Tuscan Ragu

I just made a really delicious meat ragu, served over egg papardelle.  When we were in Tuscany last fall we had some fantastic Pici pasta with a rabbit ragu at our inn’s restaurant, and this is my attempt at something similar.    We stayed at the Locanda dell’Amorosa, an inn about 40 km from Siena, just outside a fairly grubby industrial town named Sinalunga.  Aside from Sinalunga, everything about the Locanda dell’Amorosa was incredible – as you can see from these pictures.  We had a lovely room with a view out over vineyards and rolling hills.  It’s a working farm and produces its own wine.  It has a great restaurant.  It has a beautiful pool (although it was a bit chilly for swimming when we were there).  And it’s in the middle of the Chianti region of Tuscany, about half an hour’s drive from Siena, Montepulciano and Pienza.  It’s a bit further to San Gimignano, but still an easy day trip.

Pici is the local pasta - kind of like a really thick spaghetti, often served with a simple ragu.  So this evening I wanted to try to make a ragu sauce like the one at the restaurant.  My wife has decreed that rabbit shall not enter our home, so I made do with pork sausage and some pancetta.

To make enough sauce for two people (as you’ll see from the quantities of ingredients, it’d be easier to double this and make enough for four…):

• Half a carrot, diced
• Half a rib of celery, diced
• Half an onion, diced
• 3 Italian sausage (200 grams)
• 100 grams Pancetta or thick sliced bacon
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/3 cup good red wine (I suggest a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo)
• Half a can of chopped tomatoes (200 grams)
• 1 teaspoon chile flakes
• salt and pepper to taste
• A sturdy, long pasta, such as Pici, Pappardelle, or Fettucini

Pour a slug of good olive oil into a medium sized heavy pot (I use a cast iron Le Creuset), and heat over medium heat.  When the pan is hot (but not too hot), add the carrot, celery, and onion.  Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring regularly, until softened but not browned.  Add the sausage and pancetta.  break up the sausage into crumbly bits – it helps if you take the casing off.  Just run a sharp knife across the sausage, lengthwise, to cut the casing, then peel it off.  Continue to cook over medium heat, breaking the sausage up as it cooks, for another 10 minutes or so.  Clear a space in the middle of the pot, then add the tomato paste.  Stir it in the middle of the pot for a minute or two to caramelize, then mix it all together.  Pour in the wine, mix well, and let the liquid cook off – another few minutes.  Add the tomatoes and chili flakes, and mix well.  Cook for a few more minutes, until the sauce is the desired thickness.  Taste and add salt and pepper to taste (most tomotoes have lots of salt added, so taste the sauce before you add any more).

Boil a large pot of water, add the pasta, cook until done, drain, and serve with your sauce.  Grate some good fresh parmesan or romano cheese over it.  I’m still working on a hunk of romano we brought back from our trip (I think we bought it in Pienza – a perfect little Tuscan hill town, founded by and named after Pope Pius).

I steamed some asparagus and served it with butter, more romano, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

And if you’ve never been to Tuscany… GO!!!

Pears in Puff Pastry

Happy New Year!  Let’s hope this one’s a bit easier than the last…

Last night we made one of my favorite party meals – cheese fondue (the traditional kind, with Gruyere & Emmentaler in white wine).  Then to top off the evening, I made an old standby dessert: Pears in Puff Pastry with Caramel Sauce.

I first had this dish at a restaurant outside State College when I was in business school – I don’t even remember the name of the place, but I managed to recreate the dessert.  It’s fantastically decadent and pretty easy to prepare.  Last night I used a couple of perfectly ripe Comice pears, which were perfect, but pretty much any of the softer varieties of pear would work well.

For the Pears:

• 2 ripe pears, cored and peeled
• 2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
• Ready to roll puff pastry (make sure it’s the all butter kind, not the margarine kind!)
• 1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 400 f.

Mix together the butter, sugar, and Grand Marnier in a small bowl – you can just mash it all together with the back of a fork.  Peel and core your pears, set aside.  Roll out your puff pastry into two squares, about 8 inches on a side.  Place one pear in the center of each square of puff pastry, then stuff the core of each with half of the butter and sugar mixture.  Fold the puff pastry up and over the top of the pears, pressing together to seal it up into a big dumpling. Make sure you seal the pastry up well – when I made these last night, the pastry came apart at the seams and fell down into a nest around the pears.  They still tasted great, but they weren’t quite as elegant as usual.

