Another tartine

Well, you didn’t think I’d leave you with only one tartine recipe did you? If you know me even just a little you’d know that wouldn’t happen. A bit of variety is always good, especially when it comes to tartines.

This tartine is as delicious as the last one, albeit a little less complicated. It is a tartine with a homemade Greek olive paste or pasta elias (πάστα ελιάς) as we call it in Greece, coeur de boeuf tomatoes and feta. The olives I used are from Kalamata, the region of Southern Greece famous for the production of olive oil and olives, and they are fruity and briny and everything a good olive should be, making this paste exceptionally flavorful.

No matter how much I love other cheeses, my one and only true love is and will always be feta. Whipped, in salads, on tartines, it elevates the flavor of dishes and gives them a rich, sharp, creamy quality.

Along with the sweet, sumptuous coeur de boeuf tomatoes oozing with freshness, the distinct salty flavor of olive from the paste with bursts of garlic and acidity from the capers and lemon, this tartine is absolutely divine.

I’m sure many of you can’t get enough of tomatoes right now and this tempting and simple option is ideal for those of you who want to enjoy the ever so beloved fruit of the summer to its fullest.

Tartines with Pasta Elias Kalamon (Kalamata Olive Paste), Coeur de Boeuf Tomato and Feta

Coeur de boeuf (ox heart) are what these tomatoes are called here in the Netherlands were I currently reside. I think they’re called beefsteak tomatoes in English-speaking countries. If you can’t find this variety, then go with any other juicy and sweet tomato you can get your hands on. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding them this time of year.

Choose a type of bread that can handle the weight of the ingredients that you'll put on top. Sourdough is ideal but any kind of bread with a crusty crust and a dense crumb will work.

Yield: 8 tartines / about 2 cups of olive paste

Ingredients
3 large coeur de boeuf (beefsteak) tomatoes, sliced
200 g Feta cheese
8 slices of good crusty bread (sourdough or multigrain)
Olive oil, to drizzle over the tartines
Freshly ground black pepper

for the pasta elias (olive paste)
170 g pitted Kalamata olives (about 1 full cup)
1 Tbsp capers, rinsed very well
2 anchovy fillets in oil, drained well
Grated zest of 1 small lemon
Juice of 1 small lemon
1 large garlic clove, crushed
Freshly ground black pepper, 3-4 grinds of the pepper mill
A handful of flat-leaf parsley (leaves and stems), roughly chopped
About 80 ml extra virgin olive oil, more or less to achieve the right consistency
Salt (if needed, I actually never need any)

Special equipment: small food processor, griddle pan (I use this one)


Preparation

for the olive paste
Add all the ingredients for the paste except the olive oil and salt in your food processor and blend until smooth, stopping the machine occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. With the motor running, add the olive oil little by little until you have a smooth paste, taking care to add enough oil to reach the right consistency. You don't want it to be runny nor too thick. Give the paste a taste, add salt if needed (I doubt it’ll need any as the capers and anchovies have enough salt) and set aside until ready to use.

You can keep the olive paste in the fridge, covered for 5-6 days.

Heat your griddle pan over high heat and grill the bread slices on both sides. Transfer them to a plate. Alternatively you can toast the bread in the oven or in a toaster.

Spread enough of the olive paste on the bread to cover it. Add some sliced tomatoes and crumble some feta cheese on top. Drizzle the tartines with a little olive oil and grind some black pepper over the top.
Serve immediately.

A tartine

Saturdays have been tartine days these past couple of weeks for S and me. We love them, we could practically live on them for the entire summer.

The combinations of different ingredients that you can use to make a tartine are endless and that’s my favorite part about them, but so is the fact that they’re so damn easy and filling. You can have lunch just by eating a couple and you wouldn’t feel like you ate a glorified sandwich.

I used regular peaches for the tartines but the wild (doughnut, Saturn) peaches were even more delicious.

