(Adapted from Diana Kennedy’s recipe in The Art of Mexican Cooking)
This soft, crumbly white cheese, whose name means literally “fresh cheese,” is used in a variety of ways in Mexican cooking. According to Diana Kennedy, author of the current DCCC pick, it may be eaten uncooked as a snack with drinks, crumbled on top of various cooked foods, such as enchiladas and soups, or cut into strips for chiles rellanos and other dishes.
As queso fresco is used in a number of egg dishes and red pozole, a famous Mexican soup, that I’d planned to make, I looked for it at the specialty foods market in my town. Unfortunately, it was not available, even as a special order.
Any fool can grow Swiss chard, I like to say. My gardening strategy is a process of elimination. I’ll give something one or two tries, and after that it’s off the list; I’ll let someone else, with greener thumbs than me, grow it. My goal is a garden of foolproof foods, and chief among them, come rain or shine, is Swiss chard. (Other foolproof greens are collards, kale, and mustard greens; but not spinach or watercress.)
While not a typical headline for a food story, shock and horror is what I felt when seeing this grab-and-go packing in the produce section of my local grocery store, while looking for limes for margaritas. (The club is cooking Mexican, after all.)
I rarely shop at supermarkets, though it’s a good idea to go every so often to keep abreast of the latest in food packaging, even if I leave feeling dismayed.
In this particular bit of packaging ingenuity, a plastic suitcase with a handle allows you to grab about four Mandarin oranges with just one hand. In contrast, the human hand can only grab one or two Mandarin oranges, depending on the size of the hand. Have the packagers convinced themselves that they are doing humankind a service by using this zippy packaging to promote fruit to consumers that might otherwise be drawn to the zippy packaging used for less healthy food choices? I wonder.
My next post, I promise!, will be about Mexican cooking—so that I can share something that is affirming, beautiful, and sarcasm free with you.
A lot of good cooking is derived from using up what’s at hand. In this case the recipe for Dried Beef Hash, or Aporreada de Huetamo, from The Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy allowed me make use of some dried beef I had in the freezer (it’s always a good day when I actually remove something from our over-packed freezer instead of just adding to it) and, since this hash include eggs, some of the eggs that are being produced
Back in January, when DCCC was deep into Greek cooking, my boyfriend, Mike, who is always challenging me to think outside the box, and to take things one step further, suggested I make homemade feta cheese. Because of my zeal for exhaustive research, I sometimes wonder if he later regrets these, at the time, casually made suggestions. After having made four test batches, the refrigerator is full of multiple containers of feta marked “Test 1,” “Test 2,” and so on. If it weren’t for the fact that feta keeps a very long time in brine—up to a year—I would worry how just the two of us would be able consume so much of it. Now, after allowing all the batches of homemade feta cheese a full four weeks to cure in brine, I’m ready to report my findings to you.
"Creamy," an Alpine-Saanen mix, owned by goat herder Martha Haffner. I love the quizzical look that goat's have.
Living in rural Vermont—a state known for cheese and dairy production—we have fairly easy access to farm fresh goat’s milk, so I made three batches with goat’s milk and one with cow’s milk. Sheep’s milk, the most traditional milk for making feta, is much harder to find where I live.
In addition to using two different milks, I tried two different cultures (sometimes called “starters”)—a basic mesophilic and a feta culture; lipase powder, a water-soluble enzyme added to milk to create stronger flavor in some cheeses; and calcium chloride, used to create a firmer curd.
All of the versions turned out—meaning, they all turned into cheese that looked, tasted, and behaved like feta, though some more than others. Ultimately, the decision of what culture to use, what milk, and whether to use lipase is one of personal taste. I’ll try to objectively describe my own preferences so that you can decide which version you might like to try first.
Like all types of agricultural products, cheesemaking is affected by the seasons. Though there are other variables, the single biggest impact on the flavor of cheese is the feed the animals are on, which is, in turn related to the time of year (dried grains in winter; fresh pasture in summer). According to Mary Jane Toth, author of Goats Produce Too!, lipase is more noticeable in milk during the winter months when goats stock are
THE FOOD AND WINE OF GREECE
More than 300 Classic and Modern Dishes from the Mainland and Islands of Greece By Diane Kochilas
St. Martin’s Press
354 pp. $21.95
After preparing some lesser-known Greek dishes from the DCCC pick The Food and Wine of Greece, like Faki (Hearty Lentil Soup), Soutzoukakia Smyrneika(Meatball Sausages, Smyrna Style) and Sfoungato (Baked Omelet), my boyfriend, half-joking, half-not, said, “Greek food doesn’t taste like Greek food.” And he’s right, if you base your understanding of what Greek food is on the handful of iconic dishes and associative ingredients that have become familiar to Americans: Greek salad, Greek omelet, gyro, souvlaki, spanakopitta, stuffed grape leaves, tzatziki (the creamy yogurt and cucumber dip), rice pudding, baklava, Feta cheese, Kalamata olives, olive oil, and oregano.
