A favorite meal

The other day, I was craving fried potatoes with crumbled feta and dried oregano. So I made just that.

I peeled a couple of large potatoes I found hiding in my vegetable basket among some onions and garlic heads, I cut them into long strips and fried them in olive oil.

I dropped them in a large bowl, added some good sea salt and a couple pinches of dried oregano that I had brought back with me from Euvoia last October, and tossed them.

I divided them between two plates, I took a piece of feta from the fridge and crumbled it on top, adding another pinch of oregano.

On the side, a bowlful of boiled kale left-over from the day before, dressed with olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice.

We ate our meal as the warm rays of the sun were coming through the window.

Greek Fried Potatoes with Crumbled Feta and Dried Oregano

This has been one of my favorite meals ever since I can remember myself. The side of boiled greens (kale, Greek wild greens like zohous or vlita , spinach, chard) is essential.

Ingredients
Floury potatoes
Olive oil (or sunflower oil), for frying
Feta
Greek dried oregano

Boiled greens with olive oil and lemon juice, to accompany the potatoes

Preparation
Peel the potatoes and cut them into strips.
Add oil in a large, deep pan (fill it halfway up) or in a deep fat fryer, heat it to 175°C and add the potatoes. Fry until crisp and lightly browned. It takes about 12 minutes in the deep fat fryer and a little longer in a pan.

Empty the potatoes in a bowl and sprinkle with sea salt and a couple pinches of dried oregano. Toss and serve into plates. Crumble as much feta as you like on top and add another pinch of dried oregano. Serve with the side of boiled greens.

For him

He makes me angry when he leaves his socks on the floor and his t-shirts on the dining room chairs. He infuriates me when he makes a mess in the kitchen whenever he prepares a sandwich. He annoys the heck out of me when he insists I can’t always be right on every single thing. He irritates me when he believes in me more than I could ever believe in myself. And that makes me love him even more.

I love the way I feel when I’m in his arms, like everything is alright in this world. I love the way he plays the guitar and how he inspires me to write music with him. I love the way he looks at me, like I’m the only woman on the face of the earth.

I never wait for Valentine’s Day to show him how I feel about him and I would never suggest to anyone to do that. Life is now. Life is our past and our future all wrapped into the present; into today. Time is fleeting and it’s never soon enough to show someone you love them.

I know how he likes to fall asleep. I know what makes him laugh. I know what makes him sad. I know how he takes his coffee. I know how he prefers his steak cooked. I know how he always wants to eat the crunchiest part of the potato.

I know what his favorite food is and I cook it for him every chance I get. Just like I did the other day. Not because it was Valentine’s Day, not because it was his birthday or a special occasion, but simply because I wanted to make him happy. To offer him something I knew he’d love.

A beautiful beef fillet steak with a chanterelle mushroom butter, flavored with garlic and herbs that slowly melted over the meat, and thin, very thin, fried potatoes with crispy edges and a soft center.

A match made in heaven of the perfectly cooked, succulent beef, the earthy, woody, golden chanterelles blended with thyme and parsley, the richness of the butter, and of course the fried potatoes, with my own little twist on them, a very thin rectangular cut that makes them delicate and perfectly delicious.

Beef Fillet Steaks with Chanterelle Mushroom Butter and Fried Potatoes

You can certainly use a rib-eye steak if you prefer it, but the tenderness of a fillet steak is unsurpassable. Choose a thick fillet steak, about 4 cm thick, as it will be juicier.

The way of cutting the potatoes is my own way of creating a different style of fried potatoes when I want something a little more special. I used a mandoline to cut them but you can also use a very sharp chef’s knife to do the job.

