Search Results for: aglaia

Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts by Aglaia Kremezi

November 29, 2014 by Renee

Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts may be Aglaia Kremezi’s best cookbook yet. Or, at least it’s my favorite! I’ve been taking this book to bed with me each night this week, devouring every word and making lists of ingredients to add to my pantry and recipes to try.

The book, a collection of simple, fresh vegetarian dishes comes from Aglaia’s home kitchen on the island of Kea and features beautifully shot photos by one of my favorite photographers, Penny De Los Santos. I love looking through the pages and seeing familiar dishes we made, places we visited and people that I met during my weeklong stay on Kea at the culinary school run by Aglaia and her husband, Costas. It brought back many wonderful memories.

A few weeks ago I was honored to be invited to Aglaia’s book launch luncheon at Bustan, a pan-Mediterranean restaurant here in NYC. It was so lovely to see her again. The chef, Israeli native Efraim (Efi) Nahon, recreated several dishes from Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts as well as introduced us to some items on their menu. It was a truly fabulous meal.

Aglaia tells us that she is not really a vegetarian but she ate very little meat growing up as it was saved for once or twice a week and for special occasions due to its price and availability. She mainly ate vegetables that were grown in her family’s garden. These recipes that she shares are the same ones she grew up with. They aren’t new, faddish or in style. They are the traditional, regional dishes that have been around for years and they correspond to the healthy, vegetarian cooking that is now popular.

The book provides detailed ingredient descriptions and preparation techniques that will make the most of your garden or farmers’ market fare so there will be as little waste as possible. She also provides wonderful head notes with stories about each recipe and alternative variations for several. There are even menus to help you plan seasonal dishes and an extensive sourcing listing. It’s an invaluable resource for Mediterranean cooking.

At Bustan, one of the dishes we tried was the Pseudo- Moussaka with Spicy Tomato Sauce, Walnuts and Feta. This dish, with the warm rich flavors is perfectly balanced with sweet and spice. I loved this flavorful dish and I had to made this recipe first. It was just as good as the one at the restaurant and although there are several steps to follow, it was quite easy and now that I’ve made it once, it can be easily recreated. Half of the walnuts could easily be replaced with chopped meat to make a non-vegetarian version.

I also made the Roasted Cauliflower with Musa’s Zahter Relish. Roasting cauliflower is such a great technique as it maintains a slight crunch and intensifies the nutty flavor. The Zahter Relish is like a dressing or sauce that you drizzle over the cooked vegetable. It’s incredibly bright and savory and we decided it was quite like a Chimichurri sauce and would also be delicious over a steak and other grilled or roasted vegetables. Aglaia also suggests adding a bit of white wine to it and serving it over fish. How wonderfully versatile!

For the mezze course, I made the Grilled Feta, Tomato, and Pepper with Olive Oil and Oregano (Bouyourdi) and the Garlic Spread known as Skordalia. I was quite generous with the garlic cloves and certainly warded off evil for at least several hours. They made great accompaniments to the roasted red pepper sauce, olives, and fresh hunks of country bread that we ate with them.

For lunch on Thanksgiving day, I also made the Crispy Cheese Pie (Lazy Woman’s Pie) a variation to the cheese pie made by Balkan women in their wood ovens. We needed something while cooking the traditional fare and this was a quick and easy preparation of feta, ricotta and herbs in a phyllo crust. It’s such a great lunch that I’ve frozen half to take slices with me to work next week with a side of salad greens.

There are so many more recipes in the book that I am looking forward to making. Some, I’ve made before, like the Flourless Almond Cookies from Kea and the Spinach and Cheese Pie and a version of the Stuffed Summer Vegetables with Rice, Farro and Pine Nuts. But there are so many that I need to try. I’m excited for each of them.

I see Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts as one of my favorite cookbooks and plan to use it often and I’d recommend it to anyone vegetarian or not.

*This post includes my affiliate links to Amazon where you may buy the book.

Feta-filled Zucchini Blossoms – French Fridays with Dorie with a nod to Aglaia Kremezi

July 13, 2014 by Renee

As luck would have it, last week I had a full garden of zucchini blossoms, but this week, I have only zucchini! Not that I am complaining of course! So my plans for making zucchini blossom anything fell apart. This French Fridays with Dorie, which was supposed to be Shrimp filled Zucchini Blossoms, but as I am not actually fond of shrimp, I had planned to make the Feta Filled Zucchini Blossoms that I learned how to make at Kea Artisanal in Greece. But since I was not able to get blossoms in time from the store, we’ll just revisit my time at Kea with Aglaia.

Aglaia Kremezi is a food writer, journalist, and one of Greece’s foremost cooking authorities and she runs Kea Artisanal with her husband, Costas, on the island in the Cyclades archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Kea is just an hour ferry ride from Lavrio, a port south of Athens.

