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 […]

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, […]

SKARTSOTSETTA Here’s a dish that some claim was the invention of Zakynthian and Corfiote taverna owners, but others, more wisely, point to Venice as the source of its provenance. (Skartsotsetta—at least etymologically— probably derives from the Italian scartocetti for “packets” because of the way the thinly sliced veal isstuffed, rolled, and braised.) Regardless of its origins, the dish has evolved to […]

KERKYREIKO SOFRITO Sofrito gets its name from the Italian fritto, or “fried.” The dish is traditionally made with veal, but beef can be substituted. Makes 4 to 6 servings Ingredients: 1/3 cup all-purpose flour Freshly ground black pepper to taste Dash of cayenne pepper 2 pounds boneless veal, preferably top round, cut into 6 slices 6 tablespoons […]

KEFALONITIKO LAGOTO This dish is traditionally made with wild hare in Cephalonia, but in its absence rabbit is often used. The name lagoto (lago means “hare” in Greek) is also found in parts of the Peloponnesos, where it refers either to a dish of hare or rabbit thickened with skordalia or, oddly, to pork stewed with skordalia. The Cephalonian version of […]

ORTYKIA ME KOUKIA – ορτυκια με κουκια Quail appear in many varied dishes all over Greece, from the preserved quail so revered in the Mani to the quail-stuffed bread, also from the southern Peloponnesos. From the eastern Aegean, we find another unusual quail dish, in which the tiny birds are stuffed into eggplants (the recipe is included in my first book, The […]