ONE LAGANA, TWO LAGANES (λαγάνα, λαγάνες): A Greek Bread for Lent

Every year, on Clean Monday, comes the time to make laganes (that's the plural form of the word lagana). Laganes are a type of crunchy, semi leavened bread that's eaten by Greeks only once a year, on Clean Monday. But what does "Clean Monday" mean?

Let's set up the scene:  Apokriés, Αποκριές (the word means "saying goodbye to meat"), is the name for the Greek Mardi Gras (Carnival). It's a time of revelry, eating, dancing, drinking and masquerading. Pranksters rule. Carnival has its roots in pagan antiquity when it was a celebration of spring and rebirth. The early Christian church incorporated Carnival into its calendar, therefore, two millennia later it's still one big, huge celebration, lasting for almost one week and ending late into the night on Cheese Sunday. Yes, I said Cheese Sunday. No, there are no contests to see who can cut the most cheese (forgive me), although who knows, now that I have mentioned it, it may become a trend. Cheese Sunday is so named because the custom is to eat cheese and dairy products as a final treat prior to the beginning of Lent.  

As the next day dawns, it's time to greet Clean Monday, a day of fasting. After all that partying, a day of fasting is sorely needed. A nice long bath too, so that one is really clean on Clean Monday. However, bathing is not the raison d'etre for Clean Monday. The day ushers the Greek Orthodox Great Lent, which lasts about 40 days. For those who observe it, Lent is a period of fasting, reflecting, and repenting. It ends on the movable feast that is Easter Sunday. Therefore, Clean Monday is so named because it's a day to cleanse the soul. In Greece, it's a public holiday. The weather is still nippy and windy, and since people have off from work, they venture out to parks and to the countryside. It's customary to bring along a kite and see how far up high the wind will carry it along. It's fun to look up and see a sky dotted with colorful kites. What's on the dinner table? Well, Greek fasting is a very serious business. During a fast, the Orthodox church forbids eating meat, dairy or eggs. Basically, one has to become a vegan during religious fasts. However, on Clean Monday, the eating of shellfish is allowed. One popular dish to eat is mussels with rice. Another eating tradition is the lagana, a bread which contains only a small amount of yeast. 

 

Laganes are eaten once and only once a year, on this day, and are kind of synonymous with Clean Monday. People line up at bakeries early in the morning to buy them, hangover or no hangover left over from "Cheese" Sunday. By mid-afternoon, the laganes are sold out and the bakery shelves are empty. Here in the US, we have to make due by baking them at home, a job which is really not that hard. The result is so worth it! This was my first try at baking laganes and they came out great!!! Even my mother loved them, and she's very hard to please. She said they were better than hers, and now she wants my recipe. Well, mother, I got the recipe out of a cookbook that you gave me as a gift all those years ago. Remember? That large volume with the beautiful pictures I asked you to buy for me in Greece? Here's the recipe: 

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon yeast

1 cup warm water
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more flour for dusting
1/2 cup of good vegetable oil
2 teaspoons sugar plus a pinch of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoons sesame seeds

olive oil for brushing the loaves

Decorate by pressing your fingertips into the dough so that dots are formed. Push hard to make deep indentations that won’t disappear as the laganes bake. Prior to baking, brush the tops of the loaves with olive oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds. 

Directions:

• Sprinkle the yeast into the warm water and add the pinch of sugar. Leave it for about 20 to 30 minutes until the yeast comes alive and begins to foam.
• Into a large bowl sift the flour with the salt and the two teaspoons of sugar.
• Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the oil plus the water with the yeast. Mix with your hands to incorporate, and start creating the dough.  If it’s too dry you will need to add a little more water.
• Move the dough onto a floured surface in order to begin kneading it. Keep kneading until it’s soft and no longer sticky; at that point, it's ready to be formed into loaves. 
• The loaves can be round or oblong in shape, but they have to be flat, about ½ an inch high. Place them on baking sheets and cover them with clean kitchen towels. In about an hour they should double in size. If not, let them sit a while longer. The leavening process depends a lot on the temperature of the room.  
• Decorate the loaves by pressing the tips of your fingers into them so that dots are formed. Push hard so as to make deep indentations that won’t disappear as the laganes bake.  Brush the tops of the loaves with olive oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds. 
• Bake in a preheated 375ºF/190ºC oven for about 35 minutes, until they are golden. Halfway through baking rotate the pans, and if you like, brush a little more oil on the tops of the loaves.  
• The laganes will have that unbelievable, indescribable freshly baked bread aroma. Isn't irresistible? Eat them the same day while they are fresh. They won't taste as good the next day. If you have some left over, what you can do is freeze them. They will last in the freezer for a good two months.

MUSSELS WITH RICE (for Clean Monday)

If it's mussels and rice for dinner, it must be Clean Monday. Why? Because Lent is here! For Greeks, the first day of Great Lent is called Clean Monday. It's a day of fasting after a long weekend of celebrating Carnival. Clean Monday begins the forty days of fasting and repentance that lead to Easter Sunday. In Greece, it's a public holiday. Clean Monday is a day of personal reflection and a day of forgiveness and cleansing of one's conscience. It ushers in "Clean Week," when it's customary to go to confession and clean the house, sort of a spring cleaning of the soul and its surroundings. Since Clean Monday is a holiday, people plan outdoor excursions. Paper kites are flown as a way of celebrating the coming of spring.