Yield: 2 main-course servings

Ingredients

for the mushroom butter
125 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ Tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and cut in half
100 g chanterelle mushrooms, roughly chopped in small pieces
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves (from 3-4 sprigs), chopped
2 Tbsp fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped

for the potatoes
3 large floury potatoes, about 1 kg
Olive oil or sunflower oil for frying
Salt

for the fillet steaks
2 beef or veal fillet steaks, 150-160 g each, with a 4 cm thickness (approximately)
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Special equipment: mandoline (optional), heavy-bottomed or cast-iron skillet or sauté pan


Preparation

for the mushroom butter
In a medium-sized frying pan, add the olive oil and halved garlic clove and heat over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the chanterelle mushrooms and sauté for 1-2 minutes until they soften. Add a little salt and freshly ground black pepper, mix with a spoon and remove the pan from the heat. Allow the mushrooms to cool in the pan. Then, remove and discard the garlic.

In a medium-sized bowl, add the butter and mix it with a fork to soften it. Add the cooled mushrooms and the olive oil from the pan, the thyme and parsley and a little salt and pepper, and mix gently with a spoon. Cover with cling film and leave at room temperature until the beef fillet and potatoes are ready.

for the potatoes
Peel the potatoes and cut them into a rectangular shape. Using a mandoline or a very sharp knife, cut the potatoes into 2-3 mm-thick slices (cutting them on their longer side). Place them on kitchen paper in a single layer and pat them dry. This will help in the crisping up of their outer layer when frying. Leave them covered with the paper towels until you fry them.
It’s best if you fry the potatoes while the meat is cooking, since they take so little time to cook.

Heat the olive or sunflower oil in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat. You can check if the oil is ready for frying by dropping in a 2.5 cm cube of white bread. If it browns in 60 seconds, it is ready, if it browns in less time then your oil is too hot and you should allow it to cool down. If you have a deep-fry thermometer or a deep-fryer, you should set it to 180 degrees Celsius / 350 Fahrenheit.
Deep-fry the potatoes in batches (you don’t want to overcrowd the pan otherwise the slices will stick to one another and you’ll have a mass of potatoes instead of individual slices) for about 4 minutes or until they take on a golden-brown color. Be careful not to cook them too long because they'll become hard. Also be careful not to burn them because they are very thin and catch easily. Remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon and place them on plate covered with kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil. They should be crunchy and a little soft, not like potato chips. Sprinkle them with salt.

for the fillet steaks
Remove the steaks from the refrigerator 1 hour before you want to cook them so they come to room temperature. Pat them dry with paper towels to remove excess moisture which can stop the meat from caramelizing in the pan.
In a heavy-bottomed or cast-iron skillet or sauté pan (I use a cast-iron skillet), add the olive oil and heat over high heat. Season the steaks with salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper on both sides. When the pan is very hot, add them to the pan, spaced apart. Cook them on medium-high heat on one side for 3 minutes and then flip them over and cook them for a further 2 minutes for medium-rare. Cook them more or less time according to how you like to eat your steaks. Bear in mind that the cooking times apply for steaks of aforementioned size and thickness. If your fillets are smaller/bigger or thinner/thicker than the ones indicated here then you'll need to adjust the cooking times.
Remove the steaks from the pan and place them on a large piece of aluminum foil. Cover the steaks with the foil and allow them to rest for 10 minutes. Resting the meat is very important because it relaxes and its juices spread equally throughout it. If you cut the meat straight after you've taken it off the heat, all the juices will run out instead of staying in and keeping the meat moist.

Serve the steaks, drizzled with the juices accumulated in the aluminum foil, with a good dollop of mushroom butter on top and the fried potatoes on the side, immediately.

You can keep the rest of the chanterelle mushroom butter in the fridge, covered well with plastic wrap for 1 day.

The Greek lamb

An acquaintance of mine who just started reading my blog, asked me the other day if I was a vegetarian. I guess I can see where he's coming from. I haven't posted a recipe containing meat of any kind since the beginning of February and the total number of meat/poultry recipes on the blog is fifteen. I actually couldn't believe it when I counted them. Only fifteen?

Truthfully, I have no idea how this happened because, dear reader, I'm not a vegetarian nor I think I could ever become a vegetarian. The thing is, I love meat, I just choose not to cook red meat often. Chicken, I have every week.