Place the pears in a baking dish, then brush the outside of the pastry with the beaten egg.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown.

While the pears are baking, make your caramel sauce:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Pour the sugar and water into a small heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce heat to medium and simmer until the mixture turns a medium caramel color (6-8 minutes) – do not stir - swirl the syrup gently to mix.  Pour the cream in slowly – it will bubble up, so be very careful.  Cook for another minute or two over low heat, stirring constantly, then allow to cool to serving temperature.  You can also make the sauce ahead of time, then warm gently before serving.

If you don’t feel like making the caramel sauce, you can buy it in a jar and heat it up gently before serving.  Just make sure to get real caramel sauce, not caramel topping.

Chicken & Wilted Spinach Salad

I made a really nice salad this evening, and I want to write it down before I forget what I did.  It turned out to be a really nice mix of sweet and sour, with good contrast of textures from the wilted spinach, chicken, and crunchy cornichons.

For the salad:

• 200 grams or so of fresh spinach (a small bag, or half a large bag)
• 1 teaspon of minced garlic
• A slug of good olive oil
• 1 cup of leftover cooked chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
• A few good, sour cornichons

For the dressing:

• 1 teaspon of grainy dijon mustard
• 1 teaspon orange marmalade
• salt & pepper
• 1 teaspon dried Italian herbs
• Red chili flakes to taste
• Good olive oil
• Red wine vinegar

First, make the dressing.  Mix everything but the olive oil and vinegar in a small bowl and whisk together to mix well.  Drizzle in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil and whisk well.  Add a bit more (totalling maybe a couple of tablespoons), whisking, until you get a thick paste – the olive oil will be well emulsified by the mustard, so your dressing won’t separate.  Add a couple of teaspoons of vinegar and whisk well.  Taste, and add more vinegar until you get a good balance of sweet and sour in your dressing.

To assemble the salad, heat a drizzle of olive oil in a large skillet (large enough to hold all of the spinach together), then add the garlic.  Let the garlic sizzle for a few seconds, then dump in all of the spinach.  Mix the spinach once with the tongs or a large spoon, then add in the chicken and the cornichons.  Mix again to try to get the spinach evenly wilted – you don’t want to cook it, just wilt it a little.  Your total cooking time should be no more than a minute or two.   Turn off the heat and pour the dressing over the spinach and chicken.  Turn it over a few more times in the pan, then serve in bowls.  This amount will serve one as a main, or 2-3 as a side.

Salsa Crude & Margaritas

There’s nothing better on a late summer afternoon than a dish of fresh salsa, some chips, and a margarita.

Salsa Crude (Pico de Gallo)

This recipe is an easy, classic chunky tomato salsa, posted at the request of my friend Robin for his daughter Felicity.  It’s great by itself with corn chips, or as an accompaniment to fajitas, grilled steak or fish.  Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb/500g fresh, ripe tomatoes
• 1/2 a red onion
• 1 Jalapeno pepper, seeded & deveined
• 1 clove garlic (more if you like)
• Half a bunch of fresh cilantro/coriander
• 1 or 2 limes
• Salt & Pepper to taste

 

The first thing you’ll want to do is seed the tomatoes.  Cut the tomatoes in half, cutting through the circumference (i.e. not through the stem).  Cup half of a tomato in the palm of your hand and squeeze gently.  If the tomato is really ripe, the seeds should squeeze out of the cavities between the fleshy parts pretty easily.  If the tomato is a bit firmer, you may need to scoop them out with your finger.  Don’t worry about bruising the tomatoes – as long as you don’t squeeze too hard, it won’t matter.  You’re going to chop them up anyway.

When you’ve seeded all of the tomatoes, chop them up – however coarse or fine you like – and throw them into a mixing bowl.  Then finely dice the red onion and the jalapeno and add to the bowl.  Mince the garlic and add it too.  Pull the leaves off the cilantro, chop them coarsely and add to the bowl.  Cut the lime in half and squeeze it into the bowl.  Mix it all up and give it a taste.  Add salt and pepper if you like.  If it’s a little dry, or not tart enough, squeeze in the other lime.

If you want it hotter, you can add another jalapeno, or use something hotter (like a habanero).  You can also make this in the food processor if you want a smoother salsa.  If you do, it’s even more important to seed the tomatoes.  The seeds are bitter if you chop them up in a food processor – a few are OK, all of them will ruin the salsa.

