Grandmothers carry well-hidden secrets. Cooking recipes evoking emotions. Chefs, on the other hand, capture experiences of modern gastronomy.
The most wonderful culinary stories are scribbled by grandmothers on a family table, where taste greets the warm embrace of memory.
The voices of the past with role-models of the present, grandmothers, have reduced the culinary art to a blooming garden of love, influencing generations of people and Chefs alike.
In the footsteps of tradition, Eleftheria Kokkinou and Irini Papadopoulou, house-proud grandmothers prepare favorite cooking recipes while Chefs Sofia Georgakaki and Sofia Ourgantzidou raise the bar of creativity in dishes of high standards.
Winner of the culinary duel between grandmothers and Chefs? One! Profound flavor!
Traditional giouvarlakia with egg-lemon sauce
Α traditional cooking recipe by Mrs. Irini Papadopoulou, 78 years old
Ingredients
- 1/2 kilo of ground beef
- 1/2 fl. glazed rice
- 1 onion cut into small cubes
- 4-5 sprigs of mint, chopped
- 4-5 sprigs of dill, chopped
- 5 sprigs of chopped parsley
- 1 egg
- 1 carrot cut into small cubes
- 1 bay leaf
- 5 tbsp olive oil
- salt
- pepper
For the egg- lemon sauce
- 2 eggs (yolks and egg whites separately)
- 1 tablespoon corn flour
- juice of 2 lemons
Cooking instructions
Put in a bowl the minced meat, rice, onion, herbs, egg, salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix well until all ingredients are homogenized. Fill the pot with water reaching just below its middle. As soon as the pot with the ingredients start boiling, add carrot, bay leaf and olive oil and boil for another 2-3 minutes. With the use of a spoon, place giouvarlakia in the pot one by one.
Remove the foam appearing on top of the pot until it is entirely clean. Lower the heat and let it boil for 30-40 minutes until giouvarlakia are softened.
Egg-lemon sauce
Pour cornflour and lemon juice into a bowl and mix well. In a second bowl, whip only the egg whites until these become a meringue. In a third, whip solely the yolks. Pour the lemon and cornflour mixture into the egg yolks and mix. Subsequently, add the egg whites and mix quite well. With the use of a large spoon, take some broth from the pot(2-3 times) and pour it into the egg-lemon sauce gradually. Finally, grab the handles of the pot and swing it so that the egg-lemon sauce is spread smoothly. Serve garnishing the dish with basil or mint leaves.
Imam bayildi
A traditional cooking recipe by Mrs. Eleftheria Kokkinou, born and raised in Smyrna, 79 years old
Ingredients for 4 people
- 8 Tsakonikes eggplants, relatively large
- 40 gr. salt for the eggplants
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 800 gr. onions, in small frames
- 500 gr. diced tomatoes (without seeds and tomato skin) & 2 tomatoes, cut into 1cm slices
- 1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
- 1/2 tsp. sweet brown sugar
- 1 hot pepper, chopped
- 150 ml olive oil and extra for frying
- salt, freshly ground pepper
For serving
- 1-2 tsp. tablespoon chopped fresh mint
- zest of 1/2 lemon or lime
Cooking instructions
Cut the eggplants lengthwise in half, without removing the stem and without cutting them in half. Remove the skin every 1 cm (one yes, one no) and add these in a bowl filling it with 2 liters of water and 40 g. salt, for 30 minutes. Rinse and dry with a towel.
Add olive oil (about 1 cm from the bottom of the pan) in a frying pan or a medium-sized pot with a heavy bottom and heat it until the temperature of the oil reaches about 170°C.
If there is no thermometer available, check if the oil is at the right temperature with a cube of bread: the oil should “sizzle”, without emitting smoke. Then, add the eggplants and fry until get a soft and golden texture. Remove and place them in a kitchen towel with a slotted spoon, in order to drain the excessive oil.
Heat 90 ml of olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat and saute the garlic for 8-10 seconds, just enough to release its aromas. Add the onions and sauté for about 10 minutes, until are wilted. Add the diced tomatoes, parsley, sugar, pepper, salt and pepper as well.
Add 2 glasses of water and cook uncovered for 15 minutes, until the sauce thickens. “Fish” the garlic, melt it with a fork and put it back in the sauce. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Place the aubergines in a fitting pan. Fill them, by pressing, the exact spot where we scored with the onion sauce. Put the tomato slices on top, pour the remaining 60 ml of olive oil, season with salt and pepper and add 1/2 cup of water to the pan.
Bake for 25 minutes, until the tomato slices are golden brown. Let the imam eggplants cool off, sprinkle with mint and lime zest and serve with feta cheese and bread.
