A story of food, travel and love

Passport & Plate - Greek Cypriot Mini Meze for a small family

Cyprus | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
For the Village Salad:
Cucumber
Beef Tomatos
Green Pepper
Parsley
Mint
Olives (Halkidiki & Kalamata)
Feta
Drizzle extra virgin olive oil

For the Tzatziki:
100ml Greek yoghurt
100ml Sour cream
½ (sweated) cucumber
4 leaves of mint
2 sprigs of dill
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt
sprinkle of pepper

For the Souvlaki:
2 cloves garlic chopped finely
4 mint leaves chopped finely
6 tbsp red wine
4 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper
oregano (pinch)
Pork shoulder cut into cubes

For the Halloumi:
Halloumi
Extra virgin olive oil

For the Spanakopita:
300g spinach
1 onion
3 sprigs of dill (chopped)
3 sprigs of parsley (chopped)
200g Feta
200g Ricotta
30g Parmesan
Box of Filo Pastry
Extra virgin olive oil
2 eggs

In a seperate bowl:
Olives

 

How to prepare this recipe
1) Start with the village salad. Simply chop all the ingredients and toss together in a bowl.

2) To make the Tzatziki, first you need to sweat the cucumber, so your dip does not go too runny!

I made mine in a blender, by simply putting in all the ingredients except for the cucumber and blending on low for a few seconds. I added the cucumber for the last few seconds, so there'd still be some lumps in it. You can make this without a blender, by simply chopping all the ingredients really small and mixing.

3) To make Souvlaki, chop the pork into small evenly-sized cubes. Mix all the other ingredients together in a bowl and add the pork to it. Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to cook. This will marinade the flavours of the sauce, into the meat. Cook simply by placing the cubes of meat onto skewers and grilling or barbecuing until the meat is cooked through.

4) Slice the Halloumi into thin slices and brush with extra virgin olive oil. Grill just before serving as it only needs a few minutes.

5) The Spanakopita is the most time-consuming, but well worth the effort

Fry the onion in 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil for a few minutes until soft. Add the spinach to the onions in the frying pan until spinach wilts, then remove from heat and cool in a bowl.

Add the dill and parsley. Crumble the Feta into the bowl. Add the Parmesan and Ricotta and stir.

Oil a rectangular dish with extra virgin olive oil, lay a layer of Filo over it and oil the filo, the same way you did the dish. Lay down another layer of Filo and oil again. Repeat with 6 layers of Filo.
Pour the spinach and feta mixture on top of the filo. Press down with a spoon. Cover with a layer of Filo, then oil.
Repeat until all the filo is used up (there are usually 12 layers of filo in a box).
Wrap the edges of the filo in on top of the pie, and oil it down, so it looks like one big rectangular parcel.

Bake in the oven for 40 minutes at 190 degrees.

When cool, slice into squares and serve.

 

The story behind this recipe
In June 2010, my husband and I visited Southern Cyprus (Greek Cyprus). We instantly fell in love with the beauty of the Island. The beaches, the architecture, the tourist spots and the secluded local spots. The friendliness of the Greek Cypriot people, the social side of Cypriot cuisine (as well as the food itself) and watching the sun rise and set with some local Keo lager or brandy and the odd shot of Zivania thrown in for good measure.

We fell so in love with Cyprus that we returned in June 2011 with 25 of our closest friends and family, and there, overlooking Nissi beach, one scorching Saturday afternoon, we got married on the Island of Love. Our wedding was like something out of a movie or a dream. Incredible. But one of our other amazing memories of that holiday, was the evening that we all went to a local restaurant and ate together. There were about 20 of us and most of us ordered the Greek Cypriot Meze platters. A meze comes in waves, course after course, of flavourful, fresh, local cuisine that you can graze on for hours in the pleasant company of the people you love most. We ate until we could barely stand. We drank Keo and Zivania and conversations turned merry. It was a rare moment in our lives, where friends and family were united and everybody was truly happy.

Sadly all great holidays come to an end, but we wanted to recreate a little bit of Cypriot heaven at home. A traditional Greek Meze takes hours, if not days to prepare and caters for a huge group of people. We are just a family of five, looking to experiment with flavours and foods and make enough for one meal. So I came up with the idea of making a mini meze, with a few traditional Greek and Cypriot Meze dishes, to make a family meal. We experimented with recipes, textures and flavours until we had a recipe of our own. We chose Pork Souvlaki, Spanakopita, a village salad, grilled Halloumi and Tzatziki. We eat it whilst watching our wedding DVD and it transports us back to heaven.