Greece - Korina Miller [48]
The majority of Greek dishes are simply seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon juice and delightfully pungent Greek oregano. Parsley, garlic and dill are also widely used, while the use of spices such as cinnamon, cloves and cumin varies across the regions.
Olive oil is indeed the elixir of Greece, with extra-virgin oil produced commercially and in family-run groves all over the country. The best and majority of olive oil is produced in the southern Peloponnese and the islands of Crete, Lesvos and Corfu.
Vegetables, pulses and legumes – key elements of the healthy Mediterranean diet – feature prominently in Greek cooking, made tastier with plentiful use of olive oil and herbs. Beans and pulses are the foundation of the winter diet.
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Greeks consume more oil per capita than any other people: 30L annually. Greece is the third-largest producer of olives and olive oil (more than 80% of which is extra-virgin, compared to 45% in Italy), but exports much of its finest oil to Italy, where it is mixed and sold as Italian.
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Meat was once reserved for special occasions but has become more prominent in the modern diet, often added to vegetable stews, such as green beans. Lamb and pork dominate, though kid goat is also common. Beef (mostly imported) and chicken are widely used, often in tomato-based stews (kokkinisto), with special dishes reserved for the kokoras (cockerel or rooster). At home, lamb and chicken are commonly prepared with lemon and oregano and baked with potatoes. Pork is the meat commonly used in gyros (meat slivers cooked on a vertical rotisserie; usually eaten with pitta bread) or souvlaki. Rabbit is delicious cooked in a stifadho (sweet stew cooked with tomato and onions). Almost every part of the animal is used – from the delicacy ameletita (literally ‘unmentionables’), which are fried sheep’s testicles to kokoretsi (spicy, spit-roasted offal wrapped in intestines) and the hangover-busting patsas (tripe soup).
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SAY CHEESE
Greeks are the world’s biggest per capita consumers of cheese, eating around 25kg per capita annually – more than the French and Italians. Widely used in cooking in both savoury and sweet dishes, cheese is also an accompaniment to most meals. Greece produces many different types of cheeses, with infinite variations in taste due to the different microclimates. Several Greek cheeses have gained appellation of origin status. Most are made from the milk of the nation’s 16 million goats and sheep.
Feta, the national cheese, has been produced for about 6000 years from sheep’s and/or goat’s milk. Only feta made in Greece can be called feta, an EU ruling that will eventually apply worldwide.
Graviera, a nutty, mild Gruyère-like sheep’s-milk cheese, is made around Greece, but is a speciality of Crete, where it is often aged in caves or stone huts (mitata), Naxos and Tinos.
Other excellent cheeses include kaseri, similar to provolone, the ricotta-like whey cheese myzithra, and the creamy manouri from the north. Myzithra is also dried and hardened and grated in pastas. Anthotyro, a low-fat soft unsalted whey cheese similar to myzithra, and the hardened sour xynomyzithra are made on Crete.
Other distinctive regional cheeses include galotiri and katiki, strong white spreadable cheeses from Epiros and Thessaly; ladotyri, a hard golden cheese from Mytilini preserved in olive oil; the semisoft smoked metsovone from Epiros; and mastelo from Chios.
The popular skillet-fried cheese, saganaki, is made from firm, sharp cheeses, such as kefalotyri or kefalograviera, while formaella, from Arahova, is also ideal grilled.
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Fish has long been an essential ingredient, and fish from the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas are tasty enough to be cooked with minimum fuss – best grilled whole and drizzled with ladholemono (a lemon and oil dressing). Smaller fish such as barbouni (red mullet) and maridha (whitebait) are lightly fried.
The ubiquitous Greek salad (horiatiki, translated as ‘village salad’) is