If you put some thought into it, a little care and if your ingredients are seasonal and fresh, then a tartine can be spectacular. Allow me to say that these here were just that. Grilled peach, beetroot and blue cheese tartines with a walnut and garlic spread; they were seriously delicious and I’m not just saying that.

Apart from the obvious freshness and juiciness of the peaches that are in season and that you’d have to be insane not to be all over them, the earthy, mellow sweetness of the beetroot and the sheer scrumptiousness of the soft, rich blue cheese, the secret to these tartines is twofold. First, the grilling of the peaches that makes them soft and caramelized and charred and kind of smoky, and second, the walnut and garlic spread, so nutty and aromatic, that gives them an extraordinary depth of flavor.

Along with the crusty grilled bread and the crisp salad leaves there’s a beautiful balance of flavors and textures that make these tartines worthy of making again and again until the peach season comes to its end and you start looking for new and imaginative combinations.

Tartines of Grilled Peaches, Beetroot and Blue Cheese with Walnut and Garlic Spread
Adapted from Food & Travel

Use good bread otherwise there’s no point in making a tartine. No matter what you put on top of it, if the bread is not right, i.e. with a dense crumb and a crusty crust, then you got a failure on your hands. I used multi-grain bread.

Enjoy your tartines with a nice dry red wine such as a Beaujolais or a Syrah.

Yield: 6 tartines

Ingredients
6 large slices of good crusty bread (either sourdough or multi-grain)
3 firm and ripe peaches (not too ripe as they’ll fall apart while grilling), stoned and cut into 8 wedges
1 plus 2 Tbsp plus 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 small beetroot, boiled, peeled and cut into thin slices
100 g blue cheese (I used Danish blue)
100 g frisée lettuce, roughly chopped
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

for the walnut and garlic spread
100 g walnuts
50 g bread (crumb and crust), cut into small pieces
85 ml extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, mashed
1 Tbsp red-wine vinegar
60 ml water
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, 3-4 grinds of the pepper mill

Special equipment: small food processor, griddle pan (I use this one)


Preparation

for the walnut and garlic spread
Add all the ingredients for the spread in your food processor, being careful not to add too much salt, and process until you have a chunky spread, stopping the machine occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Give it a taste, adjust the seasoning and set aside until ready to use.

You can keep it in the refrigerator, covered, for 2-3 days.

Heat your griddle pan over high heat and grill the bread slices on both sides. Transfer them to a plate.
Add the peach wedges to a small bowl and toss them with 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Grill the peaches for a couple of minutes on both sides, until they slightly soften and have griddle marks. Be careful not to grill them for too long because they’ll disintegrate.
Toss the frisée lettuce with 2 Tbsp of olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a bowl.
Toss the beetroot slices with 1 tsp olive oil in another bowl.

Spread enough of the walnut and garlic spread on the bread to cover it. Add the frisée lettuce and 2-3 wedges of grilled peach. Add 2-3 slices of beetroot and crumble the blue cheese on top.
Serve immediately.

More tartines:
Broccolini and Parmesan Tartines
Spinach and Feta Tartines

The season for simplicity

Hello? Is anybody out there?

It seems like I’m the only person on this planet who is not on vacation yet.

I rarely go on vacation in August. I always prefer September, especially if I’m going to a Greek island and early September is the best time for it. There aren’t too many tourists, you feel like you almost have the whole island to yourself, it is quieter, way cooler and oh so serene. That’s how I like my vacations to be of late, serene.

So since I’m still here, battling the heat from my apartment in the city of The Hague, I might as well share some recipes, right? Perhaps the five of you who are reading this would like some cooking inspiration, or should I more accurately say "non-cooking" inspiration since all you have to do to make this salad is chop and assemble the ingredients.

This is a pretty awesome salad though, of cantaloupe, cucumber, tomatoes, a tangy goat’s cheese and a rather straightforward dressing. ‘Tis the season for simplicity, for melons and tomatoes that are so juicy and plump, they really don’t need anything more to be delicious.

