Fish and Chips, my way!

 Usually I don't wake up with an alarm. I have a cat, we call her Ourania (urania) which means heavenly in Greek, a name that came from the Greek Muse OURANIA (or Urania) who was one of the nine Muses, the muse of music, song and dance. In Classical times she (Ourania) came to be titled the muse of astronomy and astronomical writings. However my cat is far away from heavenly and I am not even sure if she ever going to cross the gate to heaven one day.

 But lets talk about fish. Fish is nice, tasty and somehow expensive. Fish is nutricious, is difficult to clean, and sometimes is smelly. Yeah, it is SMELLY. However, I like fish. I LOVE fish, I grew up in an Greek island where the fishing boats were going up and down all the day long, and we were going early in the mornings to the fish port to buy some of their first catches. Then , ( thank God) my grandmother was cleaning the fish, cooking the fish, and the rest of us, eating the fish and being happy.

Nowadays, because I am lazy, or because I just can't find the whole fish easily, I buy fish Fillet. Easy and clean. Mostly wild caught and fresh. maybe not the catch of the day but I compromise.

This Is my favorite and fastest way to cook it:


Go to the market and take some seabass fillet. Thats all!
   here is what we need:

Seabass fillet ( 4 -5 pieces)

all purpose flour

sunflower oil for frying

olive oil

2-3 lemons,

A Greek Salad

Fresh Potatoes
                             

1. Wash the fish with cold water and dry the fillets on paper towels. Season both sides with sea salt.
2. In a large frying pan heat 1 cup of sunflower oil and couple of Tbsp of olive oil.
3.  In a large plate put 1 cup of flour, (I use a bowl) and make sure to cover both sides of the see. it should be lightly floured, so shake the fillets to get rid of the excessive flour.
4.  Put now the fillet in the hot oil, let them fry for 3 minutes  each side.; use 2 two forks to turn them on the other side. Usually it takes 8-10  minutes. Remove the fish from the fire and put them on paper towels. The result is a crispy nice golden fish fillet. put the fish on a platter, cut the lemons in halves and squeeze them on the fish.

Serve, with fried potatoes, ( I LOVE THEM ), and salad. EASY!

KALI OREXI!!

~Emmanuel

              

Baklava, the Greek way..my way..

Hello everyone!


The history of baklava is not well known.. Everybody ,claimed the baklava, many ethnic groups, but most probably its Arabic origin. However, the Ottoman- Turkish- Arabic desserts are similar to the old  Greek-Byzantine ones, using dough, sesame, wheat, nuts and fruits.Baklava, is documented as the Byzantine favorite  and this is how my grandmother was doing it. It is easy and once you follow the directions you will have the best Baklava you ever had!

What we need:

phyllo dough 1 or 1 &1/2 packet  ( what you don't use, you can freeze it)

 2 cups olive oil

1 1/2 cup of butter ( clarified butter is the best- pure butter, or Ghi)

here is what we need for the stuffing:

walnuts -  5 1/2 cups

bread crumbs - 2 cups

1 table spoon cinnamon ( powder)

1  teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup of sugar

1/2 spoon of fine ground orange peel

and finally what we need for the syrup :

4 1/2 cups of sugar

1 Lt water

1  1/2 cup honey

1 orange ( ONLY THE SKIN)

1 Lemon ( the juice)

a pinch of cinnamon

 In a food processor ground the walnuts. Don't make them powder but small pieces. Now combine the walnuts the bread crumbs, the cinnamon, the nutmeg, the sugar, the orange peel in a mixing bowl. with a spoon mix well.

Warm the butter to melt and mix it with the olive oil.  Take a baking dish ( I use aluminium or metal, it bakes much better than the glass) which is almost the size of the phyllo dough in length. Grease with a brush the baking dish.
 Take 9 sheets of  phyllo dough (one by one) and place them in the dish in this order: phyllo dough- a spoon of the oil butter mixture on it- phyllo dough- a  tbl spoon of the oil butter mixture etc until you are done with the 9 sheets. make sure to use your greasing brush on each of the phyllo sheet to grease it well.
Now take a hand full of the walnuts mixture and put it evenly on the last phyllo you have placed on the dish. add one more phyllo sheet- grease- add a handful of the walnuts mixture and continue until you have no more walnuts. Carefully, the walnuts must be spread evenly  Finally, use 9 phyllo sheets to add on the top, following the line of - phyllo- oil butter mixture- phyllo -oil butter mixture etc.
 At last with a sharp knife cut away the edges- if any- and cut your dessert carefully in triangles or squares. Poke each triangle with  1 whole clove. 1 for each. The cloves they keep the phyllo in place while in the oven.
  Now, pour evenly on the baklava the rest of the warm butter mixture. all of it. Bake it in medium heat until has changed color and turned golden.

Meanwhile in the oven,  combine the ingredients for the syrup in a large pot on medium fire and stir for 15 minutes .  Remove the foam with a spoon ( the honey is foamy  once its boiled). Keep the  syrup warm .

When the baklava is ready ( it takes up to 1 hour and 10 minutes , depends on the oven), take it out of the oven and  pour evenly the warm syrup on it. It has do be warm and the desert hot.

After you are done with the syrup, let it stand, to cool down. Don't cover it. If you cover it, the phyllo dough with become soft and yukky and we really want it crunchy and yummy!

Enjoy!!!! its divine!














~ Emmanuel