Octopus Risotto
Category: Occasion
Recipes related to holidays and special occasions
How to Dye Easter Eggs Like an Ikarian: with Onion Skins
Learn how to dye Greek Easter eggs red naturally, with onion skins, the way they do it on Ikaria.
Melitinia, Sweet Cheese Tartlets from Santorini
Sweet cheese-filled pastries abound all over the Greek islands and are mainly Easter specialties. Melitinia hail from Santorini and from Tinos.
Getting Ready for Greek Easter: Kokkoretsi
Greeks have been doing nose-to-tail cooking long before it became fashionable. Kokkoretsi, a spit-roasted sauasage made with organ meats, is one delicious Greek Easter example.
Greek Style Stuffings and Gravy
Turkey stuffing is one of those dishes that can either carry the weight of tradition or the freedom of experimentation. It all depends on one’s own personal preferences. I like both and sometimes make more than one stuffing as a result. Every holiday, I sift through my recipe files to look for old favorites […]
Xerotigana: Ikaria’s Honeyed Fried Dough Strips
Elsewhere in Greece, these delicate fried pastry strips are called diples (THEE-pless). We call them xerotigana on Ikaria and I have the most vivid memories of my dad, a chef, making these every Christmas. We used to have mounds of them layered precariously on platters and they’d disappear in the course of just a day […]
Classic Melomakarona
Great olive oil is what makes these classic Greek holiday cookies so healthy and delicious. To find a range of wonderful regional Greek oils, go to my online store here.
Mageiritsa–the Greek Easter Soup
Most Greeks the world over enjoy a hot bowl of mageiritsa soup after the midnight liturgy on the Saturday night before Easter. The soup, made with lamb or goat organ meats, is a perfect example of the home economy that characterizes the Greek cuisine.Nothing, in short, is wasted. The soup marks the end of […]
Festive Rice Pilaf
8 servings 2 cups. basmati rice 5 to 6 Krokos Kozani (Greek saffron) threads 2 cups chicken broth 2 cups water 4 tbsp. butter Salt 2 tbsp. olive oil 2 large onions, finely chopped 2 large carrots, diced small Zest of 2 oranges, sliced into thin strips 3 tbsp. sugar 3 tbsp. water ½ […]