Recipes

Pork with courgettes

The main ingredient in this recipe is Pork, however you can substitute this with Chicken and it is equally delicious

4 lean pork steaks

Salt, pepper and paprika

1 onion

2 tablespoons oil

3/4lb (375g) tomatoes

3/4lb (375g) courgettes

1 tablespoon tomato paste

5fl. oz (150ml) chicken stock

1oz (25g) butter

Garnish: chopped chives

Cooking time: 65 Mins but maybe cooked longer if you prefer softer vegetables

Oven Temp: 160C (325F) gas mark 3

Trim of excess fat from the pork steaks and season them with salt pepper and paprika.

Peel the onion and chop finely.

Heat the oil in a pan and seal the pork steaks until they are brown on both sides - about 2 mins on both sides.  Place in a lightly buttered ovenproof dish.

Fry the onion in the oil until golden and then spoon over the steaks.

Roughly chop the tomatoes (skin them if preferred) lay them over the onion.

Wash, dry and slice the courgettes thinly and arrange over the tomatoes. 

Blend the tomato paste and sugar with the chicken stock, pour over the contents of the casserole until it comes just below the courgettes.

Cover the dish and bake in the oven for 50 mins.

Remove the lid and brush the courgettes with melted butter and return to oven for a further 15 mins (untill courgettes have browned.

This last part (browning courgettes) is only suitable if you are sticking to cooking times, not if you intend to cook for longer periods when the courgettes become very soft.

Garnish with finely chopped chives and serve straight from the oven.

A kind of Orange liqueur.

Peel  satumas and leaving them whole fill a large bowl, fill the bowl with local brandy, cover it and leave for a month. 

At the end of the month take out the satumas and pour the Brandy back into their original bottles. 

Instead of local brandy you now have a kind of Orange liqueur.

If anyone gives this a try, when you empty the brandy bottle just replace the lid leaving a small amount of brandy at the bottom and this will keep the bottle sterilized.

Stuffed Courgette Flowers  

Supplied by Retiredtocyprus
 
There is not an exact recipe for this dish, since it depends on the amount of the blossoms you can find

1/2 tablespoon short grain rice per flower

A medium onion and a large tomato are enough for about 10 flowers

Dice them and mix with the rice. Add half a bunch of chopped mint and parsley,

1 tablespoon each pinenuts and dried currants.

1/2 tablespoon sugar

a pinch of cinnamon

salt and freshly ground blackpepper

crumbled feta cheese

no need to add salt due to the salty taste of feta

Around 100ml of extra virgin olive oil should be added to the stuffing, mix well and fill the flowers which you have washed and dried partly.

Carefully open each one and try to fill the bottom first. Press down each leaf to the bottom of the opposite one. This will help flowers to stay intact during cooking.

use two of the courgettes which (of course) come together with the flowers, on the bottom of the pan. Sliced lenghtwise and placed side by side to make a "bed" for the delicate flower dolmas.

You can also add sliced carrots . They will absorb the taste of the dish and will make a nice garnish for the plate.

Place the flowers on top of this bed and add water only to cover the bottom of the pan.

When it boils, reduce the heat to the minimum and cook until the rice cooks throughly.

Chopped vegetables inside the stuffing will release juices, so on low heat, no other liquid is necessary. Let them cool in the pan,

Do not try to serve them hot.

Their thin skin may brake off. Serve lukewarm or cold, preferably with green salad and a good quality white wine.

Cold Stuffed Artichokes

4 artichokes,

1 tablespoon lemon juice,

Salt and Pepper,

6oz (175g)  cooked lobster meat,

3oz (75g) cooked aspargus tips (optinal),

6 tablespoons olive oil,

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar,

1 dessertspoon finely chopped taragon,

Paprika

Preperation of artichoke

Wash the artichoke thoroghly, trim stalks level with the base, peel off any ragged scales.

Cut of the top 1/2in artichoke and snip of the points of the other scales with scissors.  Brush cut surfaces with lemon juice.

Bring to the boil a large pan of lightly salted water and add artichokes, cover and cook for 40-45 mins, depending on the size and until a scale can be easily pulled off.

Drain the artichokes upside down. cool then carefully pull the scales apart and remove the complete choke.  Pull out some of the inner scales to make a fairly large cavity.

While the artichokes are cooling, dice the lobster meat and cut the cooked and cooled asparagus tips (if used) into 1in pieces.  Blend the lobster and aspargus.  Leave them to marinate and chill in a dressing of olive oil vinegar and tarragon, seasoned with salt and pepper. (do not chill the artichokes).

Stuff the artichokes with  the lobster and aspargus.  Spoon a little of the dressing over them and dust the tops lightly with paprika.

Tomato Soup

1 1b/500g tomatoes

2 2/3 cups/1 pint/ 500ml stock

1 Small onion

1 Bay leaf

Sprig of Parsley

Sprig of Thyme

3 tablespoons / 1 1/2 oz / 40g butter

5 tablesoons / 1 1/2 oz / 40g flour

2/3 cup / 1/4 pint / 125ml milk

1 teaspoon / 5g sugar

Salt and pepper

Chop the tomatoes without peeling.

Put into pan with stock, chopped onion, bay leaf, parsley and thyme.

Simmer for 1 hour then put through a fine strainer.

Melt the butter and work in the flour.

Add the tomato puree and stir over a gentle heat until the mixture comes to the boil.

Stir in the milk, sugar, salt and pepper.

Gently reheat.

Serve hot.

