Kalofagas - Greek Food & Beyond

Ricardo’s Spiced Pear Cake

Peter Minakis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:52:37 +0000

Up here in Canada, we have our own franchise of The Food Network…are you ready for the name? Food Network Canada.

Us Canadians get to view a diet of American produced shows, some cooking shows from the UK and Down Under and then we round things out with the Canadian produced shows.

One of the Canadian cooking/TV personas is Ricardo Larivee, from Montreal, Quebec where French is the more dominant language. Ricardo’s first language is French and it’s evident when you hear him on the show but who gives a flying-F when the language of food is what matters.

The show is titled “Ricardo and Friends” and in each episode he entertains and lays out a full menu that ends up being enjoyed by his latest entourage of guests. Interspersed in the show are visits by Ricardo to local suppliers like farms, shops and other sources of inspiration for his dishes.

I’ve tried a few of Ricardo’s dishes and they turn out just fine. You’d think in this day and age that everyone would actually test-out and proof a recipe. A tried, tested and true recipe is paramount and Ricardo’s dishes deliver.

Which brings me to the focus of today’s post, Ricardo’s Spiced Pear Cake. Like all food, the dish should catch your eye…I fell in love with this dish when I saw the cross-section of the cake with the pear embedded in it.

The aroma of this cake will warm your kitchen and remind you of mulled spices.

The taste is well, simply satiating. Perfect for an afternoon tea or coffee and those with a seasoned palate will be able to pick out the spices in this easy to make cake that will surely have your guests asking for the recipe.

GO ON…make the cake, share it and enjoy over a coffee with friends. In my opinion, this is a make-ahead cake. Bake it the day before, allow to cool for an hour, DO line the loaf pan with parchment and lift out the cake it.

Transfer to a cooling rack and once cooled, cover overnight. Since the poached pears are denser than the cake, be careful transferring to your serving plate (you don’t want your pears to fall through).

I slid the cake off the parchment and onto the platter, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon and carefully sliced the cake, giving each person a piece with an exposed pear slice for presentation.

Is it coffee time?

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author.

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Greek Food Gazette 06/11/2009

Peter Minakis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:04:53 +0000

Crossing over the Straight of Corinth

Greek history in a bottle, a primer on Retsina wine
Three Sisters Around the Greek Table, a new cookbook self-published from Greek-Canadian sisters (www.3greeksisters.com)
Chef Michael Psilakis goes back to Crete to shop for and cook an entire goat
Mykonos Grill, serving up Greek food in the Greensboro, NC area
Acropolis Greek Taverna has three locations serving the Tampla, FLA area

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Giouvarlakia Soup (Γιουβαρλάκια αυγολέμονο)

Peter Minakis — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:26:00 +0000

Recipe update from November 2007

This is one of my favourite soups, one of my favourite Greek dishes. It’s Giouvarlakia Soup. It’s a soup made of meatballs and rice, good stock and finished off with beaten eggs and lemon juice…Avgolemono.

This dish is Greek comfort food. I’ve enjoyed it as a child and I will continue to enjoy it. It’s quick, it’s affordable and it’s a healthy one-pot meal.

I like this soup thick-ish. If the soup is going to made and eaten at one sitting with family (or dinner guests)…then go with about 2/3 cups of rice. If you anticipate that some soup will be leftover, use just 1/2 cup (as advised in the recipe below). With the rice in the soup, the starches will thicken the soup over night and you’ll end up with a very thick and gloopy soup…beyond what I like.

The clincher for this soup is the Avgolemono. Many are intimidated by making this mixture but really, it’s easy. Just remember to slowly temper the hot liquid (soup stock) into the egg and lemon mixture and you’ll never end up with scrambled eggs again.

When making Avgolemono of any kind, do not multi-task. Tend to the task at hand (tempering the hot liquid into cold) and then carry on with your other kitchen activities.

We’re into November, it’s soup season and I can think of no better soup to make than Giouvarlakia Soup.

Try this one out. It’s a soup that eats like a meal, accompanied by crusty bread and finished off with freshly cracked black pepper.

Giouvarlakia Soup (Γιουβαρλάκια αυγολέμονο)

1 lb. lean ground beef

1 egg

1/3 cup Arborio rice

+ 1/2 (to 2/3 cup) Arborio rice for the soup

2 tsp. Vegeta Seasoning (vegetable seasoning)

1 tsp. pepper

1 Tbsp. chopped fresh dill

2 quarts (6 cups) of good chicken stock

Avgolemono
2 eggs
juice of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp. of flour

Mix your ground beef, egg, 1/3 cup of rice, salt & pepper in a large bowl. Form the entire mixture into meatballs.
Bring your stock to boil in a large pot. Drop your meatballs and the 1/2 cup rice into the stock and bring back to a boil. Once you have a boil, reduce to a simmer (medium) with a just closed lid and cook for about 20 minutes. Take off the heat.
In a small bowl, add your flour and some water and beat until the flour has dissolved to make a slurry.
Add the flour slurry to a large bowl with the eggs and lemon juice and whisk or use an immersion hand-blender until just frothy.
Take a ladle of stock from your pot and slowly add it to your egg/lemon mixture while whisking. Slowly add another 2 to 3 ladles of stock into the egg/lemon mixture. You’ve now tempered your your hot liquid and you’ve successfully made an Avgolemono.
Slowly add your egg/lemon mixture back into your pot of soup and simultaneously keep on stirring as you’re pouring.
Adjust seasoning with salt and reserve for five minutes. Serve with a garnish of parsley or dill, cracked black pepper and some good bread.

