Pork and Pitas

Whilst doing field work in Greece a few years ago, I discovered a love of souvlaki – a fast food consisting of meat on a skewer, which was then wrapped in a pita with vegetables and Greek yogurt. I was often so hungry after being on site from early in the morning, that I had finished my souvlaki by the time I had walked back up the hill to my apartment and was wishing I’d bought two. This recipe is partly inspired by those souvlaki memories and partly invented as a result of what was in the cupboard and fridge (specifically a can of artichokes that I bought to make Easy Chicken but didn’t use). It makes enough to fill about 6 pitas, depending on how generously you fill them (and how much fat comes out of the pork!). This does not have to be marinated, but doing so will improve the flavour and help to tenderise the pork (particularly if you use cheap pork, as I did!).

What you’ll need:

750 g – 1kg diced pork

1 can or jar of cooked artichokes (I used a jar with a drained weight of 240 grams; if your artichokes come as whole hearts, cut them into quarters before using)

Generous glug of olive oil

Generous glug of lemon juice

Dried oregano

Pepper (and salt, if desired)

A package of spinach leaves (I used a 260 gram pack)

6 pita breads

Salad vegetables (I used shredded lettuce and sliced tomatoes)

Greek yogurt

What to do:

1. Place the pork and artichokes in an ovenproof dish. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, pepper and (if using) salt to the dish and mix together thoroughly. If you have time, cover the dish with cling film and leave to marinate for a few hours or overnight.

2. When you’re ready to cook the pork, pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F) and then place the dish in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 2 hours or until the pork is cooked. You will need to mix around the pork and artichokes a couple of times during the cooking process to ensure that it browns evenly.

3. Once the pork is cooked, spread the spinach leaves over the pork and artichokes and put the dish back in the oven for about 2 minutes to soften the spinach, and then remove the dish from the oven and mix the spinach into the pork and artichokes. Any crispy bits of spinach should soften as they are mixed with the cooking juices. Place the dish back in the oven for a few minutes and then remove once the spinach has cooked. Apologies for the lack of picture of this stage – I was in a hurry to finish our supper by this point and forgot to take a picture!

4. Toast the pita breads and split them in half. Stuff each one with salad and some of the hot pork, add a dollop of Greek yogurt and then enjoy!

Easy Chicken

This blog post comes with massive apologies for the distinct lack of blogging that has been going on around here. I have yet to master looking after a baby and staying on top of the washing, washing up and keeping the house in a reasonable state, so there is little current hope of managing to master looking after a baby, staying on top of the housework and doing other things, like blogging (although I’m writing this post with the best intentions for future posts…).

I can’t quite remember the process of the evolution of this recipe. I think its origins lie in the bleary-eyed first few weeks after Baby S’s arrival in our lives, when some great friends brought us a Sunday lunch of a delicious stew of beef, mushrooms and olives. I think artichokes may have been involved in that lovely meal, which then provided the inspirational springboard a couple of months later for a stew of chicken, mushrooms, olives and artichokes. The evolution continued until it reached the form taken in this recipe – a simple to prepare, do-able in advance (which is very high on my list of current supper requisites), quick, easy and tasty chicken dish that just needs the addition of a starch (my preferences are potatoes or rice) and some veg (my personal favourite being steamed green beans but a tasty salad would be just as good). This is currently my go-to guests-for-dinner dish, although I fear it is beginning to reach the end of that road as I’ve served it so many times that I’m probably in danger of developing a reputation for not knowing how to cook anything else. The amounts listed here are for guidance only – just follow your instincts and adjust any ingredients according to your personal preference. This makes enough for about 4 people.

What you’ll need:

7-8 chicken thighs or drumsticks

2 onions, finely diced

4-5 cloves garlic, finely chopped

A medium to large pack of mushrooms, sliced (I think I used a 400 gram pack)

A jar or cooked artichokes

Generous handful of green olives

Generous glug of lemon juice

Generous glug of olive oil (I used extra virgin olive oil but normal olive oil should be fine too)

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F).

