Μαγειρίτσα (Mah-ghi-ri-tcha)

 

This is a seriously delicious soup, traditionally eaten at Easter in Greece. However, since I'm not one for tradition, this is an all-year round food that is hearty and healthy. It's also dead simple to make.


To address the elephant in the room: yes, the ingredients, specifically the animal organs like liver, lungs, heart etc are not exactly mainstream, and the thought of eating or handling them can make some people feel squeamish. Believe me though, the taste more than makes up for it, and the texture is no different than regular pieces of meat once cooked in this manner.

You will need:

Ingredients:

1-1.5kg of mixed lamb organs (liver, lungs, heart, kidneys)
1/2 cup of soup rice
150gr of finely chopped dill
150gr of chopped spring onions
1 egg
1/5 cup of lemon juice
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
1 beef stock cube
1 vegetable stock cube
Plenty of water

Pots and utensils:

A large pot
A ladle
Two empty cups
A hand mixer or fork
A cutting board and a sharp knife

Execution:

1) Chop the lamb organs into small pieces (roughly half an inch long and half an inch wide). This will be time consuming and by far the most squeamish part of the cook. A sharp knife will make this easier.

2) Add the olive oil in the pot and heat on high temp. Once hot, drop the meat inside and stir until it gets a nice brown colour (but not enough as to fry them or for them to gain a crust)

3) Add water to fill the pot, as well as a dash of salt and pepper and the stock cubes. Bring to boil in high heat.

4) Once the cubes are dissolved, fill 2/3 of a cup with the broth (make sure there are no solids in it, just broth). Put it aside and allow to cool until needed.

5) Add rice into the broth, and let boil until fully cooked (15-20 minutes)

6) Whisk the egg in a cup, add the lemon juice in it, and mix.

7) Add dill and spring onions in the broth and reduce heat to 2/3.

8) Wait for the dill and onions to become cooked and soft, and the broth to cool down a little (around 10 minutes). Yes, we are overcooking the rice at this point, and that's on purpose. 

9) In the meantime, slowly incorporate the egg and lemon mix into the cup of broth we saved earlier while stirring it vigorously. If the cup of broth is too hot, or the egg is added too quickly, or you're not stirring while doing it, you'll end up with little visible pieces of cooked egg in the broth, which will affect both taste and texture adversely.

10) Once egg is fully incorporated into the cup of broth, repeat the process by incorporating the cup back in the pot. Same process: add slowly, and keep stirring. This is known as αυγολέμονο (av-gho-leh-mo-noh) and is used in many greek foods. It is probably the most "technical" part of the recipe that can take some practice to get right, but is versatile.

11) Turn heat off, and allow soup to cool down a little. Serve as is (optionally, you can add more lemon juice, salt or pepper to taste). Καλή όρεξη (Kali orexi, aka bon appetit in Greek)!

Steak Dinner

This is a beef steak, restaurant-style, full meal, including sides. This is not and should not be an everyday meal, and it's one to make sparingly to treat yourself or impress a guest. This is a big meal, both in work and in quantity. For 2 portions, you will need:

Ingredients for the steaks:

2 steaks (more on that later)
2 sticks of unsalted butter
1 sprig of thyme
1 sprig of rosemary
Salt and pepper (if you freshly grind rock salt and pepper, all the better)
Garlic powder
4 peeled cloves of garlic (for a little more of a kick), or half a black garlic (for a little more of a smokey, tangy taste)
A little olive oil


The most important ingredient here by far are the steaks. If the piece of meat is not good, this will not be a great result for you. You want the steaks to be roughly 250gr each, and thicc. 1 to 1.5 inches thick, to be exact. Thinner than that, the steak will cook faster and most likely overcook by accident, not to mention it won't be as juicy. But more important than the shape is the type of steak.

I personally go for beef, specifically ribeye or new york strip, though I have used the exact same recipe for iberico pork chops, with a slightly adjusted cooking time, and it was quite an enjoyable result. In any case, you will definitely want to pick a tender part of meat. The more white marbling, the better, as that will make your steaks softer, juicier and tastier.

I don't recommend you go too fancy until you've made this recipe a few times and have some experience, then you can go ahead and experiment with fancier steaks like dry aged steaks or wagyu.

Pans and Utensils

A deep pan (cast iron, if you have it, but not required)
A tablespoon
A slotted turner or tongs

Preparation

The execution here is simple in theory, but might be tricky to get right at first.

1) Get all the ingredients ready. This requires taking the raw steaks out of the refridgerator and seasoning them well with salt, pepper and garlic powder, and allowing them to absorb it while slowly warming up to room temperature.

2) Heat the pan with a little bit of olive oil until hot. Then proceed to sear each side of the steaks until dark brown with a nice crust, flipping as much as required, for around 3-4 minutes total.

3) Reduce heat to 2/3, and throw in the butter, thyme, rosemary and garlic. Allow the butter to melt and start getting infused with the flavors of thyme, rosemary and garlic.

