Fish Soup - Psarosoupa

INGREDIENTS for 6 servings

2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus several tablespoons for drizzling over cooked fish
3 celery stalks, sliced thin
1 large leek, tough greens and root trimmed, and sliced thin
3 carrots, sliced thin
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1 1/2 quarts water
3 pounds large fresh white fish (bass, grouper, snapper, or cod), cut in half
3 potatoes, cut into large chunks
Salt, pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lemon, plus extra for seasoning cooked fish

METHOD

1. Heat 1/2 cup olive oil in a large soup pot and add the celery, leeks and carrots. Saute over medium heat, tossing to coat, until softened, about 8 minutes.

2. Pour in 1 1/2 quarts (6 cups) water, and add the peppercorns. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer the vegetables for 25 minutes. Remove the vegetables to a platter. Add the fish to the stock and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the flesh starts to fall away from the bone.

3. Strain the soup, reserving the broth and the fish separately. Add the potatoes back to the pot, together with the remaining vegetables and simmer another 10-15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Season with salt, pepper,and lemon juice, and just before serving add remaining raw olive oil to soup.

4. Remove the bones from the fish and place the flesh on a platter,drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice, and pepper.

Regional Greek Cooking

Saganaki - fried cheese

Fried Cheese (Saganaki)

Serves 4 persons!






INGREDIENTS

• 250 gr. any hard cheese, kefalotyri, Parmesan, Gruyere or Greek Cypriot haloumi
• 50 gr. butter
• lemon juice of 1/2 lemon
• black pepper

METHOD
Cut the cheese into 1 cm thick slices. Heat the butter in a frying pan and put the slices in.
Turn the heat down a little and let it cook for 1-2 minutes until it bubbles. It should not turn brown,
but should look creamy and sticky. In Greece the cheese is usually cooked in small frying pans, so they can be taken straight to the table.
Sprinkle a little lemon juice on top and some black pepper and offer it with fresh bread.

Mediterranean Cuisine

The spectrum of traditional Greek cuisine is very wide and indigenously rooted in thousands of years of history being at the same time heavily influenced by the countries. Much of the cooking in Greece relies on fresh ingredients, olive oil, herbs and spices. Requiring much more than rudimentary skills, at its best, Greek cuisine becomes an art form.

The traditional eating and meeting point in Greece is the tavern. When in tavern you may start with saganaki (fried chesse) as a starter, continue with psarosoupa (fish soup) and horiatiki the famous Greek salad topped with feta cheese and olives and as a main dish have either fish such as barbounia (red mullet) or mousaka ( aubergine and minced lamb or beef, topped with a béchamel sauce and baked). Most traditional taverns serve now much more than fresh fruit as dessert and you may have kataifi (flaky pastry bowl covered with honey and cinnamon) and pastry of all kinds.
Among the other places in which to eat and drink are the ouzeri and the tsipouradiko. Each dispenses ouzo or tsipouro and it is customary to nibble at a selection of local specialties mezedakia pikilia.

I will try to show you a traditional Greek dishes and Mediterranean fusion cooking equally fresh and tasty but with a modern touch. Each Greek island has his unique traditional delicacies.

Tomatokeftedes or psefokeftedes (tomato balls) is a traditional dish of Santorini. It is a very popular appetizer on the island and its preparation is similar to the preparation of meatballs. Usually come in a small dish with 4 to 5 tomatokeftedes in it.
Tomatokeftedes are very tasty not only because they are done with fresh vegetables but because they are cooked with “waterless tomato”. They come in a different species, and it comes in a two varieties. There is the original type, where the rounded sides of the tomato are fluted vertically, like fruit, and there is the “Kos” type that does not have any flutings. They are smaller than normal tomatoes, but somewhat larger than the real cherry tomatoes. Grown under burning sun preserving the humidity in the air they are very very tasty.

The plan bears more tomatoes than a normal tomato plant, grow fast and early in the year and most of all doesn’t require water. The small tomatoes contain a large amount of vitamin C and lycopene.Lycopene is a carotenoid with twice the antioxidant activity of beta-carotene (the precursor of Vitamin A contained in carrots, pumpkins etc.) and ten times that of alpha-tocopherol (a generic name for Vitamin E). It is a preventive agent for all kinds of cancer, especially the so-called epithylial cancers - cancers of the skin and some membranes – and it is only lycopene, out of all carotenoids, that can help to prevent breast cancer. It also works in potential cases of atherosclerosis by protecting plasma lipids against oxidation.)
The same lycopene have in Mediterranean olive oil. So the combination of the small Santorini tomato with olive oil in the recipes below should lead to both a tasty and a healthy meal.