2. Place the chicken pieces in a single layer in a large ovenproof, casserole dish.

3. Scatter the onions, garlic, mushrooms, artichokes and olives evenly (or roughly evenly) over the chicken pieces and then sprinkle the olive oil and lemon juice evenly over the chicken and vegetables in the casserole dish.

4. Bake the chicken in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 3 hours, or until the chicken is thoroughly cooked with crispy skin and most of the liquid in the casserole dish has evaporated. About half way through the cooking time, you will need to turn and spread around the onions, mushrooms, artichokes and olives, pushing them down between the chicken pieces where possible to prevent the veg from burning (mine do tend to burn a bit - I tell myself it adds to the flavour) and to give the chicken skin a chance to get brown and crispy. As you will see from the photo below, the top of the dish tends to be pretty golden brown when you pull it out to spread around the veg.

5. When the chicken is ready, remove from the oven and either serve it immediately or allow it to cool and then keep in the fridge for a day or two until ready to re-heat and serve. The chicken can be re-heated by putting it back into an oven pre-heated to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F) for half an hour to an hour or until thoroughly heated through.

Green Salad

Of all food dislikes, the one that seems to be most prevalent amongst the people I know is for raw tomato. And in just about every case, the individuals involved answer the dinner invitation question about whether there is anything they don’t eat with a sheepish answer, assuming that I’ve never come across their particular dislike before. This salad was first made to serve to someone who didn’t like raw tomato and it has been a handy standby since then, both for when we want a bit of variety from the standard iceberg lettuce, cucumber and tomato salad that I usually make and when we’ve had over people who don’t like raw tomato. It is very much an add some of this and some of that recipe – the main thing is to get a good mix of greens, including sweetish, bland and sharp leaves, and to be very generous with the lemon juice. Adjust the amounts of each ingredient according to your preferences and the number of people you’ll be cooking for.

What you’ll need:

Mixed green salad leaves – for this particular salad, I used a round lettuce, spinach, rocket and lambs lettuce

Cucumber, diced

Few spring onions, finely chopped

Extra virgin olive oil

Fresh lemon juice

Pepper

What to do:

1. Wash and then roughly chop the salad leaves.

2. Add the leaves to a serving bowl with the cucumber and spring onions.

3. Sprinkle over the leaves, cucumber and spring onions a generous glug of olive oil, lots of lemon juice and a dash of pepper. Mix together thoroughly. Add more oil, lemon juice or pepper according to taste and then serve.

Feta and Red Onion Scones

I’m not sure what first put the flavour combination of feta and red onion in my mind – initially I was thinking along the lines of feta and either red onion or red peppers, but the plump red onions won when I was at the supermarket. My initial thoughts for that flavour combination were actually along the lines of muffins. Today, when I finally got round to trying to turn the flavours in my head into flavours on a plate, the idea rapidly evolved from muffins to a flat bread topped with feta and red onion to scones to a flat scone topped with feta and red onions to a crusty loaf of bread and back to muffins. I eventually settled on scones, primarily because they seemed the easiest, quickest option involving the fewest ingredients. This recipe makes about 8 scones (or more if you make them small). All the cup measurements are based on a 250 ml mug as equal to one cup. As you’ll see, I added the cheese and onion to the mixture before rubbing in the flour and I’ve given my instructions in the same format. I did this because I wanted to break up the feta as I was rubbing the fat into the mixture. However, the more obvious thing to do may have been to rub in the fat first and then to mix in the feta and onions – just do whatever feels most intuitive for you at the time.

What you need:

A large red onion

Little bit of olive oil

2 1/2 cups self-raising flour

Pinch salt

Generous sprinkling of dried oregano

Pepper

200 gram pack of feta cheese

1/3 cup soft margarine or softened butter

Milk (for brushing the tops of the scones)

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F) and either grease a baking sheet or line it with greaseproof paper.

2. Slice the red onion into thin slivers whilst heating the oil in a frying pan. Add the sliced onions to the pan and fry until soft and cooked.

3. Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl and then add the oregano and a sprinkling of pepper to the flour/salt.

4. Cut the feta into large cubes (or cuboid shapes, if you’re me) – mine were about 1 inch by 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch and then add the feta to the mixing bowl with the flour and seasonings.

5. When the onions have cooked, remove the pan from the stove and add the onions to the mixing bowl. I was too impatient to wait for them to cool down, but you can if you want to.

6. Mix everything in the bowl together thoroughly.

7. Add the margarine or butter to the bowl and rub thoroughly into the mixture – this didn’t take me long to do as the heat from the onions melted the butter and cheese and seemed to speed up the process. Draw the dough together into one mass (this may be quite crumbly).

8. Shape the dough into small, round scones or tip onto a lightly floured surface and flatten into a round about 1 inch high (I didn’t measure the diameter) and then cut the round into 8 roughly equal triangular shapes.

9. Place the scones on the greased or lined baking tray and then brush the top of each scone with a little bit of milk. Bake the scones in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about half an hour or until browned and delicious.

10. Either eat warm from the oven (if you’re impatient like me) or cool on a cooling rack before eating. Either way, I would highly recommend that you accompany your scones with generous lashings of butter.

Hamburgers and Mustard Mayonnaise

I almost feel like this recipe is too simple to blog. But, unfortunately, after a couple of weeks of very little motivation to be in the kitchen and multiple failures when I have ventured into that particular room of the house, this is all I have to offer. I used to make hamburgers and meatballs with dry breadcrumbs and by adding raw onions and, when I used it, raw garlic to the raw meat mixture. However, that all changed when I made keftedes, Greek meatballs, from a recipe in an awesome Greek recipe book given to me by J. The book, which I would recommend highly, is called Culinaria Greece: Greek Specialities, edited by Marianthi Milona and published by h.f.ullman (2004/2007). This recipe uses the great ideas of pre-cooked onions and pre-soaked bread learned from that recipe. This makes six good sized burgers.

 

 

What you need:

1-2 slices of white bread

1 onion

500-600 gram pack of beef mince

1 egg

Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

Fresh or dried herbs – I used dried oregano

Salt and pepper

3 dessertspoons mayonnaise

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

Squeeze of lemon juice

6 hamburger rolls and trimmings of choice, such as sliced lettuce and tomato.

 

What to do:

 

1. Put the bread in a bowl and cover with cold water to soak.

 

 

 

2. Chop the onions finely. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and then soften the onions in the hot oil.

 

 

 

 

3. Squeeze the water out of the bread (if you’re not sure, gather the soaked bread together in your hand and then squeeze it gently in the same way you might squeeze water out of a sponge) and then put the bread, cooked onions, mince and egg into a large mixing bowl with a generous sprinkling of herbs and some salt and pepper. Mush all the ingredients in the bowl together until they are fully combined. I do this by hand. It is a messy but fun business!

 

 

 

4. Divide the meat mixture into six roughly equal portions and then shape each portion into a hamburger patty. I find that the best way to do this is to shape each portion into a large ball and then to pat the ball flat, smoothing the edges into a circle every so often as I pat down the top and bottom.

 

 

5. Cook the hamburger patties by shallow-frying them in a frying pan with more hot oil, or lay them on a baking tray, on a sheet of greaseproof paper and bake in a pre-heated oven on gas mark 5 (190º C or 375º F) for about 30 to 40 minutes, turning once, or until brown on both sides and cooked through. Please excuse the terrible picture below – natural light had pretty much disappeared for the day by the time these had finished cooking.

 

 

6. To make the mustard mayonnaise, mix together thoroughly the mayonnaise, mustard and lemon juice. Taste and adjust each ingredient according to your preference.

 

 

 

 

7. To assemble, prepare your hamburger rolls according to your preference – my preference is lightly toasted and buttered – and then add a patty and a generous dollop of mayonnaise to each roll along with any other hamburger trimmings I have to hand. Eat immediately.