MELOMAKARONA with a RICH ORANGE FLAVOUR!!!

Merry Christmas one and all! Here is a very appropriate post for Christmas Day: a brand new recipe for melomakarona. I made them on Christmas Eve, and as I was waiting for them to come out of the oven, it started to snow. Beautiful Snow! I considered it to be a surprising, blissful miracle. We were having an uncommonly warm winter; however, nature changed her mind about our toasty temperatures and gave us a perfect Christmas present by dusting our lawns with a light coating of snow. For just one brief moment, baking as I was, I imagined that each lawn, all over the neighbourhood, had been sprinkled with powdered sugar! 

The snow continued its soft descent ... Standing at the counter, in front of my kitchen window, I sprinkled crushed walnuts on the cookies as I watched the snowflakes fall, ephemeral Christmas Eve snowflakes.

Merry Christmas to all, and may you have a safe, loving and peaceful Christmas Day. Keep the feeling of love and the hope of peace in your hearts all year long. Come on, if I can do it, so can you! After all, it's not so hard; there aren't too many days left in the year. Right? Oh dear, was this joke necessary?

Melomakarona are the quintessential Greek Christmas cookie. I have some information on their history in the other melomakarona recipe posted on this blog.  The recipe on this page is one I tried for the first time, and as it turned out, it was a great recipe. It even got the approval of my mother, who is on the stingy side with her compliments. It's a recipe based on one by Greek master pastry chef Stelios Parliaros. It was well worth making. The cookies turned out crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, they had the fragrant aroma and taste of oranges, and the syrup in which they were dipped made them really delicious. This is a sophisticated version of melomakarona, with prominent orange and honey-flavoured notes. I loved it, loved it, loved it, but I also love my other melomakarona recipe posted here, which contains a heavier dose of spices. I suppose that from one Christmas to the other, I will have to alternate between these two recipes. 

Chef Parliaros lives in Athens, where he occasionally makes TV appearances and where he markets his concoctions in the several patisserie shops he owns. He is a highly praised French-trained pastry chef. He is also very good at teaching his craft. I watch his demonstrations on YouTube, and he inspires me. 

I gathered the information for this recipe, translated it, got the ingredients, and made the melomakarona. Near the end of my post I will have a link for the YouTube demonstration of chef's melomakarona. It's in Greek, so you may not understand what he is saying, but you will see how the chef moulds the cookies, which I think is an important demonstration, especially for me, because I have trouble making decently shaped melomakarona.  

The most important piece of advice the chef gives is to mix the dough by hand and to work in gentle, light strokes. In this way, the dough will stay fluffy, and the oil contained in the melomakarona will not leak out during baking. If the oil leaks out, the cookies will turn out dry. You want a cookie that is crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Working quickly and softly should provide that result. Another piece of advice given is to have the syrup cold and the melomakarona hot when we dip them in the syrup. Chef is very insistent about that.  So here we go:  

First, make the syrup.  This can be made the day before, as it needs to be cold when used. This recipe makes an excellent syrup!

Ingredients:

2 cups water

3 cups sugar

3 sticks of cinnamon 

1 cup honey (use thyme honey if available, because it has a strong flavour. Orange blossom honey can also be used, but in my opinion, it's one of the sweetest types of honey available - overly sweet - therefore, I don't use it).

the peel from 2 medium oranges

1/2 cup of orange juice

Directions:

• Into a pot, add the water, the sugar, the orange peel, the orange juice and the cinnamon sticks. Mix the ingredients with a spoon and stop mixing once the syrup goes over the heat. The reason for not mixing the syrup as it cooks is that the sugar it contains might crystallise.
• Place the pot on the stove over medium-high heat, let the syrup come to a boil, and then turn down the heat. Cook for 2 minutes and remove from the heat.  
• Add the honey and mix.
• Let the syrup cool down and then transfer it to a wide container with a lid.  Cover it, and let it get cold. 

The melomakarona are made next.  No need to use a mixer; this should all be done by hand. Chef weighed everything, and so did I. Where possible, I converted the quantities into cup measurements. 

