Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Creamy leek, potato and red pepper soup (Σούπα με πράσα, πατάτα και κόκκινες πιπεριές)

Last night, as I was sifting through my fridge's darker corners, to see what was hiding, I found some leeks and red peppers that which did not look very worn out from having lain there for so long, but they really needed to get out of the fridge and into a cooking vessel. The result was a heavenly soup that I could never even have dreamed of if I didn't experiment. The recipe below is written in the same experimental way that I created this soup, based on my regular potato and leek soup.

You need:
500gr leeks (whole - I use both the white and green parts), washed well and chopped small
500gr potatoes, peeled and cubed (from a mountain dweller friend's bounty)
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3-5 red bell peppers (from our garden) chopped roughly
a few glugs of olive oil
a bouquet garni comprising of: celery stalk, thyme (or dill seeds) and 2 bay leaves (I also used bahari)
salt and pepper (I used peppercorns, but had to fish them out when I was ready to puree the soup)

Place all the ingredients in a large pot and let soften on the lowest heat setting for 30 minutes with no lid on the pot. Pour 4-5 glass of water into the pot (depending on how thick you want your soup) and let cook slowly for another 30 minutes. Switch off the element, allow the soup to cool slightly, remove whole herbs and spices and puree.

Wine from Peloponesos, sausages from Pilio, feta cheese from Plataies, local bakery bread and soup made from garden-grown produce: it can't get more Greek than this. 

It's not a Greek custom to add cream and dairy products to soups. It's better to serve some cheese on the side to go with the soup. And if you like your meals a little heftier, fry some sausages. In this way, you can cater for vegans, vegetarians and omnivores alike, all with the same meal. And don't forget the bread and  wine.

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Leek and onion pie (Πρασοκρεμμυδόπιτα)

I love all allium plants (onions, garlic and leeks). Onions and garlic are never missing from my kitchen. When the leek season begins in early autumn, they are never missing from my kitchen, either. I also once question the use of half an onion (or half a clove of garlic, or half a leek) in a recipe. Why half? What would happen if a whole one was used? Would the recipe be ruined?! There is no such thing as half an allium in my cooking style.

Supermarkets in Crete sell anything and everything these days: Zakinthian onions and Santorini eggplants.

When I go shopping, if I find a novel fruit or vegetable (ie a plant that is not grown in Crete) at the supermarket, I always buy one item to take home and show my keen gardener husband. On my most recent visit, I saw some giant onions (seriously, they were huge), which I thought were made just for me in the size I prefer for a meal! The label accompanying them named them Zakinthian onions. Through my Zakinthian friend Kiki, I discovered that these onions are called belousiotika (Μπελουσιώτικα) onions, because they are grown in a village called Μπελουσι (Belousi) in Zakinthos. Not only are they huge, they are also sweet. You won't cry when chopping these onions - they seem to lack the stinging-eye effect that we often feel when we are peeling onions. They also have thick flesh, unlike their regular counterparts.

My best food is my creative food: just by looking at what I have available, I can whip something up that I have never cooked before. When the ingredients are good quality, the dish usually comes out very tasty.

Apparently these Belousiotika onions are often used in salads, but I thought their sweet taste would go well in a spectacular vegetable-based pie. Just by looking into my fridge and pantry, I decided to use them together with some leeks; the combination turned out into a perfect πίτα. 

You need:
1 belousiotiko onion (or 3 regular onions, to make up the bulk)
3 thick leeks (or 5-6 skinny ones, which are locally grown in Crete during the autumn)
a few tablespoons of olive oil
salt and pepper
200g single low-fat cream (even though I hardly ever use this much in my cooking, I always store some long-life cream in the fridge, for those 'just-in-case' days; it was perfect for today's recipe)
2 eggs
100g grated parmesan cheese
some pastry of your choice (I made my own, using the classic Cretan recipe: some water, a little bit of olive oil, a dash of salt and some all-purpose flour; you could also use frozen pastry)

For an idea of size, the Belousiotiko onion covers more than the elemnet below it, while it seems to be as tall as a half a leek!

Chop the onion(s) into thin slivers. Clear the leeks of debris (they often contain soil among their layers) and chop them into small chunks (I always use the green tops in whatever I cook with leeks). Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil (I use a bit more than that, being Cretan!) and saute the onions and leeks until they become wilted, transparent and soft. Add salt and pepper to season. Beat the eggs and cream together, and pour in the leek and onion mixture.