When I do eat red meat, I make a big deal out of it. I want it to be special and I always cook dishes that I absolutely love, like pork souvlaki, mousakas, grilled rib-eye steak, keftedakia (meatballs), a good kokkinisto (veal in tomato sauce), or pastitsada.

By the way, I desperately want to share with you my recipes for all the aforementioned dishes that I haven't shared with you already, and it will happen, one at a time, I promise. We're off to a very good start with this one though. Greek leg of lamb roasted in the oven with potatoes.

You know, everybody thinks that Greeks eat lamb all the time. Let me tell you this, we don't. Us Greeks love lamb but it's a special occasion-kind of meat. We always eat it on Pascha (Easter day) and it is usually reserved for celebrations and Sunday big family lunches, where grilled lamb chops and lamb roasted in the oven are special treats. Oh, and mousakas and pastitsio, two famous Greek dishes that I'm sure you're familiar with, are never made with minced lamb but with minced veal.

Ok, now that I got that off my chest, let's talk about this dish, my favorite lamb dish. Whenever I cook it, I'm instantly transported back to my childhood, when I would wake up to the smell of lamb roasting in the oven. My mom would always slow cook it for hours, making everyone crazy with hunger.

This is the way I've learned how to cook it, no frills, no flamboyant preparations, just simple flavors that depend on the quality of the lamb. Preferably spring lamb, which is the lamb of choice in Greece.

The combination of crispy skin, flavorful, succulent meat with lemony, garlicky accents and melt in the mouth potatoes that are fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside, is a magnificent one. There's no going back to any other kind of lamb dish after tasting this one, trust me.

Arni me Patates sto Fourno (Greek Oven-Roasted Leg of Lamb with Potatoes)

The way the potatoes are cut for this dish, a traditional Greek way to cut potatoes for oven-roasting, is called "kidonates", which means like a quince, because they resemble quince wedges. Cut in this way, the potatoes take a longer time to cook, which is why they're added to the roasting pan from the start along with the lamb.

It's best if you trim the excess fat off the lamb, leaving just a thin layer of it that will keep the meat juicy, not only because it's healthier but also because the fat tends to make the flavor of the lamb very heavy.

Serve the meat on individual plates, arrange some potatoes on the side and drizzle with the cooking juices. Put some dijon mustard, or any other kind of mustard you prefer, on the side of your plate and dip your forkful of lamb in it. That's the way to go. Along with a glass of white wine, yes white wine works with lamb, believe me, or a cold glass of beer, a rocket salad or a Greek Horiatiki salad, and of course lots of bread to dip in the juices, you're all set. Enjoy!

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients
1½ - 2 kg leg of lamb, on the bone, trimmed of extra fat
6-7 large, floury potatoes, peeled and cut in large wedges ("kidonates")
2 large lemons, freshly juiced
6 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
150 ml good-quality olive oil (I always use extra virgin)
250-300 ml water
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Special equipment: roasting pan, large enough to hold the lamb and the potatoes


Preparation
Preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Place the leg of lamb in the roasting pan and score it on 8-9 different places (bottom and top of the leg), making small incisions that will fit half of a garlic clove. Squeeze a garlic clove-half into each incision with your thumb and scatter the rest of the garlic clove halves on the roasting pan.
Arrange the potato wedges around the lamb, in one layer. Sprinkle the lamb and the potatoes with salt, black pepper and dried oregano on all sides.
Drizzle with the olive oil and add the lemon juice over the lamb and potatoes.
Add the water on the bottom of the roasting pan and jiggle the pan around to mix the liquids.

Place the pan on the low rack of the preheated oven and roast for about 2 hours (for well done), turning the potatoes (being careful not to break them up) and lamb over halfway, and checking from time to time to see whether the potatoes need more water. You don't want them to be dry.
If you like your lamb rare or medium-rare, you may want to check it after 1 hour and 15 minutes. Make a cut with a knife in the middle of the leg and check the color. If it's too pink for your liking, cook it for a little longer.

Remove the pan from the oven, allow to stand for 10 minutes and then serve.