Shrimp giouvarlakia with cod/ mandarin lime sauce
A cooking recipe with a modern twist by Chef Sofia Georgakaki,
Consultant Chef/Chef Hookah House skg/ Head of Gastronomy Sector Delta 360 School in Thessaloniki
Giouvarlakia…
Just by its pronunciation, my mind wanders to the cold winter mornings of my childhood when my mother used to prepare a soup for my father, before his morning shift at the factory.
He then heated it by himself on the stove, which almost always you could smack off the smoldering tangerine peels.
He never woke her up ❤️
The taste of the hot soup, sip by sip every single day made us feel that everything in our lives was running like a well-tuned clock.
With loving hearts, we, the youngsters, slept again until school time.
Food tended to have the luxury of a calf, and the warmth of a mother embracing with attentiveness.
On weekends, father would relax with spearfishing.
The inspiration for the variation of the dish is the combination of a memory of everyday’s life, the way my parents showed love and respect to each other, which I understood at a later stage.
Dedicated to Soula and Lefteris who always catered for all our needs.
Ingredients for 4 people
- 400 gr. cod crumb
- 400 gr. gutted shrimp
- 80 gr. glazed rice
- 2 yolks, 1 egg white
- tarragon
- salt
- pepper
- lime zest
For the broth
- fish bones
- 1 dry onion
- 1 leek
- 2 carrots
- 1 celery stalk
- half fennel
- water
- bay leaf
- whole spice
Boil everything together on a low heat, skimming where necessary. Drain well with the assistance of a strainer.
Cooking instructions
Pass the cod fillets through a meat grinder or chop finely. Chop the shrimps. Add eggs, salt, pepper and rice. Knead well. Shape into balls of 80 to 100 grams. Lightly flour. Add giouvarlakia to slightly boiling fish broth, with the use of a slotted spoon. Simmer for 5-6 minutes. Remove carefully. Drain the broth. In a basin, whip two egg yolks, juice of 4 tangerines, lime zest, and shape with the broth 1 “tangerine lemon”.
Serving suggestion
Place a medium-sized giouvarlaki ball in the center of a wide dish, pour over the mandarin sauce and garnish with chopped spring onion and mandarin fillets. Finish the plating with freshly ground black pepper.
Eggplant Mille-feuille
A cooking recipe with a modern twist by Chef Sofia Georgantzidou
Owner and Chef of the restaurant ‘Mageireio Spitiko’ / Culinary instructor at IEK DELTA Thessaloniki / Author of Riza’m, a cooking book on Pontic cuisine
The narrative of the recipe stems from the depths of the East and includes Sultans, princesses from Chios, the blue mosque and imams alike. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the history of the recipe as it is proclaimed that the “Moon Face” i.e the Greek Sultana, deluded the imams in order to retrieve their gold with the sole purpose to complete the rebuilding of the Blue Mosque in exchange of granting them political positions.
So, she invited the imams, hosted a feast and asked for the cooks to prepare eggplants simply with onions but meat. Shortly after, the imams discovered her treachery. Over the years, the recipe was transferred to Smyrna and then to Pontus and from there to Greece.
Being one of the most favorable raw materials, sweet eggplant and honeyed onions combined with fresh tomato and spices, lift off our taste buds. I was inspired by our revolutionary times and tried to preserve the same flavors with slight additions from other cuisines in order to produce new flavor combinations.
Ingredients for the eggplants
- 2 aubergines cut into medium to thin slices
- 200 gr. cornmeal
- salt
For the sauce
- 3-4 ripe tomatoes cut into cubes
- 1 dry onion, finely chopped
- ¼ c.t.c. cinnamon
- ½ c.t.c. sugar
- 1 clove of garlic
- ½ bunch of parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
For the feta mousse
- 100 gr. feta cheese
- 30 gr. Parmesan, grated
- 40 gr. milk cream
- olive oil
- salt
- pepper
Whip all the ingredients together in a blender and place them in a cornet used for the plate setting.
Cooking instructions
Put olive oil in a pan and saute the onion, until it softens. Add tomatoes and all spices boiling them for 15 minutes. Prepare the cheese mousse, whipping the ingredients altogether in a multi-cutter, and place thereafter in a cornet for the plate setting. Cut the eggplants into medium slices and put them in water with salt to remove their bitter taste. Drain them well and wipe them dry to remove moisture.
Add salt and coat them in cornmeal. Prepare the oil and, before frying dip each one separately in hot oil one by one in water. Remove them from the pan and place them on absorbent paper. Start setting up the plate, by putting on the base a small part of the sauce and two slices of eggplants, on which add the feta mousse. Continue adding the feta mousse until the mille-feuille is covered in four layers. On top of the last eggplant, place some of the cheese mousse and pour over the sauce. Last but not least, place the parsley on top of the mixture.
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