Greek Stuffed Hamburgers w. Potato Wedges

This is an old recipe I had photographed last year after coming back from summerholidays in Santorini. I'm not sure it's an original recipe or what, but these stuffed hamburgers are delicious and ral simple to make. To accompany them, I made some potato wedges in the oven, a simple green salad, some flat bread and tzatziki. For the recipe for the latter click here.

Ingredients (4 people):

2-3 potatoes per person, skin on, washed carefully

Sea salt, dried basil, dried oregano, crushed garlic

600g ground beef

1 egg (per 4 people)

4-5 cloves of garlic

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried mint

3 tbsp bread crumbs

Small handful of fresh parsley

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Greek feta cheese

Cut the potatoes into wedges, leaving the skin on as it adds extra flavour and vitamins. Spread them out on a baking tray on top of a baking sheet so they won't stick to the tray, sprinkle them with a bit of olive oil, salt, some basil and oregano. I also added the garlic before baking them, which turned out to be a mistake as the garlic started browning too fast and ended up burnt. So leave that for later. Mix them with your hands so everything is well distributed. Make sure they don't lie on top of eachother. Bake at 200ºC for 25 minutes, them turn them over individually, add the crushed garlic and bake for another 20 minutes or until crisp.

Use your fingers to mix the ground beef with the rest of the ingredients.

Oops, forgot to add the parsley.

Divide the mince into two, then each part into two again and each part finally into two small balls so you'll end up with 8 balls in total. Shape them into small balls. Place the first ball on top of cling film or baking paper. Then place another piece of film or paper on top. Squeeze the ball with the base of a heavy pot or pan until it's quite thin (about 1/2 cm). Strip back the top piece of paper/film and set aside. Repeat with the next ball. Place some thinly sliced or crumbled feta on top of one thin beef patty.

Place another thin patty on top. Squeeze the side together and repeat with the rest, so that the eight small balls become four stuffed hamburgers. Grill or fry as you would with normal hamburgers.

Serve with some salad (using the left over feta), tzatziki, and the potato wedges.

Gyro or is it souvlaki (or both)?

The king of Greek fast food - the gyro or souvlkai. It was a bit confusing when we were there to find out what the difference actually was, but I had a feeling gyro (pronounced: 'jeee-ro') had something to do with gyrating and had to be the big vertical, rotating spits similar to the ones found in kebab shops. And later investigation told me that word souvlaki is the diminutive of souvla meaning skewer. Mystery solved. However, as they are served in a similar fashion in a pita bread with tzatziki, tomato and some lettuce they are often just all called suvlaki for the non-caring tourist.

So when I set out to make it, I had no idea what would be better and I couldn't decide which to make, so I made both as you will see. The end result is very similar so it's really up to you what you find easier. Also, I used lamb although the original souvlaki is made with pork. I just had some minced lamb lying around so I went for that and adjusted the spices accordingly. You can find plenty of souvlaki spice mixes with google, so I won't bore you with that.

Ingredients:

750g minced lamb

1 medium onion

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp diced rosemary

1 tbsp dried majoram

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp salt

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Wheat tortillas (or pita, see later in the recipe).

Lettuce

Tomato

Tzatziki

Start by chopping the onion finely.

Add the onion and the rest of the ingredients to the lamb mince. Put it in a blender.

Until it's very finely ground, almost like a paste (be careful not to over heat your blender). Put it on cling film.

For making gyros, shape it like a loaf and roll it up really tight. You don't ant any air in there. Put it in the fridge for a couple of hours or over night.

Alternatively, put the meat on skewers (for making souvlaki) and roll them up in cling film and put in the fridge for a few hours.

Fry the suvlakis at high heat. Time depends on the thickness of the meat and the skewer. Thicker skewers conduct more heat and cook the meat slowly from the inside.

And for making the souvlaki, heat up the wheat tortilla on a dry, hot frying pan for 30 secs on each side. Pita bread is another posibility. However, the Greek souvlaki used a flat bread a bit thicker than the tortillas, but which had been brushed with olive oil and fried lightly. It was delicious, but this will work just as great. Add some lettuce, tomato and a dollop of tzatziki.

Break the meat into smaller pieces and put it with the rest. Fold it and eat.

Alternatively, to make the gyro you need to spit roast the meat. If you have and oven or even better a grill with a spit, that's just perfects. If you haven't, do like me for a reasonable result. Place two skewers through the meat lengthwise. Hang the meat over a bread mold inside a water bath. This will add moisture to the cooking and at the same time let the meat drip off some of it's fat. Put it in a preheated oven at 160ºC.

Turn the meat every 20 minutes. You need to cook the meat for 1-2 hours depending on the thickness of your meat. You want to reach an internal temperature of 75º.