Stuffed grape leaves—vegetarian and meat-filled—and homemade feta, prepared by me, and Kalamata olives
Last week, Georgia, Judy, and I gathered for the second DCCC potluck, a delicious smorgasbord of Greek foods, all prepared from the DCCC pick The Food and Wine of Greeceby Diane Kochilas. Though we were only three—damn that Superbowl and winter colds—we had all of the major parts of a Greek meal covered—from meze to main course and dessert, including libations. (Greeks tend to enjoy foods we associate with dessert, like cakes and pastries, on their own, in the afternoon, rather than directly after a meal; but since we’re Americans, we had not one but three dessert options.) We enjoyed Metaxa brandy neat and as the star ingredient in a Metaxa Sour cocktail, very smooth ouzo from the Greek island of Lesbos, also called Mytilene, an island famed for the quality of its ouzo, and a refreshing, dry white wine from Spata, a town nearby Athens.
Fava, a dip made with yellow split peas, chips for dipping, and sautéed Greek sausage, prepared by Georgia
Rich Walnut Torte, prepared by Judy
Everything was delicious, but the highlight for me were the stuffed grape leaves—the meat-filled version served hot with Greek-style plain yogurt and the vegetarian ones (Rice-Stuffed Grape Leaves) served cold—and the Rich Walnut Cake and Fig Spoon Sweet made by Judy.
This Greek-inspired cocktail, with delicate citrus flavors and a silky, smooth texture, was created by my friend Miguel Aranda, a professional mixologist and contributor to the book Asian Cocktails. Miguel likes using Greek brandy, known as Metaxa, in cocktails because it has enough heat to hold its own against other cocktail ingredients, yet it is smooth, very smooth. A 7-star Metaxa is actually smoother than many brandies, but then, it’s not a true brandy. It can be more correctly thought of as a brandy liqueur because it is sweetened with Muscat wine and flavored with botanicals. It is aged in limousine oak barrels for typically three, five, or seven years, though sometimes longer. The stars on the bottle signify the number of years the brandy has been aged, and the greater number of stars, the smoother the Metaxa will be.
I made this cocktail last week for Georgia and Judy at DCCC’s Greek-themed potluck. I’ve stirred and shaken lots of cocktails, but, before making a Metaxa Sour, had never flamed an orange peel. It definitely adds a new level to cocktail showmanship, especially in the setting of a dimly lit room.
For instructions on how to flame an orange peel, given by a calm, cool, and collected professional, you can watch this clip recommended by Miguel, or you can watch me fumble through it in my kitchen video, below. (My Internet connection is maddeningly slow—a problem of rural living—so in the video, Georgia reads instructions for flaming an orange peel from the book The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale Degroff.) I suggest watching the first video of me making the cocktail for guidance, and then watch the “Ins and Outtakes of Making a Metaxa Sour” to give yourself some cocktail shaking and flaming confidence, knowing that if you don’t get it right the first time, you can try again, and again (like I did).
The orange peel adds more than visual effect. It adds a subtle touch of flavor and aroma. If you don’t like playing with matches, then twist the peel, rind-side-down, over the cocktail and rub it on the rim before placing it in the drink. (I forgot to rub the rim of the cocktail glass with the orange peel in the video, but should have done. I also forgot to add the orange peel garnish to the cocktail when photographing it! Please don’t do as I did.)
Metaxa Sour
Makes one 4½-ounce cocktail
2 ounces 7-star Metaxa
¾ ounce fresh squeezed orange juice
¼ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice (see note)
¼ ounce 2:1 simple syrup (2 parts sugar heated in 1 part water until melted)
1 egg white
Dash of orange bitters
Flamed orange peel, for flavor and garnish
In an iced shaker, add the Metaxa, orange juice, lemon juice, simple syrup, egg white, and bitters. Shake vigorously for 15 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the flamed orange peel.
Note: In Miguel’s version of this recipe, he uses ½ ounce of “sweet and sour mix,” which is comprised of equal parts fresh squeezed lemon juice and 2:1 simple syrup. For simplicity, I state this ingredient in the recipe as ¼ ounce lemon juice and ¼ ounce simple syrup. If you are entertaining, and making several Metaxa Sours, making a batch of sweet and sour mix will be more efficient. Simply replace the lemon juice and simple syrup with ½ ounce of sweet and sour mix. Note that in the video, the batch of sweet and sour mix I’ve made has a light tan color. This is because I used unrefined cane sugar, which is okay when making a cocktail with a dark-colored base liquor. If making cocktails with a clear liquor—vodka or gin, for example—you will want to make simple syrup with white, granulated sugar.