Stuffed Tomatoes

6 Large tomatoes

1 tablespoon / 15ml oil

1 small onion

1 1/3 cup / 100g breadcrumbs

1 1/4 cup / 225g canned tuna

1/4 cup / 50g anchovy fillets

2-3 tablespoons / 30 g chopped parsley

4 stuffed olives

Salt and Pepper

Cut tomatoes in half then scoop out their centers, keep the pulp.

Heat oil and cook finely chopped onion over low heat until soft but not coloured.

Take off the heat and add tomato pulp, breadcrumbs, tuna (flaked) and chopped anchovies.  Add parsley and chopped olives, season to taste.

Fill tomato halves with mixture.

Place on greased baking sheet and bake at 190 C / 375 F/ Gas Mark 5 for 10 mins.

Can be served hot or cold

Ratatouille

4 Large tomatoes

2 medium eggplants

1 Large green pepper

2 med onions

2 zucchini

2-3 tablespoons / 30ml olive oil

2 tablespoons / 1oz / 25g butter

1 garlic clove

Chopped parsley

Dip tomatoes in hot water to loosen skins and peel them.  Cut flesh into slices.

Wipe the eggplants and slice without peeling.

Remove seeds from green pepper and cut into slices.

Peel and slice the onion.

Wipe zucchini and peel.

Put oil and butter into a heavy pan and heat.  Add vegetables, salt, pepper and crushed garlic clove. 

Stir well, cover tightly and simmer for 1 hour until the vegetables are tender andthe oil has been absorbed.

Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Serve hot or cold

Baked Tomatoes and Eggs

Large Tomatoes

Eggs

Salt and Pepper

Cut lids of tomatoes and scoop out the seeds.  Break an egg into each one, season and bake180C/350F/Gas 4 for about 15 mins.

You may if you wish   add a little amount of cream or grated cheese before  baking

Lemon Sorbet

Basic ingredients for 4 people

4 lemons, 200g sugar,

Half a litre of water,   

2 egg whites,

The rind of one lemon,

Half a cinammon stick OR some leaves of mint,

A pinch of salt.

Steps:

Grate the rind of one lemon and squeeze all four

Heat up the water with the cinnamon stick in, and once it starts to boil, let it simmer for 10 minutes. Let it cool. 

Once cool, put in a bowl and add the lemon juice and the grated rind. Stir well and put the bowl in the freezer.

When the mixture is starting to freeze, beat the egg whites until they are stiff, adding the pinch of salt.

Take the bowl out and mix the eggs into the freezing mixture.

Put the bowl into the freezer until it is cold and hard.

If you prefer a minty sorbet use mint leaves instead of the cinnamon stick.

Add a good sized sprig to the water when   boiling, also decorate each portion with a mint leaf or two.

PICKLED OLIVES

These will be ready to eat after about 5 weeks sealed in salted water: do not mix green and black varieties of olives when pickling.

1.5kg fresh black or green olives

1/3 cup 75g fine sea salt

1 litre 4 cups water

½ cup 125ml olive oil

Discard any over blemished olives.

Using a sharp knife make two cuts lengthways in each olive through to the stone.

(We do it the Cypriot way, use a marble stone and knock each one onto another marble stone - breaking them).

Place olives in large jars (we use the yellow ones with blue lids) cover the olives with cold water.

To keep the olives submerged place a plastic bag filled with water and knotted over the top.

Scum will appear this is normal. Change the water every day for 4 days with black olives 6 days with green.

Combine sea salt and he litre of water in a saucepan stir over a heat until the salt is dissolved then cool.

Discard the water in the jars, fill with enough salted water to cover olives.

Pour enough oil in jars to cover completely and seal the jars.

(We didn’t do this last stage we just put another plastic bag filled with water over the top.

Recipe for Preserving Olives

Olives can be preserved green or black. A black Olive is a ripe Olive.

Usually green Olives are Pickled and black olives are pressed for oil.

As some of the fruit start to get a purple-black tinge to them, it is time to pick your green olives for pickling.

The easiest way to pick your Olives is to put a tarpaulin on the ground under the tree and either hand pick them off or use a rake with very widely spaced teeth. In the Mediterranean they hit the Olive trees with a long pole to harvest the fruit, this action also breaks off small branches - thus lightly thinning the tree at the same time.

Gather up fruit and rinse in water.

Place Olives on a clean, hard surface and bruise the fruit with a rolling pin.  Pricking them with a fork works well too. Bruising or pricking them helps the salt and water to penetrate the fruit.

Put them in a bucket of water with half a cup of cooking or coarse salt per 10 cups of water.

Place a lid (breadboard) on top of the bucket to help keep the Olives submerged.

Pour the water out each day and replace with fresh salted water.

Continue this for about 12 days for green olives, or 10 days for black olives.

To test the Olives, bite one.  When the bitterness has nearly gone the Olives need one more final salting.

Pour off the last of the salted water and measure it so you will know how much salt brine will be required. Measure out that same quantity of warm water into a pot and dissolve the salt at the ratio of - 1 cup salt to 10 cups water. Boil this and allow to cool.

Place 0lives in jars or bottles and then pour the salty brine over the fruit until covered.

Top the jars or bottles up with a centimetre of Olive Oil. This stops air getting in and seals the lids down.

The Olives will keep for up to 12 months in the cupboard.

Before eating, drain off the salty brine and fill the bottles with cool water.

Refrigerate for 24hours. If after this time they are still too salty to taste fill the bottles with hot water and refrigerate again for 24 hours.

Once the correct salt level is reached you can add extra flavours like basil, capsicums, garlic and lemon juice.