Then simply start shaving off the meat with your sharpest knife.

Add it to the bread like above mentioned.

Fold it and reminisce (or dream up) your holidays in Greece.

Santorini Tomatokeftedes (Tomato balls)

This is a delicious speciality from Santorini where they take great pride in their cherry tomatoes. The soil is volcanic and apparently they don't water the plants; the plants water themselves with the night dew which intensifies the taste of the tomatoes. Anyone who has ever been to Santorini will imediately spot that I'm not using the original tomatoes as they look much redder and are smaller and wrinkled. I did, however, buy a bag of sundried cherry tomatoes from a farmer on the island, which will make up for other "fake" ones. This is another "meze" or starter and it goes excellent with the tzatziki. Try it, I think you will like them.

Ingredients:

1 cup cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup sundried tomatoes
1/2 cup spring onions

1 tablespoon parsley
2 tablespoon fresh spearmint (or a bit less dry)
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup plain flour

1/2 cup bread crumbs or more depending on how juicy the mixture will be.
1 teaspoon baking powder
Salt, pepper to taste
Olive oil for frying

Put the cherry tomatoes and the sun dried tomatoes in a blender or food processor.

Add the spices and blend until there are no big lumps. It doesn't need to be completely pureed though as a few chunks will add some texture.

Mix the breadcrumbs, flour and baking powder.

Add the mix bit by bit while constantly stirring so it doesn't create lumps. Don't add it all at once.

When the dough sticks together and you can shape a ball with wet hands, you've added enough flour mix.

Mix some bread crumbs with salt and pepper in a plate.

Turn the tomato balls in the bread crumbs, squeeze them a bit to make them flatter and have them ready for frying.

Put enough oil in a pan for deep frying them for about 5-10 minutes depending on how thick they are. Turn once or twice.

Put them on absorbent paper and let them cool off a bit but serve while still warm with a bit of tzatziki on the side.

Tzatziki

Ok, so here comes the first in a series of Greek specialities inspired by our holidays in Santorini at the beginning of the month. It's the classic of classics: Tzatziki, a creamy yoghurt and cucmber dip. I imagine that every family in Greece have their own recipe so I'm not pretending that this is the ultimate version, though it is pretty darn good. Serve it as a starter with some bread for dipping or as a side dish/sauce for meat, chicken or fish.

Ingredients:
3 dl natural Greek youghurt
2 dl shredded cucumber
1 tsp salt
1-3 gloves of garlic (depends how strong you want it)
2 tsp fresh, chopped mint or 1 tsp dry mint
1-2 tbsp olive oil
freshly ground pepper to taste

Lots of the yoghurt sold as Greek yoghurt is in fact still very thin. The original Greek yoghurt we had on our trip was rather thick almost like a spread cheese. So you might want to drain out some of that excess liquid by putting the yoghurt in a clean cloth, wrap a rubberband around it and stick a chop stick through it and hang it over a container. Leave it for about 1-2 hours. Then scrape it out into a bowl.

Shred the cucumber. Some people swear that real tzatziki is made with finely cut cucumbers. It's up to you and how much time you have.

Add some salt to the cucumber. Leave it hanging in a cloth for a few minutes for the liquid to drip out.

Chop the garlic very finely. Squeeze it with the side of the knife blade. Chop it again until it's very fine.

Chop or crush the mint if it's dry like mine. Add to yoghurt.

Add the olive oil and some freshly ground pepper.

Squeeze out some more liquid from the cucumber and mix it into the yoghurt.

And it's ready to eat. Well, actually it will get better with time so leave covered it in the fridge. It will last up to a week.

Aubergine Meze

I've just come back from a week in Santorini and Athens, Greece and I absolutely loved the food. A word of advice though if you go, most places will try and push some "typical" greek food on you which was big in the 70s such as moussaka, dolmathes and souvlaka. Although this is not bad as such, you should really try and experiment a bit by looking at the many other dishes they have. They vary from elaborate stews and combined dishes to the more simple yet delicious startes, a.k.a. mezes. Here's a really simple one to start with. I'll probably post more in the coming weeks. Check back later.

Ingredients:

2 aubergines (egg plants)

Olive oil

Fresh or dry thyme

Sea salt

Pepper

Honey

Greek Yoghurt

Turn on your oven at 220º. Clean a couple of aubergines.

Cut them in 1cm slices (the difficult part - just joking.)

Brush them with olive oil, sprinkle some thyme, sea salt and fresh pepper. Put them in the oven 30 min.

Meanwhile, add a little bit of hot water to 2 spoonfuls of honey if it is very thick. You want to be able to pour it. Likewise with your natural greek youghurt.

Once out of the oven, drizzle the yoghurt and honey onto the aubergine and enjoy!