Classic Margaritas

If you feel like going all out, why not make some margaritas too?  Fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice, a little simple syrup to sweeten it up a bit, good tequila and some Grand Marnier are all you need.

Put 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Stir occasionally until the sugar has all dissolved (this should only take a few minutes), then remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Squeeze half a dozen medium sized lemons or limes. Mix in your simple syrup to sweeten the juice to your taste.  Go a little on the tart side, as the Grand Marnier is pretty sweet too.

Fill medium sized margarita glasses, wine glasses, or tumblers with ice.  Add 50 ml of your favorite tequila, and 25 ml of Grand Marnier.  Top off your glasses with the sweetened juice, give them a good stir, add a lime wedge, and drink up.

Margaritas are traditionally served in a glass rimmed with salt – I don’t usually bother because it’s kind of a nuisance, but I do like the contrast of sweet and salty, if someone else is doing the prep… If you want to give it a try, pour a few tablespoonfuls of salt into a flat dish or saucer.  Take a lime wedge and run it around the edge of the glass to wet the top centimeter or so, including the rim, then turn the glass upside down and swirl it around in the salt.  You should get a rim of salt sticking to the lime juice.  Fill with ice and mix drinks as above.

If you want a more elegant presentation, mix a batch of drinks in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, shake well, then strain into martini glasses.

Finally, a note about tequilas: there are three major classifications of tequila…

1. Silver – This is young, unaged tequila.  It is colorless, and has the lightest, crispest flavor.  Good in margaritas.
2. Reposado – tequila aged between 2 months and 1 year.  This tequila generally has a straw color to it, and has a bit more flavor.  Also good in margaritas – maybe add a bit more tequila, a bit less grand marnier to bring out the flavor of the tequila.
3. Anejo – tequila aged more than a year.  Anejos are darker in color (some will look like scotch) have the most flavor, and may be drowned out by the other flavors in a margarita.  A good tequila anejo is nice by itself (but please don’t shoot it with salt and lime).

Not too long ago, you could pretty much only get Jose Curvo silver or gold (blech).  Now, there are literally hundreds of different tequilas available.  I’m partial to El Tesoro myself, although I think it was recently bought by Fortune Brands company.  Sauza and Herradura are also good bets that are widely available.  If you find yourself in a store that carries a wide variety of smaller brands, try something expensive – you’ll be surprised how good it is.

Pesto Crusted Crispy Skin Salmon

This recipe is a simple and delicious way to prepare salmon (or any other firm fleshed fish – halibut is great this way too).  All you need is a few salmon fillets, salt & pepper, olive oil, and basil pesto.

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.  Rinse the salmon fillets, pat them dry, and season well with salt & pepper.  Heat an oven proof non-stick frying pan over medium heat.  Make sure the pan is good and hot (flick a drop of water off your fingertips into the pan - it should dance and sizzle), then pour in a good slug of olive oil.  Place the fish fillets skin side down in the frying pan.  Cook them for about 5 minutes – you should see the color turn down around the skin, and the edges of the skin should start to brown a bit.

Transfer the pan to the pre-heated oven – DO NOT FLIP THE FISH – to finish cooking.  It should take about 7-10 minutes more, depending on how thick the fish is, and how well done you want it.  After about 5 minutes, take the fish out of the oven and spread a teaspoon or two of basil pesto over the top of each fillet, then return the pan to the oven for the last few minutes.  The pesto will brown a bit and add really nice flavor to the fish.

Take the fish out of the oven, transfer to plates, and serve immediately.  The skin should be nice and crispy, the pesto slightly brown, with a bit of a crust.  Serve with whatever sides you like.

A note about salmon: I tend to feel a bit guilty about eating salmon, what with the collapse of the pacific northwest salmon fishery and the horror stories you hear about antibiotics, antifungals and mercury in farm rasied salmon.  So while I don’t normally subscribe to the “organic is best” school of thought, I look for organically grown salmon from farms off Scotland – I don’t think the organic means much, as I don’t think there’s an official classification for organically farmed fish, but I’ve heard that the Scottish farms don’t overpopulate their holding pens, and don’t use all of the antibiotics.  Who knows whether any of it’s true, but it makes me feel better, and I think farm raised fish is about the only option for substainable fish stocks (never mind the Alaskan adds saying “there’s plenty out there”).

Kong

I had an excellent meal in Paris this week at a restaurant called Kong.  It occupies the top two floors of the same building as Kenzo (very mod clothes that would probably make me look ridiculous, if I could afford them) on Rue Pont Neuf.  I was in Paris on a business trip, saw a brief writeup on the place in a magazine, and asked the hotel to book me a table. 

