BootsnAll Travel Network



Greek Sunday Roast

This is a special dinner to round off the olympics. I actually cooked it last weekend to see John off to a conference in Verona (the lucky bastard). It’s the last of the Greek recipes for now — we’re back to eating curries.
The main course is very rich, more suitable for track-and-field athletes than a couple of loafers, so I just served it with steamed vegetables and we had fresh fruit for dessert (you could offer Greek yoghurt with honey by the side).

Menu:
Fassoulatha me Eliopsomo (Haricot Bean Soup and Olive Bread)
*
Kotopoulo Yemisto (Roast Chicken with Lemon Pistacchio Rice)
*
Fresh Fruit
*
Mini Baklava, coffee


Bread:
Scant teaspoon Greek honey; 1 cup tepid water; 1 TB olive oil; 1½ tsp dry yeast; 450g strong (bread-) flour; good pinch salt; 2 red onions; 10 olives; 1TB fresh rosemary
Dissolve the honey in water, stir in yeast and leave 10 minutes to froth. Add the oil and salt and knead into the flour. Continue kneading 10 minutes and rest 3 h.
Fry the onion in a little oil over a low heat until it just starts to caramelise, adding the rosemary for the last few minutes, chop the olives and knead into the dough. This will be difficult but the oil inhibits the yest so it cannot be mixed into the flour earlier. Pieces which are not taken up by the dough can be pressed on top of the bread. Shape into a flat oval (ca. 1.5 cm high), prick with a fork and rest another hour. Brush with oil and sprinkle with some more rosemary and rocksalt. Bake 200°C 10 minutes and 180°C for another 30-odd minutes.

Soup:
400g dried haricot beans; good pinch baking soda
Mix, cover with boiling water and chill overnight. I boil the beans separately without salt as they tend to stay tough otherwise. Simmer with a bayleaf, 2 cloves, 1tsp dried oregano and a piece of cinnamon bark.
2 onions; 2 cloves garlic, crushed with salt; 1 carrot; 2 sticks celery; 1 can tomatoes (or 1kg fresh tomatoes: score a cross into each and cover briefly with boiling water, they can then be peeled easily); 1 TB Marigold vegetable stock; ca. 3TB tomato paste; handful chopped flatleaf parsley (use the stems in the soup and the leaves to garnish); pepper
Chop and soften the vegetables with the garlic. Stir in tomatoes, beans with their water (fish out the aromatics), stock and parsley stems and water to taste. Simmer 1h and adjust seasoning. Garnish with a drizzle of good olive oil and chopped parsley.

Chicken:
1 large free-range chicken; 50 ml olive oil; 1 onion; 1/3 [how stupid is this? There is no HTML character for “1/3”!!] cup rice; 200ml stock; 1 ramekin full of pistacchios, shelled and halved (rub off excess salt); 2tsp fresh thyme; zest of ½ lemon
Soften the onion with the thyme and stir in the rice to coat with oil, stir in stock and simmer, covered, until liquid is absorbed. Stir in pistacchios and zest and cool. Stuff the chicken with this mixture and truss. Roast 175°C 40 minutes while preparing the potatoes:

4 large potatoes; 1TB fresh thyme; pepper; salt (preferably Maldon flakes)
Cut potatoes into chunky slices ca. 1 cm thick, coat with oil and seasonings and arrange around the chicken. Continue roasting for another hour, turning the potatoes once. If chicken has browned, cover with foil to prevent burning.

Baklava:
75g walnuts (I didn’t have any, but this works with hazelnuts as well!); 50g almonds, blanched and skinned
Dry-roast nuts until just starting to brown, cool and chop. Keep back 1TB almonds. (Chopping these nuts to an even consistency can be a nightmare. You might want to consider placing them between clean towels and banging them with a rolling pin instead…)
25g sugar; ½ tsp cinnamon; pinch ground cloves
Mix into the nuts.
5 sheets filo pastry (keep under a damp towel); ½ cup butter, melted
Take 1 sheet of filo at a time and brush with butter. Cut 1/3 section lengthwise. Place a little over a tsp of filling at the end of the strip, leaving a little room by the sides, fold in sides and roll up ca. ½-way down the strip. Cut and place the little cigar on a baking sheet. Brush with more butter and continue until nuts or pastry are used up. Bake 175°C 15 minutes while making the syrup:
zest ½ lemon; 200g sugar; 1tsp Greek honey; 250 ml water; 1 stick cinnamon; 2 cloves
simmer until sugar is dissolved, pour warm syrup over baklavas.

Wow — what a palaver, but the meal was worth it.

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