You’ve never made homemade noodles before, and you forgot to pick up dried egg noodles at the store as a back-up. You’re intuitive about all things savory, and the cooking techniques associated with them—braising, sautéing, stewing, roasting, poaching. When it comes to baking and dough in general, you’re less certain. So in your nervousness, coupled with a tendency toward perfectionism (bad combination), you follow the noodle directions to the letter, leaving your commonsense at the kitchen door. After rolling out the dough until it is paper-thin, you roll it up into a scroll, cut it into ¼-inch sections, and then place the pinwheels on a cornmeal-dusted tray as directed, where they are to dry for at least one half-hour before boiling. Then, three hours later, when it’s close to dinner time, you begin to unroll the noodles. You discover that the dough has become quite comfortable as a wheel and doesn’t want to budge. With patience you get most of them unrolled, though you do end up with some broken or double lengths and a few wheels.
This is what I found myself doing one Saturday last month, just as our guests Melanie and Matt were to arrive. If only the cookbook author had said to unroll the pinwheels of dough before placing them on the tray to dry. But, after all, it’s impossible to account for the strengths and weaknesses of every home cook. And this is how you learn, I thought, and become familiar with and eventually intuitive about a new cooking terrain. (The whole episode reminded me, appropriately enough, of a book my mother used to read to me when I was small called The Noodle-head Epaminondas. It is about a boy who followed directions to the letter, but didn’t have commonsense to apply them to the right context.)
No matter. The egg noodles—hilopittes in Greek—and the rest of the dishes I made from the DCCC pick, The Food and Wine of Greece by Diane Kochilas, including several meze options and the main course, Braised Rabbit with Olives, were delicious and, even with the small hiccup with the noodles, came together effortlessly and quickly. And who cares if some noodles are shorter or thicker than others when you’re among friends? We served one of the best red wines I’ve had in a long time: a wonderfully dry and full-bodied yet smooth red wine from Nemea in the Peloponnese. While it’s not the wine the author recommends for the rabbit dish—she recommends a red from Náoussa, a region in Macedonia—it is the only Greek red wine that my local wine shop was able to procure. As an introduction to the wine of Greece, it made a very good impression, and we enjoyed it with the rabbit. Dessert was my boyfriend’s tarte tatin served à la mode Greek-style—with a dollop of thick Greek yogurt.
When I asked Georgia Cone, a Greek-American and member of the Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club, which of the recipes in The Food and Wine of Greece she recommended I try, Soutzoukakia Smyrneika, or Meatballs, Smyrna Style, was at the top of the list. Now that I’ve made them, I can understand why this dish is so popular among Greeks, despite the generous use of cumin—a spice that is lesser used or, in many regions in Greece, nonexistent.
After mixing ground beef with fresh parsley, cumin, garlic, onion, salt and pepper, and two tenderizing acids—bread soaked in red wine and red wine vinegar—the meatballs are formed into small oval nuggets and set in the fridge to rest for an hour. They are lightly browned in olive oil and simmered for an hour or so in a rich, roux-thickened sauce made with fresh tomatoes, red wine, and a very small amount of sugar.
The resulting meatballs are very tender and flavorful, and the naturally sweet and tangy tomato sauce, enriched with beef drippings, is addictive.
Diane Kochilas, the author of The Food and Wine of Greece, suggests serving the meatballs with rice or mashed potatoes. Trolling around the Internet for more information about these delicious meatballs, I found a reference to serving the meatballs with french fries on Peter Minakis’s blog Kalofagas: Greek Food and Beyond. He writes, “Think of the sauce as sweet, aromatic Greek ketchup . . . yummy sauce to mop up with the fries.” (This isn’t far off. I found a recipe for Greek ketchup on Food.com that is thickened with a roux and includes beef broth.)
The combination of french fries and luxuriously thick tomato “gravy” got me to thinking. Why not create a Greek spin on poutine—the popular Québécois dish of french fries, beef or chicken gravy, and cheese curds—swapping out the curds for feta? The photograph below this invention: oven-roasted fries topped with Smyrna-style meatballs and tomato sauce, feta, and some fresh chopped parsley for color.
Whereas we enjoyed the meatballs served as a main course with mashed potatoes, and untraditionally as Greek poutine, our favorite way to eat them is the simplest: on their own as a meze offering with some good crusty bread to sop up the sauce. (Think of them as an alternative to the small Swedish meatballs popular as noshing or appetizer fare throughout America.)
THE FOOD AND WINE OF GREECE
This Greek-inspired cocktail, with delicate citrus flavors and a silky, smooth texture, was created by my friend 
This is what I found myself doing one Saturday last month, just as our guests Melanie and Matt were to arrive. If only the cookbook author had said to unroll the pinwheels of dough before placing them on the tray to dry. But, after all, it’s impossible to account for the strengths and weaknesses of every home cook. And this is how you learn, I thought, and become familiar with and eventually intuitive about a new cooking terrain. (The whole episode reminded me, appropriately enough, of a book my mother used to read to me when I was small called The Noodle-head Epaminondas. It is about a boy who followed directions to the letter, but didn’t have commonsense to apply them to the right context.)
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