What's for Dinner? v. 8.46: Greek Cooking Part 2, Sauces and Spreads

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Saturday June 14, 2014 · 4:30 PM PDT

2014/06/14 · 16:30

A few weeks back, I submitted a diary comprised of Greek home cooking recipes, most courtesy of my Greek immigrant in-laws. Since that diary was well-received, I decided to follow it up with one devoted to Greek sauces and spreads, the sort you might find on an appetizer platter in a Greek restaurant. Here, however, I cannot in good conscience call it "home cooking," because the dirty little secret of Greek-American kitchens is that almost no one prepares these at home any more. Too much work, too little time. Instead, they buy pre-made items at the local Greek grocery store. Even my mother-in-law, a real stickler in most things culinary, admitted she hasn't made any of these for 20 years or more. She sends my father-in-law out to buy them at The Greek Store in Kenilworth, NJ, which has one of the better selections of Greek products to be found outside of Astoria, Queens, for decades the leading Greek settlement in the U.S.

lonemorriscodem for What's for Dinner

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Saturday March 15, 2014 · 4:30 PM PDT

2014/03/15 · 16:30

Welcome to another edition of What's for Dinner?, tonight featuring Greek recipes. This is not my native cuisine; my culinary upbringing can best be described as the "1970s, Irish-German, have-to-feed-a-family-of-8-every-night, oh-no-not-Shake&Bake-pork-chops-again" school. I did, however, have the good fortune to marry a lovely, talented, intelligent Greek immigrant. Now, don't tell her I said so, but for all of her many other accomplishments, my wife is not a terribly good cook. Her parents, however, are both superb cooks. Her mother did the cooking in the home, and her father cooked in diners practically from the day he got off the boat from Greece 40-odd years ago.

lonemorriscodem for What's for Dinner

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Saturday July 20, 2013 · 4:30 PM PDT

2013/07/20 · 16:30

Summer is a season of abundance, but can it be too much of a good thing? You may not ask yourself that question now, but you will in a few weeks when an anonymous neighbor rings your doorbell and runs off, leaving a grocery bag containing some fifty pounds of zucchini on your front porch. One item I tend to overplant in my modest home garden is basil. The seedlings look so tiny at the garden center in May; who would guess that a mere two dozen would produce enough leaves to fill a bushel basket or two? So here are a few ideas if you are similarly afflicted with basil overload.

lonemorriscodem for What's for Dinner

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Saturday March 23, 2013 · 4:30 PM PDT

2013/03/23 · 16:30

Welcome to another edition of What's for Dinner, my first diary contributed to the series. Tonight, let's discuss the different ways to use wine in recipes, other than marinating the chef. Wine can add great depth of flavor to any number of savory recipes (and several desserts). Equally important, the remainder of the bottle can be consumed with the meal. After all, as wine critic Matt Kramer once noted, "Food is the meaning of wine."

The first question you might have is, "What wine should I cook with?" The traditional answer is, "Whatever wine you will be pouring with the meal." This makes some sense, insofar as the influence of the wine in the recipe may echo the flavors of that in the glass. Of course, that may depend on how much of the bottle you need for the recipe; it's one thing to splash 2 oz. into a pan to deglaze it for a sauce, and quite another to devote half a bottle of Chateau Highfalutin' to a marinade. If you've pulled out a special (i.e., expensive) bottle to impress a date, find a cheaper version of the same grape to cook with. Try to avoid cooking with heavily oaked wines--those buttered Louisville Slugger flavors never seem to mesh with whatever else is in the pot. I'd recommend against drinking the oak monsters, too, but to each his own.

Poll

64 votes Show Results

What is your favorite wine to drink?

64 votes Vote Now!

What is your favorite wine to drink?

Cabernet Sauvignon

8 votes

Pinot Noir

8 votes

Merlot

1 vote

Chardonnay

4 votes

Champagne

8 votes

Syrah

3 votes

Riesling

6 votes

Other red

8 votes

Other white

4 votes

The one with a cute animal on the label

0 votes

Mine comes in a box

4 votes

Wait, first tell me who's paying

1 vote

Beer here!

4 votes

Teetotaler

5 votes

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What's for Dinner? v. 8.46: Greek Cooking Part 2, Sauces and Spreads

What's for Dinner? v. 8.33: Greek Home Cooking

What's for Dinner v. 7.52: Too Much Basil!

What's for Dinner v. 7.34: Cooking with Wine