4) Use the spoon to continuously bathe the steaks with the melted hot butter for about 5 minutes.

5) Take the steaks out of the pan and let them rest for 15-20 minutes while the residual heat finishes cooking up the inside.

This should end up in beautiful medium rare/medium steaks.

6) Optional: If you want your steaks more medium than medium rare, add 2-3 minutes in stage 4. If you want your steaks medium well or well done (ew), stick them in the oven for 10 minutes, then let them rest. Be warned this will result in less juicy, harder and less tasty steaks.

You can serve as is, or with steak sauce of your choice

For the sides, there's many things you can do, but I tend to go for butter basted asparagus and mashed potato.

You will need:

Asparagus and mashed potato ingredients:

Around 20 asparagus
2 sticks of butter
1/4 cup of hot water
3 cloves of garlic
Salt
1 beef stock cube
4-5 large potatoes
150gr of grated cheddar cheese, extra mature
100gr of chopped spring onion greens
1/4 cup of cooking cream

Pots and utensils:

A large pot
A deep pan
A cutting board
tongs or a wooden spoon
A knife
A bowl

Execution:


1) Peel and quarter the potatoes. Add them in the pot with some salted water and let them boil until soft.

2) Heat the pan, and cut the hard root-side ends of the asparagus off.

3) Crush the garlic with the flat side of the knife, sprinkle salt on it, then finely chop until you have a garlic paste.

4) Add asparagus, garlic and 1 stick of butter in the pan. Turn and flip frequently until they are soft and brownish, at which point they are ready (you will know). Take them off the heat.

5) Dissolve the beef stock cube in the 1/4 cup of hot water.

6) Put the boiled potatoes in the bowl and get mashing.

7) As you mash, sequentially add the beef stock solution, remaining stick of butter, cheese and cream, in this order as to not drop the temperature too quickly, and to allow the butter and cheese to melt.

8) Finally, add the spring onions and mix one last time.

If you've done everything correctly, trust me, salt and pepper will not be required, but you can add some after that if you want. 

Enjoy!

Italian-style Carbonara

This recipe was found online and has since been tweaked and has become a favorite.

For 4 restaurant-size portions (or 2 large ones, like the one pictured above) you will need the following.

Ingredients:

* 1 Pack of pasta (I personally prefer linguine)
* 5 eggs
* 200gr of grated Grana Padano
* 200gr of grated Pecorino Romano
* Black pepper (to taste, freshly ground if possible)
* And the star of the show, 300gr of guanciale

Utensils and pots

A pasta pot

A pasta ladle

A non-stick pan

A wooden spoon

A big bowl (big enough to hold the pasta and a little more)

A whisker or fork

A tablespoon

A plate and paper towels

A grater

A knife and cutting board

If you need fewer or more portions, scale ingredients accordingly. As far as the eggs are concerned, err on the side of excess (I'd use 3 eggs for 1 large portion, for example). You're encouraged to tinker, experiment and find a balance your palate is most happy with.

Do note that depending on your deli or wherever you get your guanciale, it's a good idea to ask them to thinly slice it beforehand instead of getting one solid block.
Guanciale is extremely fatty, and slicing it to size at home can be both tedious and messy, so it's better that your starting point are thin slices instead of a block of fat and meat.

You also probably want to avoid guanciale pieces with the very hard crust (a.k.a. pellicles), but it's not a dealbreaker. If the texture bothers you, just cut the crusty parts off.

Execution:

1) Prepare the ingredients, which basically means grate the cheeses (if not pre-grated) and slice the guanciale to small strips. You should have something like this when you start:

  

 

2) Heat the pan, and, once hot, add the guanciale strips as is. Do not add oil to the pan. The fat will immediately start becoming translucent and eventually fry, while your guanciale will begin swimming (and frying) in its own liquid fats. Once brown and crispy, remove the pieces from the pan and set them on the plate with paper towels to soak up the excess oily fat. Set the pan and its liquid contents aside, you will need it again.

3) Boil salted water, and once hot add the pasta in and let cook for 7-8 minutes, occasionally stirring.

4) Whisk five eggs in the bowl. Add some black pepper and whisk again.

5) Add the cheeses in the egg mix and whisk well.

6) Remember that pan full of hot, liquid guanciale fat? Well, slowly add 2-3 tablespoons of it in the mix while still whisking vigorously.

By this time, your pasta should be ready (or close to it).

7) Add 2-3 tablespoons of the pasta water (that is, the water the pasta has been boiling in) in the mix while still mixing well.

8) Drain the pasta and dump it on top of the mixture in the bowl.

9) Add the guanciale in the bowl as well.

10) Hold the bowl over the steam coming off the pasta pot and stir/combine everything well until you get a creamy consistency and cheese is melted/incorporated fully. Don't overdo it or you'll get a pasta omelette.

Serve, and bon appetito!