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Lunch at the New Acropolis Museum

Peter Minakis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:19:42 +0000

View of the Parthenon from the Cafe/Restaurant in the Museum

One of the highlights of my trip to Greece this past summer was my visit to the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. The word “acropolis” refers to the highest point in a city or town. There are other “acropolises” in Greece – Athens’ is the most well-known.

The Acropolis of Athens is a limestone rock with a sheer drop on all sides (except to the West) and for this reason, it made for a great defensive position. It has some distance from the sea but it can still be observed. This was an advantage against pirates and other invaders.

Located on the Acropolis is the Parthenon. The existing building was built under Pericles between 447 and 432 BC. Pillaged but not destroyed by the end of the Roman period, the Parthenon went through important changes from the 5th century AD and onwards. The statue of Athina was taken & carried to Constantinople in 426AD, then the temple was transformed into a church under Justinian, dedicated first to Saint Sophia and then to the Virgin Mother (Panagia Theotokos).

Ancient olive trees outside of the Museum

Afterwards, it became the Metropolitan Church of Athens. Paintings covered the walls, a dome was constructed on the marble roof (or to replace it?). The pronaos (inner area of portico) was transformed into an apse and the spaces between the columns of the peristyle were walled-up (at the base at the very least). The eastern pediment was pierced by a small circular window, to allow some light to enter.

At the beginning of the 13th century and under Frankish dominance, the church became Roman and with the name of St. Marie of Athens. The bishop of Cyriac of Ancona was the first to recognize the “temple of Pallas” and to to leave a sketch of it.

With Ottoman (Turkish Rule) came the erection of a minaret on the South-West corner. Until the 17th century, the temple was complete and many drawings and sketches exist, notably by the Marquis de Nointel’s painters.

In 1687, sculptures of the pediments, metopes and the frieze disappeared after an explosion.A provisional store of gun powder blew up after a deserter tipped off the Venetians. The explosion shook the Parthenon on September 26, 1687, overturning 28 columns, destroying the walls of the cella and 3/4 of the sculptured frieze.

Once the city was taken, Morosini wanted to take the “trophies” to Venice, including the western pediment – the best preserved. In trying to take them down, the whole central part (Poseidon and the horses of Athena’s chariot) accidentally (oops, you idiot) fell to the ground and was smashed to pieces.

When the Turks returned, they built a small domed mosque in the centre of the breach, without a minaret. The monument was again pillaged in 1801-1803 by Lord Elgin, who arrived from Constantnople armed with a firman (decree) from the Sultan.

He took dozens of statues, 56 blocks of the frieze and 15 metopes that in 1816 were brought to the British Museum.

The New Acropolis Museum consists of three floors. It’s a rectangular museum that is designed to replicate the Parthenon. Each floor contains artifacts from the temple and many damaged pieces have been repaired or replicated by man.

A recurring theme throughout the museum are the many shadows, empty spaces where missing pieces belong. A hope for their just and long-awaited return is shared by Greeks and non-Greeks alike. It seems that the British government and museum curators are the only ones against this.

I urge you to sign the online petition to return the Parthenon Marbles to Athens.

In hindsight, I wish I could go back and spend a whole day at this museum. It’s probably a wonderful (quieter time) to visit the New Acropolis Museum now that the tourist season has ebbed.

Another regret I have is not being able to take as many photos as I would have liked. It appears that the rules pertaining to photos have changed. Security folk are everywhere and I was a little perplexed as to why I couldn’t take photos when so many people who visited the Museum were able to when it first opened.

My friend Ivy of Kopiaste visited the Museum soon after it’s opening and she shared some striking photos.

So, why did the rules change on taking photos? The security guard that I asked told me that too many people were taking photos with “flash”…more of a distraction and annoyance. Whatever photos I took here with taken in haste and with no flash.

The end of visit to the Museum was spent at the cafe/restaurant with it’s striking view of the Parthenon. There were line-ups for a table but the seating is quick and the service was world-class.

I urge you to grab a bite at this eatery. Have a light lunch that’s affordable, utilizes Greek ingredients and paired with very good Greek wines by the glass.

My companion for my visit to the Museum was my good friend Maria. I’ve know Maria since 1980 as she used to live in Thessaloniki and we would spend summers together in Halkidiki.

We ordered some Assyrtiko white wine from Santorini and we sampled the following dishes:

A sandwich made with a salami from the island of Lefkada.

Graviera cheese from Crete with melon and thyme and honey.

Next up were quenelles of Kopanisti cheese with watermelon. Kopanisti is a soft chees, it’s salty and it has a hint of a blue cheese flavour.Finally, we had a potato salad with cured Sardines from Mytlini (Lesvos), orange segments and sunflower seeds.

Please do include a stop at the New Acropolis Museum and it’s worth waiting for a table at the restaurant surrounded by so much history. Order, drink some Greek wine, nibble and think about where you’re sitting, the glory that is Greece and the fact that you’re surrounded by centuries of history, culture and civilization. I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming.

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