Ingredients:

2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice (or use the best quality store-bought juice), weight is 400 grams

3 cups sunflower oil or mild olive oil, weight is 530 grams

5 tablespoons butter, melted in the microwave

1/4 cup powdered sugar (powdered sugar mixes well and helps to add colour while baking)

1 teaspoon baking soda

2  teaspoons cinnamon

1/2  teaspoon ground cloves

zest from one orange

about 10 cups (to weigh 1,200 grams) of all-purpose flour.  There is no need to sift the flour.

walnuts, chopped

honey to use while layering 

Directions:

• In a deep container, add all the wet ingredients, including the melted butter.

• To that, add the powdered sugar and the spices.

• Mix the wet ingredients.

• Add all of the flour along with the baking soda. Mix with your hands gently, starting from the middle of the bowl and progressing toward the outside.  Don't use a mixer, it will destroy this dough. Stop mixing as soon as the liquid is incorporated with the flour and the dough begins to form. The dough will have a wonderful aroma.

• Shape the cookies into ovals and then score lines on their surface with a fork.

• Alternately, you can place them on a rack and roll them to make decorative grooves.

• The lines and grooves give character to the cookie and also help to hold in the syrup. There is a demonstration of how to shape them on the YouTube video below.

• Place the cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake them at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes, depending on the oven. When done, they should have a dark golden colour.

• As soon as they come out of the oven, drop them in the cold syrup. Work in small batches of three or four cookies. Turn them over with a large spoon and leave them in the syrup for about one minute. If you leave them in for too long, they will become saturated with syrup (that's not necessarily bad, they do get soggy and become really sweet, but they still taste okay).

• Remove the melomakarona from the syrup, place them on a rack and let them drain off any excess syrup.

• Prepare a serving platter by spreading a little honey and some walnuts on its surface. 

• Add a layer of melomakarona and then repeat the same procedure, layering honey, walnuts and cookies, ending with a light layer of honey and walnuts.

• This recipe makes about 70 really delicious, honey-orange-cinnamon flavoured and fragrant cookies.

melomakarona demonstration by Chef Parliaros (YouTube)

Some notes:
*If you cannot find oranges that are flavourful and juicy, buy a good quality prepared orange juice.  

*If you watch the full video, you will see the chef stuff some of the cookies with walnuts. This is a well-known variation. I made half of my melomakarona without stuffing, while I stuffed the other half with walnut pieces.

 

*Melomakarona can be kept fresh for 10 to 15 days. 

SALTY KOULOURAKIA / BÂTON SALÉ / AΛΜΥΡΆ ΚΟΥΛΟΥΡΆΚΙΑ AND A BEER

These little treats are just like potato chips, in that you can't eat just one.  You have to go back and get another and another. It's just a guilty pleasure. They are salty, cheesy, buttery, they melt in your mouth, and they are irresistible! The dough is a little crunchy on the outside and a lot flaky on the inside!!! 

If you are familiar with koulourakia, you know that they are a sweet buttery Greek cookie. Here is a different version: these babies are not sweet ... they are savoury, or as Greeks call them, they are "salty koulourakia." They are also referred to as "bâton salé," which in French means "salty sticks." I don't know why they have two names but they can be found in patisserie shops all over Greece, and they are a very popular snack.

Bâton Salé or Salty Koulourakia  ... Presenting this wonderful, addictive, savoury cookie!!!

This recipe was given to me by my aunt Sophia, who told me that she got it from the owner of a patisserie shop. It's supposed to be a top-secret recipe. (Actually, it was top-secret up until the time I published it). I don't know what methods my aunt employed to get it, and I don't want to find out, either. Suffice it to say that it's a great recipe!  

Salty koulourakia go well with drinks, especially with beer. If you want to drink that Heineken so you can forget the one you love who doesn' love you back ... go ahead, drink the beer, you're probably not in the mood for a snack. On the other hand, if a party is happening where beer will be served, make salty koulourakia, I recommend them! These guys are also good with tea. Somehow, I don't like them with coffee. 

