Shrimp Ceviche | You've Got Meal!

I remember the first time we saw ceviche being made we were a bit amazed by the simplicity and the flavours that were involved, so we decided we should give it a try. For us, ceviche works great as an appetizer or starter to the meal, as the tanginess and the zing of the lime combine with the light touch of the seafood can get things started for heavier meals. We decided to use shrimps in our ceviche, but you can also use fresh fish, emphasis on the fresh part – you won’t be cooking with heat so this part is important in order to avoid any intestinal problems after. 

Let’s talk ingredients:  

• 12 medium shrimps, 
• fennel, 
• radicchio, 
• avocado, 
• coconut, 
• salt, pepper, 
• the juice of 2 limes 
• 1 lemon.

We boiled the shrimp for 2 minutes then popped them in ice water, but you can choose to use them raw. We just wanted to play it safe on our 1^st try on the ceviche. So, clean, devein and remove the shrimp tails and put them in the citrus juice for about 45 minutes, alongside the salt, pepper and the thinly sliced fennel. And that’s it, nothing more.

Put some finely sliced radicchio on the bottom of a glass, some fennel and avocado on top, and 3 shrimps per portion. Use 4-5 tbs. of the lemon juice for each glass and mix it with the water from 1 coconut – it will just add a hint of flavor without taking the dish off course. Pour some juice on in each glass and you’re ready to impress your party guests. A great addition to the dish could be a touch of heat from a chili or some fresh coriander leaves, take your pick.

We paired the ceviche with some well chilled Sauvignon Blanc that worked great with its mineral, citrusy, grassy touches.  

Enjoy,

Turkey Meatballs | You've Got Meal!

We stopped at this recipe one of these day just before our cooking inspiration was close to zero. You know those days when you have no special cravings, no idea what to cook and you just stare at your fridge and freezer, but no option satisfies you.

We got lucky when we spotted a large piece of turkey breast in the freezer. Turkey meat is a nice and lean meat that is very versatile. If you find the meat dull and you have a bigger piece it is a great idea to grind it or part of it for meatballs or burgers to get a great flavor. It is easier to add the flavor you want in meatballs or burgers.

That being said, we used about 600 grams of ground turkey and made some nice meatballs and served them with mashed sweet potatoes and some pickled cauliflower.

You will need:

• 600 g ground turkey
• 1 small onion, finely chopped or grated
• 2 carrots, grated
• 2 eggs
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 tbs salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 handful chopped fresh parsley

For the mashed sweet potatoes:

• 1 large sweet potato
• 2 medium potatoes (basically you need to have a 50/50 ratio of potatoes and sweet potatoes)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 50 g butter
• 1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger

1. Mix all the meatball ingredients in a large bowl and form balls from about 1 tbsp of composition.
2. Heat 2-3 tbsp olive oil in a skillet and fry the meatballs on all sides, about 7 minutes , until brown.
3. You can take them out on a paper towel to remove excess oil.
4. For the mash, boil the potatoes, mash them, add the butter, ginger and the seasoning and mix well.

Enjoy,

Sun-dried Tomato and Artichoke Bruschetta | You've Got Meal!

One of the most important things that you’ll ever hear from any professional chef is to be organized in your kitchen. Manage your ingredients, keep things tidy, plan your cooking and so on and so forth. We are not professional chefs in the You’ve Got Meal kitchen, but this whole organizing your meals makes perfect sense it you’re a bruschetta fanatic like we are. 

We always have at hand in the pantry some sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, parmesan, capers, anchovies, cipolline borettane, olive oil, olives, etc. Of course most of the times we don’t have the whole list, but you can cook some darn right delicious treats with only a couple. And so it just happens that we only had some tomatoes and artichokes on hand the other day. 

Making the bruschetta is mega easy, start of by cutting some slices of bread (baguette), not too thick. When we use sun-dried tomatoes we tend not to use olive oil, just because the tomatoes are kept in a flavored oil, same thing for the artichoke hearts.

• Place a piece of tomato, topped with an artichoke heart – you can choose to cut that if you find it too big. 
• Next, place one or two fresh leaves of basil and sprinkle with some grated parmesan. No salt, there’s plenty of that in the vegetables and cheese, maybe a dash of pepper. 
• Cook the bruschetta in the oven for 7-10 minutes and serve warm. 

The conclusion here keep your pantry stocked with at least a couple from those ingredients, they will make a world of a difference when you have to whip something up when you get a last minute visit or when you get the munchies. 

One of the rules we do have about our bruschetta is to keep it simple, not too many ingredients of spices. Keep in mind that just a couple of flavors combined in the right way can do a lot better than trying to mix in a ton tastes.  So, go at it, try and mix them and see which combo suits you better in a bruschetta, there’s no way you’re not going to enjoy it.

 Enjoy,

Halloumi, Tomatoes and Zucchini Skewers- Easy Appetizer | You've Got Meal!

Maybe we should have started our posts in 2014 with this one. We had this appetizer for our New Year’s dinner and it was great. It can hold its own at parties, breakfasts or brunches and it can bring some Mediterranean kick to your menu. 

Like any appetizer should be, this dish is dead easy. You’re going to need:

•  some diced Halloumi cheese, 
• cherry tomatoes, 
• diced zucchini, 
• thin bacon strips, 
• olive oil, salt, pepper, basil, mustard, lemon juice.

