscience (when the sea is calm, we say it looks like olive oil) 2 water glasses of honest heart (like the purity of sweet sugar) 1 wine glass of laughter (which you can find in the form of tsikoudia, the Cretan firewater) 1 wine glass of good will (which you have in the juice of freshly squeezed orange) 1 water glass of love (in the smell of toasted sesame seed) 1 sachet of bubbly joy (a sachet of baking powder will do) 1 teaspoon of insistence (baking soda will be fine) 1 teaspoon of inspiration (ammonia can be used, although I usually don't add this, as I find my inspiration in other ways) communication and a happy countenance as you embark on the task (try some ground cinnamon and cloves) as much work as is needed (keep adding flour till you can knead the dough easily)
To make the love cookies: Pour the peaceful conscience of your inner world into a bowl, together with your honest heart. Work very hard at it constantly and add the love, some communication and your happy countenance. Our mixture takes on a ruddy cheek colour. To this we add the joy and laughter. We must be careful here, because sulkiness might spoil our mixture! Then we add the hard work. We mould our cookies onto the tray of our soul, we warm up the oven with our good will, and bake the cookies at 170 degrees Celsius of patience for 30 minutes.
Whoever eats these cookies ascertains that the main charcateristic of their taste is the tranquility of the soul! The preparation time is as long as life itself. And there is no caloric value. Thanks to Eirini for the photos.
I met my husband through family friends. He never bought me presents or flowers. We never bought each other Christmas or birthday presents. Before we got married, he once bought me a plant for my garden on my nameday, so I bought him a plant for his garden on his nameday in reciprocation. One Valentine's Day, I do remember getting a really flimsy-looking single rose, which I suppose may have been the cheapest offering at the florist's. To show him that I believed he'd wasted his money, I didn't buy him anything.
After that, we realised that there was no need to spend money on each other to prove that we were thinking about each other on a particular day of the year; at any rate, we have each other on our mind every day of the year. We've obviously saved a lot of money being stingy in this way, but we're still happily together by choice.
Happy Valentine's Day, if indeed you do celebrate it.
I have the travel itch, but I won't be travelling quite as soon as I would like. If travelling is in your plans, you might be in need of a new suitcase. CSN's luggage stores have offered me a $45 gift voucher* to give away to one of my readers, valid at any of their online stores. Leave a comment on this post and you will be in for the draw. The winner will be announced in 10 days' time. Good luck and have a safe journey!
As I'm writing, I'm dreaming of going on a mini-break to an urban centre where I could browse through the shelves of bookshops with multiple floors, feel the veins of history by visiting well-known monuments, admire architectural feats while sitting by the window of a train, and eat my choice of any kind of international cuisine that takes my fancy. This time last year, I was in the midst of planning an exciting trip to Paris and London. Holidays abroad aren't possible every year, even without an economic crisis, so this year, I'll content myself by browsing through our holiday shots.
What started off as a creative way to use leftovers has now become an institution in our home. I began presenting regular Greek tastes in unknown forms, as with the wontonson the left. It's riskier to present regular Greek forms with unknown tastes, as in the samosas on the right; the appearance fooled my family into thinking they were Cretan pasties, kalitsounia.
Spring rolls are now becoming more popular in global food outlets in Hania, like pizzerias. The spring rolls I ordered at such an outlet were made with Mediterranean tastes. When I made them at home, I used bottled Asian sauces to add a bit of foreignness to my otherwise Med-flavoured filling.
Apart from seeing some of the greatest monuments of the world from close up, travelling outside the limited environments of our island home also means the possibility for my family to try new tastes and for me to indulge in some old favorites, the kind of international cuisine I was used to eating out when I lived in Wellington. Trying new food doesn't just mean eating something you haven't tasted before, and it's not only about seeing the differences in the cuisines of the world. Eating 'other people's food' familiarises you with a new kind of eating style; and as you eat your way around the world, whether it's in an unfamiliar environment or the comfort of your own home, you realise that there is a great deal of similarity involved the food we all eat. For example, which culture doesn't have some kind of small 'hand-held pie', made with some kind of pastry containing some kind of filling? Is there any country in the world that doesn't eat any kind of 'bread', no matter what grain it's made of? Does a society exist that doesn't eat a 'sandwich' in some form, even if it doesn't actually call it a sandwich?
Pita with falafel resembles the Greek souvlaki filled with bifteki instead of meat slivers, but the taste is very different.
