Greek bean soup (Fasolada)

 

Lately it's pretty cold, even in Greece. Days like these I really enjoy food that warms you up! This bean soup (fasolada) is one of such dishes - hearty, spicy and perfect in the Winter. It's also pretty simple, just few ingredients, it doesn't need much attention and the only thing that takes time is soaking & cooking beans (unless you're using canned ones). Fasolada is one of my favourite Greek dishes - the taste is amazing, it's one of those comfort foods that we all need sometimes, especially in the cold, gloomy days!

Cabbage rolls with mushrooms & gravy - Polish Christmas food #4

Continuation of my Polish Christmas preparation! Today "gołąbki" - cabbage rolls! You might have tried traditional cabbage rolls (or made lazy version of them). Usually they're filled with rice, minced meat and onion. This particular type is a meatless version - the one we serve on Christmas Eve in Poland. They're stuffed with mushrooms and rice or buckwheat. Plus, there is a mushroom gravy and hey, who doesn't love gravy?
These cabbage rolls are great not only as part of Christmas dinner, but also as an alternative if you're a vegetarian or you just want to try something different!

Tourlou tourlou - Greek ratatouille

Tourlou - tourlou is one of these dishes one cannot stop eating! It's so rich in taste and colorful that everyone loves it. Its name means "mixed up" and basically that's what you do - you mix various vegetables into this delicious combination. I didn't know tourlou before I came to Greece - in Poland we make a vegetable stew dishes, but with completely different spicing and ingredients, so it was a very pleasant surprise for me and my taste buds. 

When I was doing a research about it, I found two ways of making it - one calls for a pot and you braise vegetables on a medium heat and the other one is made in the oven on a deep baking pan. Personally I like it made in a pot, as I'm getting more of the delicious juices this way and I just love to dip my bread in it. 

Tourlou is perfect comfort food and easy to make, it also gets better in time! So grab a big pot and make enough to enjoy it next day as well!

Polish vegetable salad (sałatka jarzynowa)

The most popular and loved salad in Poland - if you ever will be invited to a house-party, wedding or any event, there is almost 100% certainty that you'll find this salad on the table!

Even though we consider it a traditional Polish dish, the origins of this salad are Russian. It was invented by a Belgian chef Lucien Olivier in XIX century. Its recepture was a secret (especially the sauce), but the ingredients as we know today included: grouse, veal tongues, caviar, lettuce, capers, crayfish tails and smoked duck. Sounds pretty sophisticated, doesn't it?

That's why initially it was served only in some of the luxurious restaurants. Over the time Olivier's salad became very popular and the expensive ingredients were replaced with much cheaper and popular ones. So grouse was replaced by a sausage, capers by sweet pea, crayfish by carrots and so on.

After 1905, Russian aristocrats who were expelled from a country, popularised this salad in Western Europe - even now one can find "Russian salad" in many countries like Spain or Italy. Here in Greece, I also found it as "rosiki salata", it included potatoes, carrots, sweet pea mixed with mayonnaise only, which is far less ingredients than the Polish version served in my house.

In Poland this salad in a vegetarian version became really popular during PPR (Polish People's Republic) times, it was served in almost every restaurant and homes, as it's based on ingredients that were easy to find.

There are several versions of that salad in Poland - some of them include corn, some other beetroots or herrings, some add apple, some don't and so on - all depends on a cook's preferences. The recipe I present here, is one I grew up with and my favourite!

Spinach & tomato salad with roasted almonds

I love spinach! I was one of the very few kids that had no problem eating it...well except times in school canteen where they served it in some unbelievably gooey way with no spices whatsoever. I use spinach as a base for stuffing, soups and sauces, but  I have never tried raw spinach before, so I wasn't sure how exactly it will come out. Turns out - it's delicious, refreshing and makes a very nice salad, especially when combined with roasted almonds and balsamic cream.

Cabbage soup - simple and tasty

This type of soup was very popular some years ago as a diet - yes, diet. You were supposed to eat only that soup for a week or so to lose few pounds. Now, I don't know about its effectiveness, as I'm getting bored too easily and monotonous diets are clearly not for me, but what I do know is that it is a delicious and very easy to make meal.

You just need few ingredients, throw them in a pot and about one hour later you've got your soup ready, couldn't be simpler!

Buckwheat with mushrooms à la risotto

Buckwheat is a very popular ingredient in Polish cuisine and we use it in many ways - as stuffing, addition to soups, fried as cutlets or we serve it cooked with stews and sauces.
I haven't had buckwheat for a long time now, so I got pretty excited when I saw it being sold in the supermarket and immediately got an idea for this dish.
I would call it a variation of traditional Polish buckwheat with mushroom sauce with a "twist". 

Normally you would cook buckwheat in salted water and prepare mushroom sauce separately, but I've decided to make it a little bit differently.
I couldn't find any wild mushrooms like boletus ("borowik" or "prawdziwek" in Polish) so I've used portobello mushrooms as they have more taste and substance than regular white ones.