1. If using wooden skewers, place them in water for half an hour before cooking so they don’t burn. 
2. The only preparation before cooking is to cover each zucchini piece in a thin strip of bacon. 
3. Skew the veggies and cheese in any order you want. 
4. Lightly drizzle the skewers with a dressing made of 1 tsp. of hot mustard, some olive oil, lemon juice from half a lemon, pepper. 
5. You can make this on an ultra hot grill or in the oven – we opted for the second way, mainly because we didn’t feel like smoking our house. Be warned that in the oven the veggies- especially the tomatoes will leave some juice that could use removing – keep an eye for that. It takes around 15-20 minutes, 170 Celsius, or until the bacon in done.
6. Serve with some more of that mustard dressing on top and (optional) some freshly chopped basil.

Enjoy,

Thassos, Greece- Day 4

Our fourth day in Greece is going to be all about food, so, considering the type of the blog, it should be just as the foodies like it.

Naturally, we started our day at the beach, taking advantage of such a beautiful weather.

For lunch, we came back to a tavern we already visited once. We had again some fried eggplant, so you can imagine how good it was.

To make sure we will remember that garlic salad we mentioned, we got it also as a separate dish. If you are concerned about the garlic smell, don't be. The  yogurt and the olives actually decrease the garlic flavor and make it less pungent. It is just delicious, maybe we will recreated one day on this blog.

I also had some homemade chicken soup, so soothing and comforting.

After some walking on the beach and a bit of getting to know Golden Beach better, we decided to try another nearby village for dinner.
Ever since our bus trip we had our eye on Skala Potamia, which is the closest to Golden Beach and it seemed more "alive". We had already heard of a nice restaurant there, Theagenis, which was supposed to be really easy to spot, nice food, good prices and live music. You can actually walk from Golden Beach to Skala Potamia, but we went by bus and, in 10 minutes maximum we were there.
It proved to be more developed than Golden Beach, way more shops and taverns.

We did some shopping and encountered 3 little adorable kitties (of course), walked alongside the fishing boats until we reached the pier.
We arrived at the tavern right on time for the start of the live music program, around 20:30.

The tavern is really nice, the live Greek music is the main attraction, but the food is also very tasty, the service was really good and the pricing ok, similar to other taverns on the island, that don't offer the same service.

We started our dinner with Mezes, a plate of  mixed traditional appetizers. It turned out to be a great way to get to know more about the Greek cuisine. There were some wine leaves stuffed with rice, tzatziki salad, garlic salad, fish roe salad, eggplant salad, and some sort of a potato salad. Everything was delicious.

For the main course, I went for red mullet, but I was surprised to find lots of tiny fishes on my plate instead of one bigger piece. The dish itself was very tasty, I must say. As we got used to by now, in most Greek taverns, they give you really big servings.

Talking about big servings, Mr. G. ordered a lamb stifado and got more that he thought. It was actually a leg of lamb on a plate. It turned out to be delicious, Greek lamb stifado is a sort of lamb stew with small, whole shallots, tomatoes and served with potatoes and rice.

Besides the big serving something else is a tradition in Thassos, you always get a complimentary (usually sweet) treat, at the end of the meal, before they bring you the check. It is not much, usually some ice cream, small piece of cake, but it always puts a smile on your face. At Theagenis it was baclava.

We walked back to the villa after dinner. We tried to walk on the beach as much as we could, but being really dark and not knowing the way at all we feared that there might be a dead end somewhere so we got back on the main street. We also spotted Captain, a restaurant that serves great sea food, that our guide recommended in Skala Potamia.

There you go,  a day filled with sun, sand, water and great food.

xoxo,

Lebanese- Inspired Salad

You’ll love this dish it has intense taste, a good level of sourness and some nice crunch, and it all mixes incredibly with the hummus. If you think about the crunch in the bread and the tangy dressing you can realise that it was inspired but the very famous Levant salad- fattoush.

So, grab yourself a romaine lettuce head coarsely cut, some tomatoes - diced, a skinless cucumber -diced, a couple of radishes – thinly sliced (I didn’t have those to use, but they work great). Mix the veggies together. 

Now for the crunch part: take some pita breads and carefully insert a knife in the middle in order to separate the two sides so you can cut the pita in half (basically, this bread is a like a giant, very thin, empty on the inside doughnut, that you want cut in half in order to obtain 2 slick sheets of bread). Use a brush or your fingers (whichever tastes better J) to very lightly coat the bread with some olive oil, then pop it in the pre-heated oven, high heat, for a minute, or until it reaches a dark brown color, similar to caramelized sugar. Remove the bread from the  oven and cut/brake it in to pieces for the salad. 

For the sour part, I mixed in some olive oil, about 2 tbs, the juice of half a lemon, 1 tbs of honey, a crushed garlic clove, some salt and pepper together (use a mortar and pestle to crush the garlic and mix the sauce in there), the result will be a tangy sauce that will counterbalance perfectly the rich hummus. For the traditional taste of fattoush, replace the lemon, or part of it with pomegranate molasses or juice. A different take would also be to add in even a couple of pomegranate seeds to the salad, that, besides giving great flavor to the sauce, also brings in for you some very nice, vibrant color.

And one last thing, the pita bread chips and some light aioli sauce= match made in heaven. 

Enjoy,