In Greek: σουφλέ κουνουπιδιού, pronounce soo-FLAY koo-noo-peeth-YOU This recipes calls for cauliflower, milk, cheeses, eggs, and spices. A fabulous way to serve cauliflower (it can also be made with broccoli), and a pretty dish as well. Cook Time: 40 minutes Total Time: 40 minutes Ingredients: 3 1/3 pounds of cauliflower 4 cups of whole milk 1 teaspoons of salt […]

In Greek: μπουρεκάκια μελιτζάνας, pronounced boo-reh-KAHK-yah meh-leed-ZAH-nahs A mixture of three delicious cheeses marks the filling for thin slices of eggplant that are rolled, dipped in flour, breadcrumbs, and egg, then fried to perfection. Make these in large batches because they will disappear very quickly! Ingredients: FOR THE FILLING 1 egg 1 cup of cold […]

FOGATSA Makes 2 large round loaves In Corfu the Venetian influence is echoed in the island’s Easter bread, which is called fogatsa. Unlike the braided tsoureki eaten everywhere else in Greece, here the Eastern spices mahlepi and mastic are nowhere to be found. Instead, fogatsa is a dense, high, round loaf, with a cross slashed into its center and flavored with […]

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 […]

BIANCO Makes 4 to 6 servings Another Corfiote fish recipe with an Italian-sounding name. Bianco is pungent with garlic and is called “white” because it is made without tomatoes. Ingredients: 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced 8 to 10 garlic cloves, to taste, chopped 6 to 8 […]

TO BOURTHETO TIS KERKYRAS Makes 6 servings The name comes from the Italian brodeto, for “broth,” a legacy of Corfu’s Venetian past. A similar dish, at least in name, is the bourieto of the northern Peloponnesos, where it refers to a fish stew redolen  with onions but not colored with paprika or tomato paste. On Corfu, bourtheto is one […]

HTAPOTHI CAPAMA TIS ITHAKIS Makes 4 servings The word capama comes from the Turkish for “to cover.” It is a name given to many different kinds of stew all around Greece. Sometimes it refers to beef or chicken dishes cooked with tomatoes and cinnamon, other times to simple ragouts. This capama includes celery. What is unusual about it is that […]

SKORDALIA APO HTAPOTHOZOUMO Makes 4 to 6 meze servings This garlic dip is served just as aliatha, ayiatha, and others are—as an accompaniment to boiled greens, fried vegetables or fish, plain on bread, or as a side with Ithacan Fried Octopus . Four 1-inch-thick slices stale rustic bread Pan juices from cooking 2 small or 1 large octopus. Igredients: 4 to […]

TIGANITO HTAPOTHAKI APO TIN ITHAKI Makes 8 to 10 meze servings Octopus is the Lenten fare par excellence in Ithaca. There is plenty of it, it is rich and filling despite its associations with the fast, and it is cooked in several unusual ways. The following recipes were given to me by Mihalis Maghoulas, an Ithacan native who tinkers in […]

Stuffed Little Meatballs POLPETES APO TIN KERKYRA Makes about 24 meatballs What the rest of Greece knows as keftedes or by the diminutive, keftedakia, Seven Islanders call polpetes, delicate little meatballs. In the Ionian area these days they are apt to be the mint-doused rendition common throughout all of Greece. This particular recipe, borrowed from Ninetta Laskari’s excellent book on Corfu, […]