The honeyed flavor of the orange-fleshed melon, the sweetness of the tomatoes, the refreshing qualities of the cucumber and the creamy and slightly sharp taste of the goat’s cheese will satisfy and cool you down at the same time.

Like me at the moment, you may not be swimming in clean blue seas or sitting on a sandy beach under the sun, yet this salad feels and looks so fresh you might as well be.

Cantaloupe, Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Goat’s Cheese

Cantaloupe melons are a variety of very sweet, orange-fleshed melons. They can be found everywhere in the Netherlands but to be frank I have never seen them being sold in Greece. If you live in places where they are not readily available, substitute with another very sweet melon.

This salad is ideal served on its own for lunch or even a light supper. Pair it with some bread (of course) to have a more substantial meal.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

for the dressing
3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp red-wine vinegar
Pinch of caster sugar
Sea salt flakes (I used Maldon), to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

for the salad
½ ripe Cantaloupe melon, thinly sliced
½ large cucumber with skin, thinly sliced on the diagonal
2-3 vine-ripened tomatoes, thinly sliced
100 g fresh, crumbly goat’s cheese or homemade chèvre
Small purple shiso leaves or any other micro greens you like or fresh mint leaves


Preparation

for the dressing
Add all the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl and using a small whisk or a fork, mix everything together. Give the dressing a taste and adjust the seasoning. Set aside while you prepare the salad.

for the salad
In a large salad platter, arrange the cantaloupe and the tomato and cucumber slices. Crumble the goat’s cheese over the top and drizzle the dressing with a light hand, adding more if needed. The fruit and vegetables should be lightly covered with the dressing, not swimming in it.
Garnish with the shiso leaves and serve immediately.

Honey and milk ice cream with Greek Pasteli

For the past couple of weeks in the Netherlands, we have been experiencing the worst heat wave since 2006. I wasn’t here in 2006, I moved here a year later and what I immediately liked about the Dutch summer was the cool temperatures. Never too hot, warm during the day with lots of sunshine, and pleasantly cool during the evenings.

I am Greek and I have lived in Athens my whole life so of course I’m used to the heat but let me tell you, what’s going on these past couple of weeks over here is something I can barely stand. The humidity is so high, your whole body sticks to every surface, every cloth and your mind just turns into mush. You have no energy or will to move, go out, work, eat or cook.

Needless to say, my kitchen is becoming more and more the least visited room in the apartment. The place where I’d normally spend a lot of my free time in, now I simply deny to enter.

That is unless I want to open the freezer to get some of this; ice cream. Quick and uncomplicated cooking is what it’s all about these days but the need to make my own ice cream is always present.

I’m nuts like that. I can’t eat the ready-made stuff, not more than once or twice during the summer. Chocolate is of course my number one choice when I make ice cream— I have actually been making a particular chocolate sorbet since early May, will have to share soon—but my latest addiction is this one. Honey and milk ice cream.

It is pure pleasure. A classic combination that yields an ice cream with a delicate flavor of honey and a subtle taste of milk. I’m not one to have ice cream on its own, I always like a little something to go with it, so this time I made pasteli. Pasteli is a famous Greek confection, a sesame seeds and honey candy that’s compressed into bars. It is a classic energy bar that’s a favorite among all Greeks.

The creamy, rich, milky, smooth ice cream and the chewy and slightly crisp pasteli are a match made in heaven. The honey in the pasteli brings out the honey flavor in the ice cream and the nuttiness of the sesame seeds complements its creaminess.

The heat wave may be relentless but it is also giving us a good excuse to splurge on our favorite ice creams. Or so we claim.

Honey and Milk Ice Cream

I used Greek flower honey but orange blossom honey would work very well. Make sure you enjoy the taste of the honey you’re using and that it is of good quality; the taste and texture of the ice cream depends on it.
To those of you who don't particularly enjoy the flavor of milk, let me assure you, it's not overwhelming.

