Beans, Beans...

Baked beans, like sauerkraut, can cause mixed emotions. There are the dark, molassesy rich ones sometimes with a hint of bacon and delicious with brown bread slathered with salty butter. There are tomatoey ones with vegetables and delicious with rice. There are the nasty ones that come in a tin, a staple of the ‘full english.’ Then, there are Gigandaes Plaki.

Pronounced yigantas, gigandaes literally means giant beans in Greek. Cooked with stock and diced vegetables and tomato. Finished with olive oil and dill. Served with fresh bread or pita, feta cheese, maybe a couple other meze - tzatziki and calamari or greek sausage. And, if you are feeling brave, cold retsina, or at least a pint of cold Mythos.

When I was pregnant with Poppy in England, I wanted to eat Gigandaes all the time. Luckily, or not, they are available in jars in nicer supermarkets there. With Tilly, the same craving returned but there were no Gigandaes available in this little town. So, I had to make them, because there is no point denying a pregnant woman something she really wants. Making the Gigandaes makes me, and Poppy, happy. We usually make fresh bread when we make them and supper is stress free on those days.

Post pregnancy, the Gigandaes have maintained their place at the supper, or lunch, table. I don’t always use the big beans and the recipe works well with most beans. These are giant limas. Here in Nova Scotia, we have Soldier beans and Jacob’s Cattle beans and it works well with those.

The recipe I start from is in The Livebait Cookbook, by Theodore Kiriakou and Charles Campion. I change the quantities often and have never followed it to the word. Here is how I do it.

Gigandaes Plaki

1 pound gigandaes (or butter beans or giant limas or soldier or white kidney or cannelini or Jacob’s Cattle beans or ..., you get the idea)

3 ribs celery

2 medium onions

2 leeks

3 carrots

4 cloves garlic

2 cups diced tomatoes (fresh are super, but you can use frozen, or tinned)

750 ml (3 cups) stock (if you have homemade, great. If not, use the lowest sodium version you can find.  The original recipe says chicken stock but you can substitute vegetable stock, I do.)

Black pepper (a little or a lot, depending on how you like it)

2 bay leaves

Large handful chopped parsley

1/2 large handful roughly chopped fresh dill

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt to taste (I don’t put salt in anything these days, because I whizz a little bit of most things up for Tilly, be careful if you add salt if you are going to use feta. I would suggest a little sprinkle of sea salt when you serve or eat the beans.

Feta cheese (as much or as little as you like)

Soak the beans overnight. Or, if you are using big beans (gigandaes, butter, giant limas) for 24 hours.

Dice the celery, onions, leeks and carrots. Mince the garlic.

Drain the beans, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Cook for about 30 minutes to an hour, until the beans are not quite soft. The cooking time will depend on the size of the beans you are using. Drain the beans.

Preheat the oven to 350º.

In a heavy pot, with a lid add the tomatoes, stock, diced vegetables, bay leaves and pepper to the beans and bring to the boil.

Put it in the oven with the lid on and cook until beans are tender, 2-3 hours.

Remove from oven, add parsley, dill and olive oil.

Serve with feat cheese and pita, on their own or with other meze.

Pregnant or not, it is totally heartwarming stuff.

Zootziki

There is really nothing Nova Scotian about Tzatziki, or Zootziki as one of us says ‘round ours. It does have cucumber in it and cucumbers grow pretty well here in our never quite long enough growing season. Here we have cucumber salad, slightly sweet and made with cream and vinegar and sliced cucumbers, and often served as summer side dish to mackerel. Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens calls cucumber salad Cucumbers with Sour Cream (A delicious old Lunenburg dish). Other than that, tzatziki's link to these parts exists in those who eat it.

My first encounter with ‘real tzatziki’ was in Toronto, on The Danforth.  Where, it has been said, the Greek food is better than in Greece. I have never had a really horrible meal on The Danforth or in Greece so I am going to refrain from opining on this. What I will say, is that I have eaten and made gallons of the stuff on both The Danforth and in Greece and it varies a little bit from place to place but something about the combination of strained yogurt, grated cucumbers and onions and/or garlic keeps me from ever tiring of it.

My introduction to cooking Greek and Mediterranean food was at a restaurant called Lolita’s Lust on The Danforth. The name led my family to wonder what exactly I was doing in Toronto. ‘What sort of food do they serve,’ they would ask, seeking reassurance that it wasn’t a strip club. Word around town at one point was that it was an adult bookstore and with a name like that and a window completely painted over save for one two or so inch strip through the middle, it was hardly surprising. It has changed hands since I worked there but still has a few of the original menu items, I am told.

At Lolita’s I discovered that pressed, or strained yogurt is essential to the success of any tzatziki. You can find it in some supermarkets, especially Greek specialty shops but, it is simple to make and just takes a little forward planning.  All you need to do is put some plain yogurt in a strainer lined with cheesecloth over a bowl and leave it overnight, covered and in the fridge, so that the water drains out of it.

Pressed yogurt is a lovely and rich substitute for yogurt in anything, you can use this in a lot of different ways. It is really nice rolled into small balls and then marinated in olive oil and herbs and served with toasted bread and tomatoes. I also make a darn nice Pressed Yogurt Cheesecake with Pomegranate Molasses, if I may say so. I’ll get to posting that one day.

Tzatziki

2 cups pressed yogurt

½ hot house cucumber (no garden cukes in March here, I am afraid)

1 small onion

½ teaspoon kosher salt (if you don’t have kosher salt, use sea salt)

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Grate the cucumber and onion into a sieve. Sprinkle with the kosher salt and toss. Let it drain for twenty minutes or so. Then squeeze as much water as you can out of the cucumber mixture.

Add the cucumber mixture to the pressed yogurt with the vinegar and mix. Season as desired.

Serve with warmed Greek pita or as a sauce. Tzatziki is perfect with almost anything grilled.

We have been into pita ‘chips’ here lately and tzatziki is yummy dip for those.

Pita ‘Chips’

6 whole wheat Lebanese pitas (these pitas toast really nicely)

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper (or not)

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Put the pitas on a baking sheet.

Mix the oil with the salt and pepper. Brush the pitas with the oil mixture.

Bake, checking regularly and turning as necessary, for about ten minutes or until the pitas are toasted.

Remove from the oven and let cool. Break into smaller pieces or just leave them whole and let everyone break them apart themselves.

Use them as chips or crackers or croutons in a salad.

Good enough to eat.