 

These two pages are from my precious first-grade reader. Here, a little boy name Riga is flying his kite which as he says went as high as the clouds, higher than any of the others. Then Riga gets a congratulatory hug from his yiayia (his granny). The cat, whose name is Snow, wants some hugs as well. This reader, long out of use scholastically, was reissued sometime around the year 2000, as a memento for all of us grown-up kids who were suffering from nostalgia. And believe me, that's what the skies looked like at the beginning of Lent during our childhood! They were filled with kites, and on the streets, little children and their parents, kites in hand, were walking towards open areas to let the kites go, go, fly up high! Then, home for a lenten meal with lagana, horta, tarama, olives, and most likely mussels and rice. 

On Clean Monday, food is of the fasting type. Meat, dairy products, and eggs are forbidden. Alcohol is forbidden. Any type of fish with bones is not allowed to be eaten because bony fish contain blood. Shellfish are consumed, as well as a type of unleavened flatbread called a lagana. I say unleavened, that's the traditional rendition, however, modern times have ushered in the use of a small amount of yeast. 

A popular dish to have for dinner on Clean Monday is mussels and rice. And it's really delicious: Mussels and a seafood broth are incorporated into the making of rice pilaf. Yum! 

A note on my personal choice when buying mussels: 

There are two alternatives. One is to buy the live, farm-raised mussels, clean them (rinse, scrub, rinse, scrub, rinse, rinse), and cook them, hoping that you don't have too much waste. When buying fresh mussels, always buy more than you think you will need. Some will be open and must be discarded. Others will not open during cooking. Discard. Others will be so small that you will need a magnifying glass to find the mussel meat. Once fresh mussels are cooked, you'll have to remove the meat from the shells, discard a small mountain of shells, and scrub down kitchen counters, range counters, kitchen sinks, and kitchen floors ... If you're fine with that, then go ahead, purchase the fresh mussels.

For convenience at home, sometimes I choose the mussel meat that is available in the frozen seafood section of the market. Forgive me world, I buy frozen mussels, and I admit it. Okay? Okay. 

Well ... I buy fresh mussels as well. Here, they are steaming in a Dutch oven along with some aromatics. They should be covered while steaming. I removed the lid only to take the photo. Fresh or frozen, mussels come from the same source. 

Another note I want to post is to explain that buying farm-raised fresh mussels is preferable to buying the wild variety. Wild mussels will come filled with sand and grit. They will need lots of cleaning and water changes before they are ready to cook. Farmed mussels are grown on ropes that are attached to poles drilled into the ocean floor. This method of growing mussels is safe and beneficial for the environment; also, since these mussels don't get close to any sand, they are considerably cleaner than the wild ones. Mussels are filter feeders, and as they grow on their ropes, they feast on a natural diet of algae, not on that artificial diet of pellets given to other farm-raised seafood. Here are some pictures of mussel culture:

 sustainable aquaculture; a diagram of how mussels are farmed.

The mussel culture ropes are seen in the background; they make an important habitat for fish. 

Below, is my "mussel pilaf" recipe for Clean Monday. 

If you choose to use fresh mussels, count on purchasing four pounds of shell-on mussels. Wash your fresh mussels very, very well, pull out any beards present, discard any opened mussels, and cook the rest for five to six minutes in boiling water to cover. To this water, along with the mussels, add some aromatics: a cut-up lemon, a cut-up lime, an onion, some garlic cloves, some peppercorns, and some bay leaves. Once the mussels are cooked, drain, discarding the cooking liquid. Also, discard any unopened mussels, remove the mussel meat from the rest of the shells and proceed with the recipe. You may want to save some mussel shells for decoration.

Ingredients: 

The mussel meat that has been cooked. It will most likely wind up being somewhere around 16 ounces / 500 grams of mussel meat  
6 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large onion, chopped 
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 sweet Italian frying pepper, chopped

3 scallions, sliced thinly, use the white and light green parts only
2 cups long-grain rice
3 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 tablespoons chopped dill

salt and pepper to taste

a sprig of thyme

the juice of one lemon

one tomato, skin removed, tomato cut into small pieces

Sliced lemons 

vegetable broth, clam juice, and water, any combination that's preferred. The liquid should equal 4 cups 



Directions:

For the rice and the assembly:

1. In a Duch oven, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the onions and sweet pepper. Sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for one minute.
2. Add the rice and cook, stirring, for about two minutes. Season with a little salt and pepper.
3. Pour the four cups of liquid and the rest of the oil (3 tablespoons) over the rice. Add the tomato, thyme, and lemon juice. 
4. Simmer for 20 minutes until the rice is soft and the liquid has been absorbed.
5. About five minutes before the rice is done, add the parsley, dill, and scallions. Correct the seasonings if needed. Mix well, cover, and continue cooking until done.
6. Remove the thyme sprig then carefully fold the mussels into the rice. 
7. Turn off the heat. Cover the pan with two paper towels and place the lid on top of the towels. Leave the pan on the stove (with the heat off) for 5 to 10 minutes. This will make the rice fluffier because the paper will absorb steam. Discard the paper towels and serve the pilaf. Offer lemon slices, as some people might want to squeeze more lemon juice onto their mussels.