Mix by hand, no need to use electric appliances. This recipe is incredibly easy and quick to make. To prepare it requires only one bowl, a whisk, a measuring spoon, and a measuring cup! The full recipe will yield 70 pieces but it can be cut in half. 

Ingredients:

butter: use half of a pound which is 
           equivalent to 8-ounces, or    
           2 sticks, or one cup; for the 
           metrically inclined, the butter
           equivalent is 230 grams.         

1 cup good vegetable oil 

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon pepper

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup ground Pecorino Romano cheese

2 tablespoons feta cheese, finely crumbled

about 4 cups of flour

1 egg beaten with a tablespoon of milk, a few dashes of poppy seeds and a tablespoon of Pecorino Romano cheese: this will be used as egg wash
Additional toppings: sprinkle slivered almonds or sesame seeds on top of the egg wash

Directions:

Melt the butter, let it cool and then whisk it with the oil until well blended.  Add the eggs and continue whisking.
 

Add the milk, the salt, pepper, and the cheeses, and continue beating.

Sift the flour with the baking powder.  Add it gradually to the butter mixture, mixing between each addition. 

Turn the dough onto a board and knead, adding more flour if necessary, not so much that the dough gets tough. The dough should be soft and pliable.

Cut the dough into pieces of about 1 inch in diameter.
  

Shape into rods or circles.

Place on parchment-lined baking sheets, and brush with the egg wash.

Use some toppings if desired.
  

Bake in a preheated 350º F/180º C oven until golden in colour (about 25 to

30 minutes). 

give them different shapes ...

top them with almonds, have them with tea ... Pictured above is a previous version and you'll notice that I had given them different shapes. Just have fun making them and shaping them! They're very enjoyable! 

SPANAKORIZO (Braised Spinach and Rice, made in the Greek Style)

To Greeks, braised spinach and rice is a very popular recipe that can be served as a main meal or as a side dish. The best way to eat it? No bread, no salad, just spanakorizo! In the southern regions of Greece, there is usually tomato or tomato paste that is added during cooking. No offence meant, but I find the practice rather strange. Up north it's out with the tomatoes, in with the lemon juice!!! 

Just as an aside, I think lemon flavour makes a recipe really Greek because Greeks try to introduce lemons in just about anything that can be eaten: is it a dessert? Add some lemon juice. Is it a salad? Lemon juice, and while you are at it, throw in some lemon zest just for good measure. I am not finished: Oranges? Sprinkle lemon on top (maybe I'm kidding). Having breakfast? Add some lemon juice to your tea. The basic rule is never, ever, cook anything without adding lemon. 

The best, best spanakorizo I have ever eaten was while visiting Toronto, Canada. We were in a small Greek restaurant in Toronto's Greek section. It was lunchtime and the owner/chef, a rather grumpy fellow, told us he had just finished making spanakorizo. Try it, it's good, he said, matter-of-factly. I ordered it and it was served to me in a bowl with a couple of lemon slices for garnish. I don't know what recipe the chef had used but the spanakorizo was heavenly! It had a pronounced lemon flavour, but as pronounced as it was, it wasn't overwhelming. I kept eating bite after bite wondering if the taste would still be the same and obviously, yes, it was. But I had trouble believing it. It was that good! I complimented chef, he took it in stride, and he certainly didn't tell me his secret for melding all that lemony flavour into a smooth, savoury, exceptional spinach and rice dish. I have never been able to duplicate the taste. But I keep trying. I use the freshest ingredients and keep it simple. And I try.

  

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 clove garlic, chopped

4 scallions, chopped

1 small red onion, chopped

¾ to 1 cup rice 

4 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

2 pounds fresh spinach washed and sliced. (if you’re in a hurry use the frozen spinach that comes pre-chopped)

Juice of 1 ½ lemons

3 1/2 cups water or vegetable juice

Salt and pepper to taste

1 carrot, diced (totally optional and I was criticised for including it)

olive oil to drizzle on top

lemon slices for garnish

Directions:

Heat the oil in the saucepan.