From the Pont Neuf, the restaurant looks like a big greenhouse, or maybe an upside down salad bowl sitting on top of the building; from the the inside, it offers fantastic views over the river.

Decorated by Phillippe Starck, the bar feels like some very hip (and wealthy) 28 year old’s living room.  It’s a bit darkand a bit industrial, but still comfortable. Clear acrylic panels between booths are lit from below and have faces printed on them.  Makes you feel like someone’s watching you (with a slightly disdainful eye, of course – this is Paris after all).  The face theme is repeated throughout the restaurant, on monitors in the dining room and on the backs of the acrylic Ghost chairs used at many of the tables.

After dark, you don’t get the same views, but the dimly lit restaurant offers a romantic setting in keeping with Paris’ reputation.  As I was dining with a work colleague, romance wasn’t on my mind (sorry Perry – I’d rather have been dining with Kris…) – I was more focused on the food.

The food was great.  We started with a mixed entree platter of spring rolls, black perch tartare, artichokes poivrade, seared tuna, and california rolls.  Everything but the tuna was fantastic.  The tuna was a bit fishy and not particularly flavorful.  For mains, I had Chilean Seabass (Bar du Chili) with black rice.  Perry had a Filet de Beouf with peppercorn sauce and fries.  My fish was perfectly cooked, and served with an interesting (miso based?) sauce.  Perry’s steak was good, if fairly ordinary, but he said the fries were great.  The food was well prepared and the nicely sized portions were presented very simply.  We split an excellent bottle of bordeaux that went well with both dishes.  A lemon tart and pannacotta with strawberries rounded out the meal.

All in all, a great meal in a great setting.  Expensive, but not over the top.  Well worth a stop next time you find yourself in Paris.

Summer Berry Cobbler

There is no more irresistable summer dessert than a simple berry cobbler, served hot from the oven with some good vanilla ice cream.  Here’s an easy recipe that you can adapt to whatever fruit happens to be in season.  This recipe will serve two, but is easily doubled or tripled for larger crowds.  You can make it in one big dish to take to a picnic, or individual ramekins for a more sophisticated presentation.  With a little practice, you can pull this together in about 10 minutes, plus 20 for baking.  You can also make the dough a bit ahead of time and keep in the refrigerator until you’re ready to assemble the dessert.

Preheat your oven to 375 F/190 C.

• 1 1/2 cups summer berries (any mix of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries you like)
• 1 tablespoon white sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of your fruit)
• 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier
• 1 teaspoon corn starch

Mix the filling ingredients together and put in a small baking dish – a 6 in. ramekin works well.  You can also divide between two 1 cup ramekins if you want to make individual desserts.

Place the following ingredients in the bowl of a food processor:

• 1/2 cup white flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 stick chilled butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Pulse these ingredients a few times until combined, but don’t overdo it.  The dough should be the texture of course cornmeal.  With the food processor running, add 2 tablespoons of heavy cream.  As soon as the dough starts to come together, maybe another 10 seconds, stop the blade and scrape the dough onto a clean cutting board or counter top.  Pull the dough together into a ball, gathering up any loose crumbs.  Pull off chunks of the dough and place on top of the berry filling – cover well, but not completely.  If you leave some gaps, the berry juices will bubble up through and caramelize on the crust.  Brush the top of the dough with a bit more heavy cream, and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Place in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until the top has puffed and is golden brown. 

Serve immediately with vanilla ice cream or heavy cream.  If you’ve made it in individual ramekins, you can poke a hole in the top and drop in the ice cream.  It’ll melt and blend with the berries and give you a lovely blending of temperatures and textures.

This recipe adapts will to any kind of fruit, but as the crust is extremely delicate, I think it’s best with soft fruits.  Try a mix of rhubarb and strawberries – cut the rhubarb into chunks and simmer with a bit of sugar and grand marnier until the rhubarb starts to soften.  Then mix in the strawberries before topping and baking.  Peaches or apricots are also great in this dish, and you can add a few nuts too, if you like.  Slivered almonds or crushed hazelnuts go really well with orchard fruit.