Global food outlets in Hania exist in both Greek and multi-national forms: there's Starbucks cafe, Domino's pizza, Goody's burgers, Roxani's pancakes, Grigori's sandwiches, to name but a few, but they all sell roughly the same kind of food: some kind of bread, filled or spread with similar fillings, which always include a milk-based product. There are very few international cuisine outlets in the town, apart from a couple of Chinese restaurants, which don't actually seem to be gaining ground (which may also have to do with the price). This frightens me somewhat: eating foreign cuisine is an educational experience, it helps break the racial divide. It also helps to know the sometimes subtle, sometimes major differences involved in other people's food to alleviate the initial 'shock' factor usually involved when experiencing the unknown. For example, I got a big shock when I tried wasabi paste for the first time, nothing like the exhilaration of a hot curry...
Some international cuisine looks, smells and tastes almost exactly the same as the Greek equivalent, eg lasagne and pastitsio; on the other hand, a Greek lahanosalata (cabbage salad) has little to do with sauerkraut, which I made by wilting the cabbage and adding various spices to give it a sour taste (it was not one of my more popular dishes). My cottage pie was very successful - the mince was flavoured with well-known Greek spices, while the potato layer provided similar carbohydrates as pasta does in a Greek makaronada. Cottage pie could be described as the English version of pastitsio or lasagne.
At some point in their lives, my children will probably leave their island home and go abroad, whether for study or work. I won't be around to provide Cretan cuisine for them. I doubt that I'll be one of those mothers that will cook meals for them and fly them by courier to their student address abroad (like some people do, packing them together with ION chocolates and cigarettes, as if they don't have access to similar products where they are, and/or they are vital to their survival). We learn about the history and geography of the world, foreign languages, the importance of global technology in our lives, the necessity to acculturate to global norms and trends, but we rarely learn about the food of the world, only about our 'own', as if the food we eat is the only kind that everyone will recognise.
If I could cook whatever I want whenever I want, I would cook stir-fries. They can be as vegan or carnivorous as your preferences deisre, and they take little time to cook (they need more preparation time for chopping ingredients into small pieces). My stir-fry beef and fried rice was a winner.
What started off as a way to use up leftovers during one of my freer moments over the Christmas holidays has now become an institution in my home. Since the beginning of the year, I've launched International Cuisine Saturdays. Every Saturday, when I have more time available to cook a meal creatively (as opposed to during the week when I cook on automatic pilot), I prepare a meal that veers away from Greek cuisine (what I typically cook at home), either in taste, texture or appearance, in the hope that one day, when my children become ambassadors for their countries in their circle of foreign friends, they'll be knowledgeable global citizens, accustomed to eating other people's food.
To date, I can only make blueberry muffins (and pancakes) when friends from abroad present them to me as a gift; apart from strawberries, berry fruits are not easy to grow in Crete due to the dry climate.
International Cuisine Saturdays doesn't involve buying novel ingredients or new cooking equipment (although I will admit to going through my supply of soya sauce rather quickly these days and have now resorted to buying it in 1-litre bottles). I usually don't know what I'm going to cook until the actual day, when I look into my fridge to see what's available, and make a decision according to my energy levels. Today's 'foreign food', for example, will form part of our dessert, blueberry pancakes, using a present I received in the post yesterday from a Canadian friend yesterday. We generally eat the same food all over the world; it's the preferred processes, combinations and flavours that differ. It's an educational experience on the most part for my family, and it also gives me a chance to cook food that I have always enjoyed (and greatly miss) eating. These are the times I feel gratified that I am able to cook well.
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Pastitsio is one of my favorite pasta dishes, and it’s probably one of the most kid-friendly meals in the Greek repertoire. I don't remember my mother making it often, but maybe that's because her sister, my aunt, made it, and she lived across the road, so we ate it at her house. Pastitsio is one of those meals you can make and freeze for later use, so a little extra effort in making it (it requires at least three pots ANDa baking tin!) can go a long way; it's saved me often from having to cook from scratch when I'm busy.
Pastitsio is pastitsio, or so I thought, until Peter wrote: "The Pastitsio canvas is wide open. Do you have a desire for the classic Pastitsio with ground meat, pasta and Bechamel? ... A vegetarian … seafood …lenten Pastitsio or one with legumes? ... Ever thought of a Dessert Pastitsio? The possibilities are endless." It didn't enter his mind that anybody can put a silk hat on a pig, but does that make it a prince? Possibly the pig didn’t care whether it became a prince or not, just as long the nosh was good, but it should still be wary of PAShOK (Police for the Authentication of Specific Hellenic-Originating Kuisine).