Add the onion, and while stirring sauté five minutes until softened, then add the garlic and sauté for another two minutes.  

Add the rice and while stirring sauté until the rice is well coated with the olive oil.

Add the water or broth and let it come to a boil.

Add the spinach and stir until wilted. As spinach leaves cook and expel their liquid they shrink, that's why the spinach ratio has to be that much higher than the rice. Rice expands, spinach shrinks.

Reduce the heat and add the scallions, parsley, dill, lemon juice, and salt and pepper.  

Mix, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes until almost all of the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is cooked. 

Serve garnished with lemon slices and for an extra depth of flavour drizzle some good extra virgin olive oil on top! 

A CARROT CAKE FOR "HEARTBURN;" My "Washington Carrot Cake."

    

The novel Heartburn by Nora Ephron was published in 1983

It was so easy to become a fan of Nora Ephron! An inveterate New Yorker who occasionally put up with living in such backwaters as Washington DC and Hollywood, Nora Ephron was an author known for her sophisticated prose. She wrote in a spirited manner, hiding soulfulness and vulnerability inside paragraphs brimming with wit and sarcasm. 

In addition to novels and essays, Ephron wrote screenplays, producing and directing some of them when they were made into films. She was a Hollywood power player whose untimely death at the age of 71 came as a shock. 

For years, she had been in remission from leukemia, a condition she chose to keep hidden. She had planned her own memorial, and because she was passionate about food and cooking, she wanted favourite recipes included in the service. She died from pneumonia, a complication caused by chemotherapy. I admired Nora Ephron; her intelligence and creativity remain an inspiration.
  

What initially made Ephron famous was the roman à clef “Heartburn,” a satire based on the collapse of her marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein. He threatened to sue over its publication but never did. I guess “Heartburn” hit Mr Bernstein too close to home. I remember the gossip concerning his infidelity. Mr Bernstein was quite a womanizer, and I have often wondered what compels that sort of man to marry. Why bother? There must be a streak of sadism running through the veins of serial adulterers because they inflict pain on the women they are married to and sometimes also on the women they cheat with. 

Nora Ephron with Carl "Casanova" Bernstein, plus a woman comfortably sitting on Carl's lap. This picture kind of says it all. I guess old Carl had trouble understanding certain concepts, including the meaning of the word "RESPECT." And he wasn't that great of a reporter, either. I'd call him Bob Woodward's lap dog. He was more of an expert at seduction than anything else.

“Heartburn,” is a story of love, betrayal and heartbreak written in a sarcastic style. Humour acts as the salve which makes the heroine’s predicament bearable. This heroine's name is Rachel Samstat, and she’s a cookbook author seven months pregnant with her second child. At seven months she is bloated, her feet feel “like old cucumbers” and she suffers from what she describes as “terminal heartburn.” To compound her misery, it’s at this stage that she stumbles upon the fact that her husband, Mark, is having an affair. What’s more, she's acquainted with her husband’s mistress and on one occasion, had invited her to her home for carrot cake! 

At first, Rachel vows to win back Mark, despite the fact that he confesses he loves his mistress and has never loved another woman as much. Still, he wants Rachel to stay with him, at least until the birth of their child. That's one considerate kind of guy!  

Eventually, Rachel takes her children and leaves the marriage. The catalyst is her discovery that Mark has spent a small fortune as a down payment on a necklace for his mistress. Soon thereafter, a sense of clarity comes to Rachel:

    “You can love someone so much,” she thinks, “that you don’t see anything at all. You decide to trust him and you kind of notice that things aren’t what they were, but it’s a distant bell, it’s through a filter… I can’t stand feeling sorry for myself.  I can’t stand feeling like a victim… I can’t stand sitting here with all this rage turning to hurt and then to tears.”  

Rachel writes the story of her marriage, 

    “... because if I tell the story I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story it doesn’t hurt as much.” 

In this manner, she can begin to forget. 

