Organically grown crops may be healthy for you, but they don't have a long shelf-life, whether they are products from your own garden, or from recognised organic producers. Those cauliflowers we have growing on our plot won't last long - they've already been invaded by little green caterpillars, big brown slugs and baby snails, all looking for a comfortable place to hibernate, away form the wet damp climate that Hania has been experiencing lately (we have not seen any sun for seven days, despite our prime spot in the middle of the Med). Cauliflower in Crete is traditionally eaten boiled or braised in a red sauce. My cauliflower cheese didn't go down that well with the mister (he is so Cretan), so I've reverted to something more traditional today: cauliflower cooked in red sauce.
Even my suburban Cretan village supermarket has started to sell organic produce. I have very few tomatos now with the cold weather - everything has automatically stopped growing in the garden - but the other day when I picked up the second-rate filo pastry in the supermarket, I found a new shelf of products which claim to be completely organic, hence their high price. It's worth trying something new, so I bought a tin of tomatos (1 euro per tin, as opposed to 50 cents for non-organic ones), which I thought I'd add to this very organic dish; the organic xinohondros cost 6 euro for a 400-gram packet, bought from GAIA. Another brand is also available at the supermarket at a cheaper price. Eating organically is expensive; even if you don't buy it, you spend a lot of your time growing it.
You need:
1/2 wineglass of olive oil
1 cauliflower head, broken up into
1 large onion, minced
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
400g pureed tomatos (canned tomatos do fine)
1 teaspoon of tomato paste
150g xinohondros (add as much as you like; the more, the crunchier)
a few sprigs of parsley, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a saucepan. Stew the onion and garlic in the oil. Add the cauliflower florets into the pan, and stir them about to settle them. Cover the pot, and let them stew for about 10 minutes on medium heat, so that they reduce their bulk. Stir them a couple of times during this time so as not to stick to the pan. Add the tomatos, salt, pepper and a small glass of water; stir this mixture evenly into the cauliflower. Cover the pot, and let the cauliflower simmer over low heat till it has cooked till nearly tender - it will probably need no more than 15 minutes. Now add the xinohondros and stir that into the cauliflower, taking care not to break the florets. Add up to half a glass of water if there is not enough liquid in the pot; the xinohondros will absorb quite a bit of the remaining liquid in the pot. Cover the pot, and let the xinohondros cook with the cauliflower for another 10-15 minutes on low heat. Now add the parsley, mix it in, and switch off the heat. The parsley leaves will wilt in the heat, and the meal is ready to be served.
This post is dedicated to my late grandmother.
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MORE CAULIFLOWER RECIPES:
Cauliflower cheese
Really interesting post, Maria, and I definitely need to try this dish. I always have lots of traxanas on hand and it's nice to find a new way to make it. The taste will be a little different since the kind I have is not sour like xinohontro.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget you can try eggplant in this way, as I mentioned, and probably green beans (but they are delicious on their own, or with meat as you had done them recently).
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