If you ever want to go on a culinary vacation to one of the most beautiful places on earth, and learn from someone who is truly able to pass along the techniques, history and traditions of Greek cooking, then you should visit Kea Artisanal. Their hospitality and their passion for teaching is exceptional. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

It was there that I was introduced to Zucchini Blossoms. I’d never had them before and the way we prepared them was so incredibly easy. Simply done, with a small piece of Feta cheese and a sprig of mint, then covered in a light batter and fried. On the side, we made a zingy potato-garlic spread, Skordalia to dip them and some other vegetables in to- and it was phenomenal!

You can read the post about my Kea Artisanal trip and blossoms here. See more photos here.

Here we dried out the centers with paper towels-

Then we filled each blossom with a small piece of Feta cheese and a sprig of mint, twisting the ends slightly to close the blooms.

A quick dip in a light batter and into the oil it goes.

The finished vegetables, with flatbreads and Skordalia…..

Aglaia

So while my French Fridays with Dorie this week was not really French, and not really Dorie (although the batter is the same for both recipes!), it was great to relive my time on Kea and rekindle my fond memories of zucchini blossoms and Aglaia.

For details on creating these recipes, check out the FFWD site and see others who are also cooking the book-

You can also buy the book here:

French Fridays: Dukkah-Roasted Cauliflower-Cook The Book Fridays-David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen

March 4, 2016 by Renee

When I saw that the French Fridays with Dorie group had just started cooking from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen, I knew I had to join right in, I just couldn’t resist! It’s one of my favorite cookbooks and not just because I adore David, or because it’s features my home away from home, Paris, but it’s truly one of the best cookbooks I own. And I own many!

The book holds a prominent spot in my kitchen bookshelf, set apart from my other cookbooks that live in the den library. It sits alongside some of my most beloved and used books, The Perfect Scoop , the Silver Palate Cookbook and Aglaia Kremezi’s Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts to name a few.

I actually just bought a second copy to use for this cook the book challenge because I want to keep my signed copy in good condition (I’m a dork that way!). I know that since I will be using it even more often now, its pages will be become receptacles of splashes and stains, drips and drops, and they will be torn and tattered in no time- the sign of a well-loved cookbook. I’ve been quite good about keeping it nice until now but I don’t want to take any chances!

Luckily, the group is only recreating just two recipes a month, a much more manageable regimen for me than a weekly recipe. Life is hectic. Finding time to shoot and edit photos or to write anything (outside of my professional life) has been a real challenge this past year. (As you can see by the lack of postings here on KC.) But I should be able to handle two posts a month!

This week’s recipe is Dukkah-Roasted Cauliflower (p 224). Since the group just started last month, I went back and made the last two recipes as well-Steak with Mustard Butter and Fries (p 206), and Winter Salad (p 98). What a terrific dinner we had!

Dinner began with a winter salad, a beautiful white salad made of Belgian endive batons and coated with a pungent, creamy Roquefort cheese dressing. Endive is a member of the chicory family, which I really like sautéed. It also includes radicchio, escarole, and my nemesis leafy green, frisee. I absolutely hate frisee. I pluck it out of every salad and leave it jumbled like a pile of barbed wire on my plate.

I am not particularly fond of raw bitter greens. Cooking them mellows their sharpness and, in my opinion, makes them edible. Raw, I prefer peppery arugula and lite delicate lettuces such as butter greens or baby spinach. This was actually palatable due to the copious amounts of the Roquefort dressing I made to coat it. I was actually a little disappointed that I only bought one. The dressing is now being used as a dip for carrots and other cut up vegetables. Yum!

Winter Salad (Recipe in My Paris Kitchen)

Steak frites is such a simple and quintessential Parisian bistro dish. Adding to the meat a hint of smokiness with a chipotle chili powder and topping it with a compound butter made with a sharp Dijon mustard transforms it into a highly flavorful, mouthwatering experience. This was served with a heaping side of freshly made, crispy French fries. The best thing is to save a few to mop up the leftover meat juices and tangy, buttery sauce.

Steak with Mustard Butter and French Fries (Recipe in My Paris Kitchen)

Lastly, we also had Dukkah-Roasted Cauliflower. Dukkah is a warm, aromatic Egyptian spice blend made up of nuts (mostly hazelnuts but can be made with almonds, pistachios, other nuts, or a combination thereof), sesame seeds, coriander seeds, and cumin seeds. The blend can be purchased in some gourmet and ethnic markets, but it’s incredibly simple to make at home. Quickly toasting the nuts and spices draws out their fragrance and gives them an earthy flavor that is often not like the character of the raw spice.

Using a mortar and pestle, or a quick whirl of a food processor, the mixture can be ground into a fine powder or left with coarser chunks of nuts and seeds. It’s a versatile blend with many uses- mix it with olive oil for dipping flat breads into or sprinkle it on hummus, tahini or yogurt. You can also dust it on vegetables for roasting; it is delicious on squash, zucchini and especially cauliflower.

Dukkah Roasted Cauliflower (Recipe in My Paris Kitchen)

For details on recreating these recipes, check out the CookTheBookFridays site and see others who are also cooking the book-

You can also buy the book here:

 </p> <p>

Follow the group on Twitter @ctbfridays

#cookthebookfridays #mypariskitchen

Visit the Facebook Page: Cook The Book Fridays

Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links to my Amazon Associate’s account. This means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using these links.