The narrative of the novel is interspersed with Rachel’s recipes, some of them quite mouth-watering. There’s even a recipe index at the end of the book:  Cheesecake, page 49. Key lime pie, page 166. Vinaigrette, page 177. 

There’s been some criticism that the characters in the book are not well developed. My answer is that Ephron’s focus is mainly on satire, which is a genre that does not necessarily rely on a heavy-duty psychological evaluation of character motivation. The main purpose of satire is social criticism via the use of wit as a weapon. 

Ephron’s novel was socially significant. At the time of its publication in the early 1980s, divorce rates were climbing, but divorced women kept quiet about their predicament. Ephron was the first to write openly about living with a philandering husband and about experiencing a painful divorce. She empowered women by changing the way divorce was talked about. She encouraged women to talk candidly about it and to share their stories.  

With this reading of “Heartburn,” I am participating in Cook the Books, a bi-monthly (not semimonthly) Internet book club/cooking event that features a different book for each round. The challenge is to read the book chosen, cook something inspired by it, and then blog about it. I chose to make a carrot cake because that's what the unsuspecting heroine of “Heartburn” serves to her husband’s mistress. I was overcome by the potent irony in this exchange between hostess and visitor. And I remembered how popular carrot cake was in the 1980s ... 

Years ago, I found myself in a situation similar to Rachel’s. And yes, I did invite the "other woman" to my home, although not for carrot cake but for a barbeque. One of the most important things I learned from my experience was not to be the victim in a relationship. Love, cohabitation, marriage, all relationships including friendships, should be victim free. Easier said than done, but as Rachel Samstat says in “Heartburn,” when your dream dies, you are left “with a choice: You can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.” 

WASHINGTON CARROT CAKE

I call this my “Washington” carrot cake. That’s because the recipe was given to me by a wonderful cook and family member who lives in the Washington DC area. This is one of the first cakes I learned to make successfully, and it has been in my cake repertoire since I first made it in the early 1980s. The cake is fruity and tastes like a spice cake. It's made with oil and carrots, so as far as cakes go, I guess it's kind of "healthy." It can be eaten plain; that's why I usually bake it in a 9x13 pan. For a holiday treat, bake the batter in round pans and then slather cream cheese frosting on top, on the sides and between the cake layers.
  

Ingredients

    For the cake:

butter and flour to grease the pan

2 and 1/2 cups flour, all-purpose

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups peeled and grated carrots (about 10 carrots)

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts 

1 cup dried and shredded unsweetened coconut, lightly toasted

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

3/4 cup good vegetable oil 

3/4 cup buttermilk 

1 cup crushed pineapple, drained well

Ingredients

    For the Frosting:

8 tbsp. unsalted butter softened and cut into pieces.

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

2 (8-ounce) packages of cream cheese

2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Directions

    For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 325° F.  
Grease and flour a 9" x 13" baking dish with butter and flour. This is an important step, don't forget it.

Gather the carrots, walnuts, coconut, and drained pineapple into a large bowl.

Into a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. 

Into a really large bowl beat together the oil and sugar. 

Add the eggs one at a time and beat after each addition. 

Add the vanilla and beat in. 

Fold in the flour mixture until incorporated.

Fold in the carrot mixture in batches. Make sure that you don’t over-mix.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes.  

Let the cake cool in the pan for about 1/2 an hour. 

Turn it out onto a cake rack and let it cool completely.

If you'd like to have frosting, you can frost just the top if you've baked the cake in a 9x13 pan. If you'd like to have frosting on the top plus the sides and between layers, bake the batter in round pans and adjust the baking time accordingly.

Directions

    For the Frosting:

Use an electric mixer with the paddle attachment.  

On medium speed beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the vanilla and the lemon zest, beating until incorporated. 

Lower the speed and add the sugar in batches, beating for about a minute between additions. Finish beating by bringing the frosting to a smooth consistency. 

Spread the icing evenly over the cake. 

Decorate the top of the cake with toasted walnuts pieces and coconut. 

Chill before serving.