I've been so busy lately and I cannot believe I haven't posted in six days. Shame on me! Hope you are all doing well, eating well and just overall feeling great!
I don't know what it is about Barbecue Ribs, but that has been my most popular post and thanks to all of you that have commented and left me messages. Since I don't write your usual "cooking/recipe" blog, although so many I have come across are absolutely delightful, I don't have that kind of structured style. I do plan however, to fill my recipe vault with some of my original recipes and they will come as we go, but in all honesty, a good cook, is just that; And although we do experiment with flavors, our creations turn out quite similar in many instances, mainly because we belong to a peer group that are trained to think within the creative cooking realm. So before I go and bore you with recipe after recipe, the writer in me had to step in and captivate you through stories, tricks and tidbits of useful information, that ultimately makes cooking enjoyable. So, with that said,.....
Today I decided to tackle an obstacle of mine in cooking that has been my achilles heel since I first tried to duplicate the amazing flavors and textures of Greek cuisine.
There's this little Greek diner near my home and I really don't get to frequent it that often. When I lived in New York, Greek restaurants were everywhere and where I would succumb to my favorite dish Spinach and Feta Pie, a.k.a. Spanakopita. (Sorry, I don't have one of those little dingies for over my "o"...)
Now being familiar with Mediterranean cuisine I was sure of one thing. The Greeks would travel and some would settle on the shores of the Mediterranean. By the use of cargo ships and by being a seafaring nation, they would have access to foods from foreign parts, that were not native to Greece. Pasta, lemons and oranges, spinach from Persia, tomatoes, almonds, etc. Greece being particularly noted for their amazing produce, their olives and figs in abundance and grapes, that were not so much eaten as a fruit, but dried to produce wine are just a few of what Greece has to offer.
Given that the Greeks had access to so much variety, it gives us a better understanding, why their food, as unique and tasty, incorporates a multiude of ingredients from other countries, with a distinct influence in Italian cooking, thanks to the Romans for employing Greeks in their households.
My weakness for Greek food was their use of a flaky pastry called Phyllo. Phyllo, a paper thin pastry, buttered and layered in Greek dishes, creates texture and flavor that is amazingly light, yet so substantial. And when you incorporate spinach and warm feta cheese, this explosion of flavor occurs on your palate and you're really hooked from that moment on.
I have never been able to quite master the handling of phyllo, adding to my ongoing frustration to produce a dish that is relatively quite simple, but for me, personally, I cringe at a recipe calling for it. My heavy-handedness, is truly my demise, as I rip and tear this delicate dough, trying so hard to keep it in one piece.
I battle with the experimentation of the dough's temperature to get it just right...Chefs, I need help here. What is it about this delicate pastry that befuddles my ongoing attempts at success....Please if you would be so kind?....... Visit the RECIPEVAULT for my take on this mouthwatering goodness....
Until next time...OPA!
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