Although the purpose of this post is a lesson in creativity and tolerance of other people's cuisine, the idea of 'pastitsio' (despite being a word derived from Italian) does still manage to conjure up a particularly homogeneous image in Greek people's minds. There are no golden rules that must be followed, but the general idea of a pastitsio is that there are three parts to it: the pasta, the meat filling and the white sauce. On occasion, when I want to avoid meat (but not dairy), I make a vegetarian pastitsio with soy mince, which is pretty tasteless, so it needs to be flavoured, in which case I add a range of vegetables to it (usually whatever is in the fridge), as long the colours fit in (eg carrot, aubergine) and they can be turned into a crumbly texture (ie not cabbage or cucumber) so that the colour of the sauce resembles the original pastitsio. My eaters aren’t that easy to fool; a seafood version would be out of the question in my house for this reason. I don’t rule out the lenten version though; it’s the kind I usually make, again with soy mince, but without cheese or white sauce, a bit like a vegetarian oven-baked makaronada. This is a nice way to serve up spag bog the next day as leftovers, if you want to serve something ‘different’ (if you cover it while it’s cooking, it won’t burn).
Ever thought of a dessert pastitsio? No, never, I hear you say, even though our Bulgarian neighbours have been eating dessert pasta for a long time now. Remember Rachel in Friends, who (accidentally) made a savoury trifle, which not even Joey would eat? The idea of eating sweet pastitsio sounds completely paradoxical. But that didn't stop one of the finest eateries in London, The Fat Duck, from reneging on its Egg and Bacon ice-cream, which gives desert pastitsio great potential to become a conceivable culinary creation. My inspiration for this came from that last suggestion of Peter's: dessert pastitsio, something that would sound so ludicrous in the realm of Greek cuisine that the two words could not be collocated in the traditional sense. I also realised that this was the missing link to my latest piece of cuisine fiction: dessert pastitsio, the creation of something so contrary to the normal use of the word that it could add the final twist to a story whose ending I could not figure out. The idea of a dessert pastitsio fitted in perfectly with the global celebration of St Valentine’s Day, a particular festival that has no international borders and, in my humble opinion, should be celebrated with humour rather than in earnest.
A word of warning: this pasitsio is made from scratch, meaning that all ingredients used to make it were in their least processed form. I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted to create, but no recipe, so at EVERY stage, I tested and tasted. Regular pastitsio is served as a slice, rather like a pie, not like a makaronada, so the choice of tin, the layering factor and the stability of the final servable product, combined with the use of Mediterranean ingredients and the blending of suitable flavours all have to be accounted for, in keeping with the tradition of pastitsio making. Moreover, St. Valentine’s Pastitsio would have been beyond my expertise, had I not been informed about molecular gastronomy. These points will be elaborated on as I explain the recipe.
For the pasta, you need:
1 cup flour (the 'extra strong' variety) 1 egg ½ cup cocoa 30ml cream Mix the flour, egg and cocoa to form a pliable dough. Add cream slowly until you get the right texture of the dough, so that it will spread easily without breaking apart. Let the dough stand for about half an hour, then roll it out as finely as you want your pasta. This can be done with a pasta maker, but as I had just made ravioli and cleaned up my workbench, I decided to use a rolling pin, and cut the pasta into fettuccine. Leave it to dry a little, then boil it as you would regular pasta (without salt!), draining it in a colander (I cooked mine for about 15 minutes).
Chocolate pasta has never really gone down well, according to what I have read on the internet, so at this point, even though I could smell the aroma of the cocoa, I still needed to taste the pasta to ensure it was going to be consumable. This test revealed that the pasta needed to be sweetened, so I tossed a knob of butter into the hot drained pasta with a large tablespoon of brown sugar (similar to the olive oil and cheese we add to hot drained pasta in a regular pastitsio) in the pastitsio tin. Now my chocolate pasta was more palatable, making it more suitable for the purpose which I had set out to use it. What did it taste like? Chocolate pastry bread.
