Greek Food

Greece Food and Wine is famous for its good quality products and the amazing taste of its food and wines. Some dishes are the same everywhere in Greece and the Greek Islands, whereas some others are local culinary specialties or same dishes cooked in different manners (in islands, Crete, Thessaloniki, etc). Here is a basic list of some of the most famous food of Greece.

Greeks have a lot of excellent main dishes containing, almost always, meat. - Moussaka: This famous Greek dish has a base made of potatoes topped with eggplants onions, minced beef and béchamel. - Pastitsio: This is another well-known Greek dish reminding of the Italian Lasagnas. It consists of a base made of a kind of noodles topped with minced beef, onions, tomato sauce and béchamel. - Paidakia: Grilled lamb's ribs served with lemon. - Kokoretsi: This is one of the favorite dishes of Greeks; they mostly eat it during Easter. It consists of wrapped and roasted entrails of lamb, served with a lot of lemon.

WINES OF GREECE AND ALCHOL Greece is a big producer of wines and local alcohols. - Tsipouro This really strong alcohol looks a bit like Ouzo but with a stronger taste of anis. Greeks drink it with ice and sometimes add a bit of water. It is always accompanying with mezedes and good friends. In different parts of Greece such as Crete, some islands and the northern Greece made there own home made Tsipouro, also called Raki (depending of the region) which is really strong. - Mavrodafni: This sweet wine is made in Patras (big town in the Peloponnese). It is really thick and dark (almost black) and can be compared to the Portuguese Porto. It is usually drink like liquor, a digestive or like a night drink. - Retsina: The famous Retsina is a Greek white wine with a particular resin taste. This taste is due to the way of production of this wine: they put the grapes in new cask which have still the wood resin on, giving to the whine that special taste. - Wines of Greece: There is a huge diversity of Greek wines: red, white and rose, sweet or dry.

Cook the Rice and Lentil Filling We're going to take 1 cup of raw white long grain rice and boil it according to directions. We're also going to take a cup of dry lentils and simmer them until tender, about 35 minutes. Make sure you drain them well. Then, add the hot rice and lentils into a mixing bowl and stir to break everything up. Add some salt and black pepper to taste. We're going to let that sit and cool down a bit, we're going to mix this salad warm. Grape Leaf Wreath Dressing Ingredients For the dressing, I have: 1 crushed garlic clove 1/2 cup lemon juice black pepper to taste 1 tbsp red wine vinegar 1 cup olive oil 2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano dry salt to taste, about 1/2 tsp Whisk that up - and that is the dressing. Take a 1/2 cup of the dressing to the warm rice and lentils and toss it in. We're going to let that sit and soak up the dressing, and gone on to our grape leaves.

Line a Pan with Grape Leaves This is a 15-oz jar of rolled grape leaves. You can also buy dry which you boil to prepare, but these work great. Unroll it and pick out the nice ones; you're going to get about 50 in the jar, so we have plenty. We're going to line a Bundt pan, starting at the bottom, making sure you overlap them so it's really covered. Do the bottom first and then go around the outside and the inside to form the grape leaf wrapper for this beautiful wreath. Mix the Grape Leaf Filling Next step, the rice and lentils are still warm. Add another 1/2 cup of the Greek dressing. You should have about a 1/2 cup of the dressing left if you want to serve some on the side later. We're going to crumble in 4-oz of feta, and toss it in. Make sure the salad is just warm, and not hot, or the feta may melt. Stuff the Grape Leaf Wreath Stuff the wreath about halfway up. We're going to reserve about a cup of the salad for the inside, you'll see that later. Add a few more grape leafs, bring up the sides and tuck them in. Very simple. Press it down kind of firmly. Put some plastic warp on this and I like to weight it down slightly with some lemons, or orange, or even eggs. Just for a light weight. Then, refrigerate overnight and its going to firm up very nicely. To un-mold, just put a plate on, and turn it over. If any grape leaves come out of place, just tuck them back in, and it's going to look great. Serve the Stuffed Grape Leaf Wreath Put the extra salad we saved in the middle. I'm going to garnish really simply with some oregano sprigs and a cherry tomato rose. You don't need much. This is so great for parties, holiday parties obviously with the wreath presentation. And, it tastes great too. I really hope you give it a try. Enjoy! Back to VideoBack to Video