Three Beloved Greek Dishes to Try This Summer

Summer in Greece is the per­fect time to try some of the coun­try’s clas­sic dishes. With a tra­di­tion lost in the mists of time, the country’s cui­sine empha­sizes the sta­ples of the cel­e­brated Mediterranean diet in their finest form, with extra vir­gin olive oil at the fore­front.

“The Greek sum­mer is not only about the sea and the sun, it is also about fla­vors,” Maria Prokopiou, an Athens-based endocri­nol­o­gist and dia­betol­o­gist, told Olive Oil Times. ​“Flavors full of col­ors that reflect the country’s rich his­tory and fer­tile land.”

“It is vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble to visit Greece in the sum­mer­time and not taste the toma­toes, egg­plants, beans, okra and zuc­chini, along with herbs such as pars­ley, dill, oregano and mint in a vari­ety of recipes around the coun­try.”

While the col­or­ful Greek salad cap­ti­vates taste buds, Prokopiou named a few more dishes that are a delight to try in the hot Greek sum­mer.

Moussaka

Served in every restau­rant and tav­ern across the coun­try, mous­saka is a meat and egg­plant casse­role topped with a layer of béchamel sauce that turns golden brown when baked.

“The king of the tra­di­tional Greek cui­sine is the mous­saka,” Prokopiou said. ​“The orig­i­nal recipe includes lay­ers of sautéed egg­plants and ground beef meat pre­pared with tomato and herbs, blan­keted in a creamy béchamel sauce made with milk, flour and olive oil.”

Although the basic béchamel is made with but­ter mixed with flour to form a roux, a twist often found in Greece is to replace the but­ter with an equal amount of olive oil for a health­ier out­come.

Moussaka is widely thought to have emerged in the Middle East cen­turies ago. However, its exact ori­gins are mys­te­ri­ous. Over time, the dish incor­po­rated ele­ments from dif­fer­ent cuisines, includ­ing the Ottoman Empire, to become the iconic Greek dish known world­wide.

Legend has it that the French touch to the dish – the béchamel – was added by the renowned Greek chef and advo­cate of French gas­tron­omy Nikolaos Tselementes in the 1920s.

Along with excel­lent fla­vor, mous­saka offers a vari­ety of nutri­ents to the human body.

“The egg­plant con­tains many antiox­i­dants in its skin and flesh such as fiber, potas­sium and nasunin, a sub­stance asso­ci­ated with low­er­ing blood cho­les­terol and con­sid­ered pro­tec­tive for brain cells,” Prokopiou said.

“The human body also gets good qual­ity ani­mal pro­tein and iron from the ground meat, cal­cium from the milk used in the sauce and energy from the flour,” she added.

Nasunin, a chem­i­cal con­stituent found in abun­dance in egg­plant peels, has attracted much atten­tion from sci­en­tists for its ben­e­fi­cial effects on human health, such as reduc­ing brain inflam­ma­tion and its poten­tial appli­ca­tions in the food indus­try.

“For those on a diet or watch­ing their daily caloric intake, how­ever, mous­saka should be con­sumed in mod­er­a­tion as it can be high in calo­ries depend­ing on whether the egg­plants are fried or baked and how lean the meat is,” Prokopiou said.

For aspir­ing home cooks, mous­saka is a com­pli­cated dish to pre­pare. However, when done cor­rectly, it gen­er­ously rewards demand­ing palates. A mod­ern twist is to use egg­plants and thinly sliced pota­toes as the base of the dish to make it more robust.

Some chefs sug­gest using a sim­ple yogurt sauce instead of the béchamel for a lighter ver­sion of mous­saka. This sauce is eas­ily made with Greek strained yogurt, eggs and a touch of nut­meg.

Μoussaka can also be a vegan dish, sub­sti­tut­ing sautéed mush­rooms or a tomato lentil sauce for the ground meat and a mashed potato top­ping for the béchamel sauce.

Green bean Lathera

Green bean (faso­lakia in Greek) cooked in olive oil is a Greek sta­ple that belongs to a spe­cial fam­ily of dishes of Greek cui­sine called lath­era, mean­ing ​‘in olive oil.’