For the filling, you need:
2/3 cup of mizithra (my local curd cheese, similar to ricotta cheese) ½ cup sugar 2 kiwifruit, sliced thinly the seeds of one pomegranate Arrange the kiwi slices on the top of the pasta. Mix the sugar into the cheese so that it is well blended. Spread it onto the pasta. Sprinkle the pomegranate seeds on top. Berry fruit pairs well with chocolate, and most chocolate pasta sauces do contain berries. If I had strawberries at hand, I would have used them. As it was, I had locally grown pomegranate and Macedonian kiwifruit (apart from this Greek variety, NZ grown kiwifruit is also available). The mizithra mixture can also be mixed into the pasta, and the fruit piled on top of this, but I preferred the transparency of the layers, plus the fact that I hoped (and was proven right) that it would give an ice-cream terrine look to the finished product.
Apart from its use in salads, mizithra, the local curd cheese in Crete with a PDO, is widespread in local recipes, used in both sweet and savoury dishes. In Hania, it is used as a filling in all manner of pies and pasties. It is never missing in our house. It is the cheese used in the famous Bougatsa Iordanis. In Western Crete, mizithra pasties do not use sugar in the mixture, as they are usually sprinkled with honey after they are cooked, but in Eastern Crete (Heraklion province eastwards), sugar is mixed into mizithra for their pastries. The basic combinations of 'pastry + mizithra', 'pastry + dough' and 'pasta + cheese' gave me the idea to use it in my pastitsio.
3 egg yolks 3 tablespoons of sugar 1 tablespoon of cornflour a shot of brandy 1 vial vanilla sugar Whisk the yolks, sugar and cornflour until well blended. Mix the remaining ingredients together in a saucepan and heat until just warmed up. Add the egg mixture into the milk, all the while whisking constantly. Keep stirring until the custard has thickened to a consistency that will make it set. This is important because it is this custard that will provide stability to the pastitsio. Pour the custard over the pastitsio, taking care to let it seep into the pasta so that when it cools and sets, it will help the pastitsio to keep its shape.
The pastitsio is now ready and needs to be 'cooked' by being left in the fridge to set completely before it is sliced, lifted out onto a plate and served (with a traditional knife and fork). This part gave me the most worry: will it be sliceable? It was also the reaosn why I chose the baking tin, an old-fashioned loaf tin, a little like a bundt pan, with a ribbed shape. I was hoping that the pastitsio slices could be shaped into a heart by using a rounded tin like this one. In the event that it did not slice well, I thought I could turn it into an upside-down pudding, and slice it like a cake. I needn't have worried, as the chemistry of the final dish kept its promise and didn't break apart when I served it (but I didn't get the heart shaped I desired).
The second day (right) was firmer than the first day.
Of course, I couldn't wait to try this dessert as soon as was reasonably possible, given the time it needed to set. And just like a regular pastitsio, it was even better the next day: the flavours of the fruit had blended into the chocolate of the pasta, the layers were firmer, and it had an excellenbt 'sliceability' factor. I served it in small slices (it's a dessert, not a main!), on a classic 'Hearts and Flowers' plate, an appropriate style for St Valentine's Day.
Some points to consider: 1. Who would eat this? The adventurous, a customer in a posh restaurant, generally someone not bound by cultural culinary limits. 2. Where would it most likely be served? At a restaurant recipes are based not only on regional cuisine, but also on knowledge of molecular gastronomy; as part of a three-course meal, something that we in Greece are not accustomed to. 3. Would you make it again? YES, but I would omit the mizithra to make it lighter, as it was a very rich dessert; and NO, it was not to everyone's liking, mainly because it was a little too radical in concept. 4. Could it be served in a Greek restaurant? Yes. Dessert is always served at the end of a meal in Greece, it is an 'offering' from the restaurant (ie free), and since last year, I've seen anything from grated carrot preserve to panacotta cream to syrup-flavoured granita being served. This part of the meal is usually the one that does not stick to any rules, and flavours, aromas and combinations can be played out on unsuspecting customers. 5. Did you really eat this? See for yourself...
This is my contribution to Antonio's "A Taste of the Mediterreanean". The Greek aspect of this blog event puts pastitsio in perspective and is being co-hosted by Peter from Kalofagas. Check out the rules for entering here. And a big thanks to the co-host who gave me that 0.01% of inspiration needed to get me working out a 99.99% perspiration on this project, which combined my love for writing, my need to feed and my desire to reach new heights by working some molecular gastronomy into what I came up with - it's been a while since I was that creative in the kitchen!
Happy Valentine's Day!
PS: NigellaL, GordonR, JamieO, IliasM, VefaA, eat your hearts out. And no copying, OK?