One more note: I find it easier and less of a mess to just make the dough in a bowl with a pastry blender.  If you don’t have one, you can probably find it in your local grocery store for about 2.99.  They usually have a simple wooden handle with 7 or 8 stiff parallel wires running down below the handle in a semi circle.  You mash the wires through the flour and butter mixture until you get course crumbs (you’ll probably have to scrape the butter off the wires a couple of times), then add the cream and mix and gather with a spoon or your hands.  Use the same basic process for pie crust or crumb topping.  I find that this method gives me much better control than the food processor – it’s very easy to overdo it with the food processor and end up with a tough pastry crust.  You also have only one bowl and the pastry blender to clean, rather than the food processor blade, bowl and top, and you don’t have to put the food processor away afterwards.

The Holly Bush Pub

We had dinner tonight in a local pub in Hampstead: The Hollybush.  We were invited by some friends who were celebrating a birthday.   Everything about the pub was great except the food, which was pretty mediocre.  Not bad, but not worth the prices they were charging.  It’s a nice, old fashioned local pub, with a bar area out front and a warren of small rooms with tables in the back.  Their selection of beers was excellent, with a range of bitters from smaller breweries, and plenty of lagers, ciders and stouts as alternatives.  The wine list, while pretty short, had a nicely varied selection. They had enough servers behind the bar to cope with the crowd, so you didn’t have to wait too long for your pint.  The servers were all friendly and helpful.  We ordered a few beers to start while we decided on food, then put in our dinner order.

There were about 12 of us, so it wasn’t surprising that the food took a while to come out, but the wait started to seem excessive after about an hour…  We ordered a burger for the kids, which was probably the best of the meals (even if they didn’t eat it), and chicken two ways for ourselves: a goat cheese stuffed breast quarter and a chicken and mushroom pie.  The food was OK.  The burger was nicely prepared, with shreds of horseradish mixed in with the meat and, while a little rare for the kids, was nicely cooked.  The roast chicken and pie were both pretty tasteless, as were the mashed potatoes served with them.

Overall, we had a nice night out with our friends, and really enjoyed the pub.  I’d just suggest you start off there for a pint or two, then move on if you want a meal.

Chimichurri

We grilled some steaks last night for the 4th of July (not much of a holiday, here in London – go figure, but we had a nice evening anyway), and I made one of our favorite sauces for it: Chimichurri.  This is a traditional Argentinian sauce and marinade for beef, and I first had it at a local Argentinian steakhouse, The Gaucho Grill.  They have a number of restaurants around London, and seem to have avoided the curse of restaurant groups so far – maybe because they’ve stayed pretty small and upmarket.  They source all their beef from Argentina, and cook it in the traditional Argentinian way, turning it only once during cooking.  They have an excellent selection of Argentinian wines (this was also the first place I had Malbec, which has become one of my favorite red varietals).

Traditionally, chimichurri is made with parsley, oregano, olive oil, salt, pepper, and paprika, but I’ve been making it a little differently:  Finely chop equal parts flat leaf parsley and cilantro (coriander).  I usually do a half bunch of parsley and a bunch of cilantro, which works out to about a cup and a  half of chopped herbs.  Mince and add 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, depending on how big they are and how much you like garlic.  Add about half a teaspoon each of salt and pepper, half a teaspoon of chili flakes (adjust depending on how spicy you like it), and pour in good olive oil to fill out the sauce – maybe 3/4 of a cup.  Add about 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and mix it all up.  If you let it stand for an hour or so, the flavors will blend, but you can eat it immediately.

Chimichurri is a fantastic sauce for grilled steak, or just for dipping good crusty bread in.  It also makes a great marinade for steak – just pour it over the meat in a zip top bag and let stand for a few hours or overnight in the fridge before grilling.

Recently, I’ve been using Aleppo pepper flakes for this sauce, sourced from Penzey’s Spices – a great mail order source for any sort of dried herb or spice you need, if you don’t have a good spice market nearby.  They also have a number of retail stores around the US, so check their web site to see if there’s one in your area.  I guarantee you won’t be able to leave the store without half a dozen jars!  Anyway, aleppo pepper is a bit less hot than your usual chili flakes, but it has a lot more flavor.  If you use it, double the amount for the recipe.  It’s also great on anything else you’d use chili flakes for, especially pizza.

Souvlaki

We went on a family vacation to Greece a few weeks ago – probably our best vacation ever.  Perfect weather, we went to the beach every day, nobody barfed, and everybody slept well.  Pretty much everything you could ask for in a vacation – those of you who have young children will know what I mean.

