Koulouri Thesalonikis

The recipe I’m going to cook today, I found, a couple of years ago, on a site called “sintages apo spiti”. If what I’m saying seems Greek to you, it’s because it is Greek. It means homemade recipes or (in another meaning) well mannered recipes.

Today we are cooking what in Greece we call “Koulouri Thessalonikis”. It is a kind of bread that  we traditionally eat for breakfast and it is supposed to be originally made in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second biggest city.

The ingredients we’re gonna need are

• 400- 500 grams of general purpose flour
• 1 package of dry yeast (8-9 grams)
• 2 x ½ cup of warm water
• 50 grams of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of salt
• 100 ml oil (I prefer olive oil but you can use vegetable oil as well)
• Sesame seeds

First we need a small bowl in which to put the first ½ cup of warm water, together with the yeast. We stir the yeast so as to dissolve it in the water and then put 2-3 tablespoons of flour in, and stir again. Put a paper towel over the bowl and leave it be for 10 minutes.

While waiting we choose a bigger bowl and we measure in the 400 grams of flour, the 50 grams of sugar and the tablespoon of salt. We mix them together a bit and wait for the yeast.

   After the 10 minutes , the yeast mixture must have bubbles on the surface and a kind of sour smell. We put it in the flour mix, add the water and the oil and start kneading until we have a soft dough that doesn’t stick to your hands. Depending on the flour you use, you might need a couple of extra tablespoons of flour so keep it close.

When the dough is the way we want it, we leave it to rise for half an hour.

Now that our dough has risen it might stick a bit to our hands again so we can put a bit of flour on its top to help us handle it better.

Before starting this final step, we must do a couple of things. Turn on the oven at 200 celsius (392 fahrenheit), place on your table or counter a cup of water with a silicone brush in it and finally a plate or bowl or what suits you better with the sesame seeds.

We take the dough and divide it in 10-12 parts, depending on the size that you want the breads to be, mind you they will rise again while baking.

Now we take each ball and make it a long (or short if you prefer) string and put it aside. We water them so that the sesame will stick on, pass them through the seeds, close them into circles and put them on our baking pan.

It is preferable to have lined the pan with non-stick baking paper.

   When everything is in the pan, we bake for 10-15 minutes (depending on the oven) until they have a light brown shade.

You take them out and place them on a rack to cool off. The little breads remain soft 2-3 days inside a plastic bag. If you want you can do as I do, double the recipe and after they are completely cool put them in small plastic bags in pairs or something and then in the freezer.

I take one bag out of the freezer and into the refrigerator overnight and in the morning put them in my husband’s lunch bag. They are almost as good as the fresh ones.

A spicy cheese salad and a cool tuna salad

My family, loves having lots of side dishes when eating. A couple of different kind of salads is the most common thing. During summer, in Greece, we have a variety of peppers that is small, green and hot. It's a chilly pepper of some sort. We use those peppers to make what our friends in Thessaloniki call "kaftero" which literally means hot but in this case it actually means spicy.

 To make this salad you need :
- one or two chilly peppers the ones you prefer
- feta cheese
- vinegar
- good olive oil
- a food processor  

Take a frying pan and cook the peppers until they're soft. If you having a barbeque, put them on the fire they will taste even better. Peel the skin and take out most of the seeds if they're very hot. Put them in the food processor, half the cheese, a table spoon of oil and vinegar and blend until smooth.
 Now, you should try the mixture periodically to adjust the flavor to your liking. If it is too hot, put more cheese but don't put it all from the start as if you don't have more peppers you won't be able to make it hotter.
If you don't like feta cheese you can substitute it for some other soft cheese. When my mother makes it for my grandmother who doesn't eat salt, we use a kind of cream cheese.

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  Once, we went with some friends in a fish restaurant in Loutraki (a seaside little town, a couple of hours outside Athens)  and we ate a crab salad that my husband really loved. Upon returning home he asked me to make him this salad but with tuna instead of crab. The result was extremely satisfying so I want to share it with you.
Ingredients:
- 1 large cucumber
- 1 can of tuna in brine
- a couple of spring onions
- some dill
- mayonnaise 

Take the cucumber, peel it, take out the seeds, cut in small pieces and put in a salad bowl. Cut the onions in pieces and throw them in the bowl. Take the tuna, drain the brine, cut in smaller pieces and into the bowl. Use a couple of spoonfuls of mayo and mix all together. Last, mince some dill and mix it with all the other ingredients. You should put it in the fridge for at least half an hour.
If you don't have spring onions or dill you can use just the cucumber and the tuna. My husband prefers it this way.