Lathera com­prises dozens of recipes for plant-based meals cooked in olive oil, per­fect for veg­e­tar­i­ans or those fol­low­ing a meat-free diet.

“Fresh green beans are the most well-known rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the lath­era dishes,” Prokopiou said. ​“Stewed with onion, tomato and extra vir­gin olive oil, they are a fine source of fiber, vit­a­mins and trace ele­ments, includ­ing cal­cium and phos­pho­rus, mag­ne­sium, potas­sium and vit­a­mins A and K.”

Prokopiou added that these sub­stances clas­sify green beans as a food rich in antiox­i­dants, which pro­tect against free rad­i­cals. ​“Plus, they are low in calo­ries,” she said.

Lathera dishes are pre­pared with fresh sea­sonal ingre­di­ents and are the kind of food that can feed whole fam­i­lies with bud­get-friendly but fla­vor­ful ingre­di­ents. Green beans and black-eyed beans, cour­gettes and cour­gette flow­ers, okra, peas, egg­plants and arti­chokes can all be used to make lath­era dishes.

According to Greek chef and cook­book author Dina Nikolaou, com­bin­ing olive oil with veg­eta­bles is the key to bring­ing out the fla­vors in a dish.

“The basic ingre­di­ent, the olive oil, and the veg­eta­bles are ​‘get­ting mar­ried’ to give the ulti­mate deli­cious­ness,“ Nikolaou said. ​“And if we accom­pany lath­era with a block of feta cheese, then we can talk about the quin­tes­sence of taste.”

In addi­tion, the extra vir­gin olive oil used to pre­pare a lath­era recipe mag­ni­fies the dish’s nutri­tional value.

Scientific research has found that extra vir­gin olive oil phe­nols are trans­ferred to veg­eta­bles cooked in it. Furthermore, cer­tain nutri­ents in some veg­eta­bles become more bioavail­able to the human body in the pres­ence of olive oil.

Gemista

No food brings back more child­hood mem­o­ries for Greeks than gemista.

Traditionally a Sunday meal for the whole fam­ily in the sum­mer, gemista (mean­ing ​‘stuffed’) is a tray­bake of toma­toes and pep­pers stuffed with a rice fill­ing.

“Gemista is made with toma­toes and bell pep­pers that have been emp­tied inside,” Prokopiou said. ​“Their flesh is then sautéed with olive oil, pars­ley, grated apple, grated mizithra cheese, and rice to make the fill­ing and stuff the emp­tied veg­eta­bles with. Then, the veg­eta­bles are baked after being sprin­kled with extra vir­gin olive oil.”

Mizithra is a low-calo­rie, low-fat tra­di­tional Greek sheep or goat milk cheese. It is widely used in grated form as a condi­ment in pasta recipes.

Tomatoes, botan­i­cally clas­si­fied as fruits but widely con­sid­ered veg­eta­bles because they are mostly cooked or used in sal­ads, are rich in lycopene, an antiox­i­dant.

Prokopiou said the lycopene becomes more avail­able as the toma­toes are cooked, which adds to the dish’s nutri­tional value.

All parts of a gemista dish are edi­ble, includ­ing the skins of the toma­toes and pep­pers, which are soft­ened and sweet­ened with cook­ing.

Other veg­eta­bles, such as egg­plants and round cour­gettes, can also be used to make gemista. A few potato spuds usu­ally com­ple­ment the veg­eta­bles in the dish.

“Gemista offers a range of healthy sub­stances, includ­ing the olive oil phe­nols, the lycopene, min­er­als and trace ele­ments that for­tify our immune sys­tem,” Prokopiou said. ​“In a word, gemista is a com­plete meal, con­tain­ing pro­tein from the cheese, car­bo­hy­drates and veg­eta­bles.”

“Greek cui­sine is a unique bou­quet of col­ors and fla­vors,” she con­cluded. Apart from the fan­tas­tic taste, it also pro­vides us with a wealth of trace ele­ments, antiox­i­dants and vit­a­mins that have many health ben­e­fits for the human body, no mat­ter our dish of choice.”

• The Economist
• Dina Nikolaou
• ACS Food Science Technology