We stayed at Bungalows Ingrid (highly recommended) – small bungalows in the middle of an orange grove, inexpensive, clean and well maintained, with a beautiful taverna in the middle.  Ingrid made us simple but fantastic breakfasts every day, which we ate on our patio, or at a picnic table surrounded by orange trees.  The bungalows are between the towns of Assini and Drepano, near Nafplio with its Venetian fortresses, shops, and waterfront cafes, about two hours drive south of Athens on the Peloponnese Peninsula.  The town of Tolo, with a gorgeous sandy beach (most of the beaches in the area, while beautiful, are pebbly), is about a kilometer away.  I cannot recommend this place highly enough – we will be going back.

While we were there, we had some terrific meals at local tavernas – The Meat Market (literally, the meat market) in Drepano, the Mermaid in Vivari (the next town to the east of Drepano), and Casablanca in Tolo, where we got our lunch to take away and eat on the beach every day.  Which brings me to Souvlaki – marinated skewers of grilled chicken or pork.  Since we’ve been home I’ve made it three times.  Try this for your next barbecue – you won’t be disappointed.

But first, a disclaimer – I’m not big on measuring when I cook.  There’s a time and place for measuring, and it’s usually when I’m baking.  Otherwise, I tend to eyeball things.  So I’ll try to provide measures in my recipes, but they’ll probably be a little fuzzy.  It’s be my little way of encouraging you to experiment…

Chicken or Pork Souvlaki

Cut chicken breasts or pork chops into 1-1.5 in. cubes (if you make them bigger, it’s less work to put them on the skewers).  If you do pork, leave a little bit of the fat around the edge – it’ll get crispy and flavourful when you grill it.  Drop the cubes in a zip top plastic bag, and for each pound of meat you’re cooking, add:

• The juice of one lemon or lime – cut it in half and squeeze it straight into the bag
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon or so of oregano, preferably Greek
• A slug of olive oil (2 or 3 tablespoons)
• A few shakes of salt and a few grinds of pepper

Seal the bag, shake it all up, and throw it in the fridge for an hour or two.  I’ve also made this on a weeknight, leaving the meat at room temperature on the counter for half an hour, and it was delicious.

When you’re ready to start cooking, go get your grill started.  Then cut up an onion into 1-1.5 inch squares (peel it, cut it in half, pull out the smaller layers in the middle, cut the outer layers to the right size, then break up the layers).  You can also cut up a green pepper into similar sized pieces if you like.

Thread the cubes of meat onto bamboo skewers (I know, I know, you’re supposed to soak them in water first.  I never do and they work fine), alternating a piece of meat with a slice of onion or green pepper.  When your grill’s ready, put the skewers on, cooking on each side for a couple of minutes – they should take 8-10 minutes in all, depending on how big your cubes are.

For a quick meal, serve with a green salad and some fresh crusty bread.  For a Greek feast, serve with Tzatziki, grilled pita bread, and a Greek Salad.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m sure you could also just marinate and grill whole chicken breasts or pork chops if you didn’t feel like doing the whole kebab thing.

Tzatziki

Peel a medium sized cucumber (or half a long English cucumber), cut it in half lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon.  Grate the halves on a box grater, and put the shreds into a colander or mesh sieve.  Squeeze out the extra water (it’ll make your tzatziki watery otherwise).  In a pinch, you could pile the shreds onto the center of a paper towel or dish towel, pull the edges up to make a ball, and squeeze the water out.

Dump the shredded cucumber into a bowl and mix with 1 cup of greek style (generally full fat) or nonfat plain (if you must) yogurt.  Mince one or two cloves of garlic (depending on how strong you like it) and add to the bowl.  Add a squeeze of lemon juice (maybe a teaspon), mix it all up and add salt and pepper to taste.  You can also add a drizzle of olive oil, or just leave it alone.  Serve as a sauce for the meat, and a dip for the pita bread.

This amount of Tzatziki will probably serve 2-3 people (be warned: it’s addictive).

Greek Salad

Peel and seed another cucumber (or the other half of the one you used for the Tzatziki), cut into thick slices, and place in a shallow serving bowl.  Cut a few nice ripe tomatoes into chunks and put on top of the cucumber.  Slice up a green pepper, and half a sweet red onion and put on top of the tomato.  Cut some feta into big chunks, and put on top of the vegetables.  Sprinkle with dried oregano.  Drizzle with plenty of good olive oil and a little bit of red wine vinegar; squeeze half a lemon on top.  Server with a bowl of Kalamata olives.