Yield: about 900 g

Ingredients
300 ml fresh whole milk
6 medium-sized egg yolks
110 g caster sugar
300 ml cream, full-fat (35%)
3 Tbsp runny honey (I used Greek flower honey)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Special equipment: electric hand-held mixer, hand wire whisk, ice cream machine (optional yet preferable)


Preparation
Add the milk to a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat just short of the boiling point. Remove from the heat and leave aside for 10 minutes.

In a medium-sized bowl, add the egg yolks and sugar and beat on medium speed with an electric hand-held mixer until you have a creamy and thick mixture.
Switch to a hand wire whisk and while whisking the egg yolks, add the milk little-by-little. Empty this mixture back to the saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring continuously with a heatproof spatula until the mixture has the consistency of custard.
You’ll know when it’s ready when the mixture coats the back of a spatula with a thin layer. Do not allow the mixture to boil because it will curdle and you’ll have scrambled eggs instead of custard.
Empty the custard in a bowl and add the honey, mixing with a spatula. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge to cool. It will take about 1 hour.

In the meantime, add the cream in a large bowl and beat with an electric hand-held mixer until you have a lightly whipped cream.
Fold the whipped cream and vanilla to the cool custard and pour the mixture into your ice cream machine. Churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions, empty the ice cream into a container suitable for the freezer and place in the freezer for a couple of hours or until the ice cream is firm enough to serve.

Alternatively, if you don't have an ice cream machine, empty the ice cream mixture into a container suitable for the freezer. Place the mixture in the freezer, take it out after 40 minutes and whisk it very well. You can also use a blender, or even a stick blender.
Continue doing the same thing every half hour, until it's too thick and frozen to beat or whisk. The whole process will take 2 to 3 hours, depending on how strong your freezer is.

You can keep the ice cream in your freezer for a week.

Pasteli (Greek Honey and Sesame Seed Bars)

Pasteli can also be made with almonds or other nuts but this is the classic version and the one I prefer.
You can toast the sesame seeds before you use them in the pasteli but I prefer it less nutty and not too strong.
I like to “caramelize” the honey before adding it to the sesame seeds, something that makes its flavor more pronounced and rounded. This is achieved by bringing the honey to the boil three times and letting it cool between each boil. It takes more time than simply heating the honey once, but the result is better.

Yield: about 20 bars (9x3 cm with a thickness of 0.7 cm)

Ingredients
125 g runny honey (I used Greek thyme honey)
200 g white sesame seeds

Special equipment: baking paper, rolling pin


Preparation
In a medium-sized saucepan, add the honey and place on medium heat. Bring to the boil, without stirring it, and remove pan from the heat. Leave honey to cool completely and then put it on medium heat again and bring it to the boil, without stirring it. Remove from the heat, leave it to cool completely.

On a clean work surface, lay a large piece of baking paper and have ready another piece.

Place the honey back on medium heat a third time. Bring it to the boil, without stirring it, and immediately add the sesame seeds to the pan. Using a wooden spatula, mix the sesame seeds in the honey until the honey is absorbed by the seeds. It will take 3-4 minutes if you want a sticky and slightly soft pasteli. If you mix for 2-3 minutes more, you’ll get a crunchier and drier pasteli.

Take it off the heat and immediately empty the mixture onto the prepared baking paper. Spread it a bit with the wooden spoon and place the second piece of baking paper on top. Using a rolling pin, roll out the mixture. You want it to have a thickness of approximately 0.7 cm. Leave it to cool completely and then remove the top piece of baking paper.

The pasteli should be cut into small bars (approximately 9x3 cm). To cut it neatly and without difficulty, add some vegetable oil to a piece of kitchen paper and rub the blade of a large knife. This way the pasteli won’t stick to the knife when you cut it into bars. If you find that the knife is sticking, rub the blade with more oil.

You can keep the pasteli for 1 month, in an airtight container or a tin box, between pieces of baking paper so the bars don’t stick together.