STRADIA Makes 4 to 6 servings This is an “urban” summer dish in Lefkada, savored in its capital. It calls for the grey mullet, which spawn at the end of summer. The female, called bafa, is swollen with eggs, and the male is at the height of his sperm production—details, granted, that are difficult to appreciate out of context. The […]

MARITHOPITA TIS LEFKADAS Makes 8 to 10 servings Ingredients: 4 pounds small picarel, gutted and washed 2 medium onions, finely chopped 1 cup short-grain rice Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 2 tablespoons tomato paste diluted with 1?4 cupwater (optional) 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for brushing 1 recipe Basic Homemade […]

LEFKADITIKI POULENTA Greek cornmeal is usually a coarse grind, which is what I recommend in the recipe that follows. The ratio of water to cornmeal varies depending on the final texture one wants to achieve. In the old Greek dishes, the cornmeal was cooked to a medium consistency, which means a 4:1 ratio of water to cornmeal. Makes 6 servings Ingredients: […]

KOLOKITHOKORFATHES ME SKORTHO KAI SELINORIZA In Greece in the late spring, zucchini flowers fill up the markets. There are 2 kinds: the large sturdy flowers that grow on the stalk of the zucchini plant and the smaller, more fragile ones that sprout out of the actual zucchini. Greeks generally prefer the sturdier ones because they’re easier to work with. These […]

LEFKADITIKI HAVIAROSOUPA Makes 8 servings Ingredients: 5 pounds cockles or any other small fresh clams 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil 4 fresh green garlic stalks, coarsely chopped, or 3 scallions, white and tender green parts, chopped, combined with 2 garlic cloves, minced Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 1/2 cup medium-grain polished rice Juice of 2 […]

The World’s Most Basic Soup ZOUPA Makes 4 servings This dish is the apotheosis of the trinity of Mediterranean flavors—wheat, wine, and olive oil. “It’s just like the akraton — the breakfast of bread and undiluted wine—that the ancients used to eat.” At first I thought it was one of those dishes, like so many others, lost to time, […]

PANADA Kitchen economy in Greece, indeed in the whole Mediterranean, once required that home cooks make use of every last bit of food. There are lots of old dishes made with leftover bread. Most call for simmering small bits of stale bread in some kind of broth or milk or sometimes just in plain water with a little olive oil and […]

RIGANATHA APO TIN LEFKADA This is another simple bread snack that was the traditional afternoon meal among field hands and farmers in Lefkada. Islanders will tell you proudly that riganatha isn’t made anywhere else in Greece, and they are right. Unique to this dish is its dressing—rose water vinegar. For the rose water vinegar: The traditional way of making this was […]

SARTSA – frangokota Guinea fowl in the Ionian region might have an interesting history—or, at the least, an interesting etymology, if one is to believe historian Waverley Root. The Zakynthians call it frangokota, or “French chicken,” while in Corfu it is called faraona, after the Italian gallina faraona, or pharaoh’s turkey. Root says that the bird, indeed a native of Guinea in […]

With Chicken Chicken Soup – Kotosoupa Greek Chicken Soup – Kotosoupa Chicken Liver & Rice Egg-Lemon Soup Greek Egg-Lemon Chicken Soup – Avgolemono Avgolemono soup With seafood Fish Soup: Red Snapper & Vegetables – Psarosoupa Kakavia – A flavourful fish soup. Kakavia – Fish and Vegetable Soup Island Soup – Soupa nisiotiki Fish Soup in creamy […]