 

Ground beef leftovers with orzo

It is too often that you wind up with cooked ground beef leftovers. Almost once in a week, I cook spaghetti with ground beef sauce and most of the time we eat the whole spaghetti but not all the meat. So I make this recipe that my mother in law taught me and present a whole new food to my husband.
You will need the leftover food, hot water, a deep pan with a lid and some orzo.
Turn the stove on medium heat and place the ground beef sauce in the pan. Pour some hot water and some salt and allow to come to a boil.
 I cannot tell you how much water or orzo to use as it all depends on the leftover beef sauce you have. It is easy to see that by yourself.
When the sauce boils, you throw in the orzo and stir occasionally until it cooks to your liking. Sometimes it takes more water than anticipated so be sure to keep some hot water nearby.
You taste the food, add some more salt and pepper if you like and take off the heat.

You can serve it as is or with some parmesan sprinkled on top.

Hope you’ll give it a try. Till next time


P.S. If you don't know orzo, it's a durum wheat pasta that looks like this.

A different pizza

         Remember when you were at home and your friend suddenly decided to visit you and we made something like pigs in a blanket? Well today she is coming again for a “Godfather” marathon and you don’t have any refrigerated pizza or dough or anything but you still have sliced bread...

So let’s make a pizza with sliced bread instead of dough. My husband and his buddies love this pizza. It’s lighter than the one with pizza dough so they can eat more. Almost every time they come for a match or a movie, I make pizza. It is very simple.

You take a baking pan, oil it and take the slices of the bread and put them on the pan to cover it’s surface. You can cut smaller pieces to cover all the surface if needed.

Take a small bowl and put some ketchup and a bit of butter and mix together. Put some of this mixture on every slice of bread that makes your pizza. On top of that you can put anything you like. Usually I put sliced cheese, then some salami or ham or turkey, bacon, sliced red pepper, a sliced tomato (if I have one) some mushrooms and finish with grated cheese.

 Put in a preheated oven at 180 celsius (356 Fahrenheit) and bake until the top cheese melts and takes a nice color.

Take out of the oven, let it to cool down a bit, cut it and enjoy.

Green salad with leftover chicken.

     The day before yesterday, I made chicken with lemon and mustard which we ate with fried potatoes and it was great. ( I will give you the recipe one of these days ) However as always is the case, I had some leftover chicken in the fridge. Now, my husband doesn't like chicken that much so I knew I would be the one to finish it. Today I had to eat alone so what I did was simple.
  I took some of the chicken (shredded into pieces) and some of it's sauce and put it in the microwave to heat.
  In the meantime I put in a bowl an assortment of greens (lettuce, red radicchio, endive, curly endive, sugar loaf ,spring onion) and a pinch of salt. Mixed in the chicken with it's sauce and finished the salad with some cheese and a drip of olive oil.
  I used feta cheese as it is always in the fridge but you can you use any kind of soft cheese you like.
Just stir them and enjoy. It has everything you need to keep you going and it is not heavy at all, can be a perfect office lunch. Just remember to keep the chicken in a separate container so as to heat it.

So, try it and tell me what you thinκ.

Ta ta
( Yes, I've been watching Sherlock and it stuck in my mind totally replacing other words)

Salad with cabbage, bacon, green apple and mayo

    This is a salad my youngest brother tasted once at a restaurant called “Krasopoulio”. The name means, where you can buy wine as in the past, in Greece, we had a lot of shops selling wine that wasn’t bottled. It was kept in big wooden barrels and you could bring your own bottles and fill them up. Nowadays these shops are replaced by the big liquor stores.
Back to this very simple salad which I guarantee that your family and friends are absolutely gonna love.

Ingredients

1. shredded cabbage
2. 4-5 slices of bacon
3. 1-2 green apples
4. Mayonnaise  

Take a small pan and cook the bacon. Cut it into medium pieces and put aside to cool. Peel the apples and cut them into medium pieces.
In a big salad bowl mix the cabbage, apple and bacon. Put 2-3 spoonfuls of mayo and mix everything. Put the bowl in the refrigerator and leave for an hour or two.
Enjoy.

Pigs in a different blancket

   

        Let’s say you are at home, being lazy, maybe reading a book or watching a show or doing absolutely nothing. Suddenly a phone call from your best friend saying she’s coming over and she has lots of news and she’s bringing the wine.

  It’s the end of the week, you haven’t gone to the supermarket yet and you have next to nothing in your cupboards and fridge. What do you do? Let’s say after searching, you only come up with a few cocktail sausages and some sliced bread. That’s it, you have everything you need to make a great snack, ideal to accompany beer or wine and lots of talk.