Roll out your pastry and fit it into an 8-inch round flan tin (or ceramic pie dish). The pastry (whichever type you choose to use) must be baked blind, because the pie filling is very liquidy and will not help the pastry set quickly enough. Cook the pastry for 15 minutes in a hot oven. Then take the tin out of the oven and pour in the filling. Sprinkle the top of the pie with the grated cheese. Place the pie back in the oven, and let it cook in a moderate oven (180C) until the pie turns a golden brown colour on the top. To check if the pie is done, shake the tin a little: if it is set, the top will be firm like a custard. When you cut into it (I always do with pies like this), the pastry at the bottom of the pie will feel firm and the knife won't come out looking 'wet' but 'oily' instead.

This makes a very filling pie. It goes well on its own, with a glass of white wine.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Leek and mizithra pasties (Καλιτσούνια με πράσα και μυζήθρα)

I recently bought some leeks and hadn't got round to using them. I had been hoping to make a favorite of my own, leek and onion pie, but could never find the appropriate time to make a rich crust, chop up all the vegetables and pre-cook the filling, so the leeks just lay in the fridge getting old, their dark green tops withering away. The idea of the recipe being too avant garde for my family also niggled away at me, which is probably what really stopped me from making the pie. When I finally decided to use the leeks, it was in a recipe I had never made before, devised on the spot and adapted to suit the culinary preferences of my family.
 
I also found some leftover pastry in the fridge from a recent stint of making kalitsounia, a favorite snack in Cretan cooking. Basic flour-and-water pastry (with a pinch of salt and a few tablespoons of olive oil added) keeps for a few days in the fridge as a ball, in a plastic bag with some flour added to keep the pastry from drying out. I decided to make some more kalitsounia, with a leek-based filling, supplemented with some cheese for extra taste.

Then there are the odd-shaped, outgrown, and by now, rather fibrous zucchini, the last of this season's summer garden, which don't look very appetising. There was one sad-looking one in the fridge that was showing signs of neglect (the outer skin begins to brown, although the interior may still be fleshy white). After peeling and grating it, I left it to strain in a colander, and added some of the shreds to my new kalitsounia filling. 

You need:
3 leeks, including the green parts
1 onion
1 cup of grated zucchini, strained of its juices (by salting it, letting it stand in a colander and squeezing the liquids out of it)
150g mizithra (Cretan soft white curd cheese - you can substitute ricotta for this)
a fistful of semolina
salt, pepper, oregano
a few teaspoons/tablespoons of olive oil (depending on where you are from, I suppose)
some pastry - my pastry was home-made, but you can use shop-bought pastry rounds; in Greece, the best substitute would be what is called 'filo kourou', while in Crete, we can buy fresh thick filo pastry for making regional varieties of little pies known here as kalitsounia
olive oil for frying (or an egg and some sesame seed if you prefer to bake them)

Prepare the leeks by trimming them: discard the topmost fibrous parts that have discoloured, but keep anything that still looks fresh. Then cut the leeks lengthwise. Check to see if they are dirty (leeks very often have dirt clinging in their inner leaves). Then start to chop them as small as possible. Heat some oil in a shallow frying pan and cook the onion and leeks till translucent. Add the grated zucchini and cook a few more minutes, continuing to stir the mixture until everything is well combined. Turn off the heat, add the seasonings and cheese, and mix well to combine. Finally, add the semolina - this is to ensure that the filling won't be too runny, so that the filling won't create holes in the pastry and leak out.

You may be wondering what the lemon squeezer was doing while I was making pastry; it was closer at hand than the demi-tasse saucer...

Depending on whether you are using ready-cut pastry or not, cut the pastry into rounds (or squares, if you intend to bake instead of fry them). I make them no larger than a demi-tasse saucer. Fill the pastry accordingly: For pastry rounds, place a tablespoon of mixture on one half and close the pie by folding the empty part over the filled, sealing the edges with the tines of a fork.  For square pasties, place a small amount of filling in the middle of the square and fold the corners over the filling, pressing all four corners together in the middle to seal them.

If you are baking the kalitsounia, grease a baking tray well, place the kalitsounia on it so that they don't touch each other, brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with sesame seed. Cook them in a moderate oven until they turn golden brown.

If you prefer to fry them like I did, heat some olive oil in a small pan. When it is smoky hot, add a few kalitsounia at a time (if there are too many pasties in the pan at once, the heat of the oil will drop considerably and they will stew away in the oil rather than fry, thereby soaking up too much oil). Let them cook on high heat till golden brown on the cooking side, then turn them over and cook the other side in the same way. Be careful: they cook quickly! When they are ready, lift them out and place on absorbent paper to soak up excess olive oil.

This leek-based filling makes a tasty alternative to the traditional specialty of spinach-and-cheese kalitsounia that are made in Hania.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.