Traditional Cretan minced meat with spaghetti

TRADITIONAL CRETAN MINCED MEAT WITH SPAGHETTI

Ingredient

1.5 kg meat from the leg of pork

80 g balsamic vinegar

100 grams of wine

Salt and pepper

80 grams of olive oil

2 large dry onions

5 cloves garlic

A bit of red hot pepper

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 tsp oregano

1/2 pound spaghetti or linguini briskly

300 grams grated cheese for spaghetti.

Instructions

Cut the meat into strips. Cut with kitchen scissors each strip into smaller pieces.

The pieces should be about the size of chickpea.

It is better to do this job overnight.

Pour 2 TBs olive oil over the minced meat and stir. This way the small pieces of meat are covered with oil and will not dry during the night.

Peel and mince the onions and garlic.

Put the oil in a saucepan and place it over medium heat.

Put in onions and garlic. Stir occasionally until they become soft and tender.

Place the pieces of meat into the pot and mix.

Lower even further the heat and leave the meat to warm up and produce its fluids.

Add salt, pepper, cumin, and a little hot pepper.

Watch the minced to simmer but not burn.

Do not put any water.

Let the meat to simmer in its fluids.

Check from time to time to make it sure that it has not dried out, but that still has liquids.

Add the vinegar and wine and stir.

Let the meat simmer until soft and tender.

Remove the pot from the heat.

Put some cooked minced in a plate and taste the flavor of it.

If you don’t like it, correct seasoning.

SPAGHETTI

Put in a pot plenty of water and place it over high heat.

When the water boils, pour in half a pound pasta cutters and stir well.

Put a little salt in the water for better taste.

Each kind of pasta needs cooking specific number of minutes.

Read the instructions on the package and follow them. 

Remove the pasta from the heat and strain it. Wait until it drains well.

Put the pasta back into the same pot that you boiled it.

Put into the pasta two tablespoons of minced meat and some sauce.

Mix, so that sauce and fat goes everywhere and prevents pasta from sticking together.

Put again the pot on the heat and cook the pasta for two more minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat.

Sprinkle over the serving dishes grated cheese.

Serve the pasta over the cheese.

Put above pasta plenty of minced meat and sprinkle above it grated cheese.

Of course instead of macaroni you can use, spaghetti, or linguini, or any other kind of pasta.

If you want, you can make your own pasta, which is tastier than the pasta you find in commerce.                     

Homemade pasta

Dough

Ingredients                                                                                                                                    

120 g. olive oil

125 g. frozen margarine

1/2 cup of warm water

1/2 cup milk or kefir

1 egg

1 sachet of dry yeast

500 g. durum flour

Instructions

Dissolve in a cup of warm water the yeast.

Put in a bowl the olive oil.

Grate the margarine with tomato grater and put it in the bowl.

Stir well with a fork.

Add the dissolved yeast into the bowl and stir.

Gently knock the egg and add it into the bowl.

Add milk or kefir.

Mix all ingredients well and add the flour.

Knead well and seeks to achieve stiff dough.

Leave the dough covered with a towel on edge, to rest for half an hour.

Open a sheet moderate in thickness.

Cut the sheet into oblong strips of 5 cm width.

Place three strips one upon another.

Cut the pasta in rectangular 1 cm in width and 4-5 cm in length.

Sprinkle lots of flour over the pieces of pasta and wiggle back and forth to loosen them.

Keep going until you make all the macaroni you need.

You will cook all the macaroni you made.

If you live some for later use, they will dry up and will become useless.

How to cook the homemade pasta

Put the homemade macaroni in boiling water.

Pour a little salt.

Let them boil for five minutes. 
Put on a small plate a few macaronis and try them to see if they are ready.

If you think that they aren’t properly cooked, boil them two more minutes.

From this step continue as described above.

If you didn’t use all the dough, keep the remaining in a food bag in the freezer for another use.

Soup with rice and meatballs (Greek Giouvarlakia)

SOUP WITH RICE AND MEATBALLS (Greek Giouvarlakia)

Ingredients

1/2 kilo of ground beef

3 large onions

1 bunch parsley

1/2 cup rice

1/3 cup olive oil

Salt, pepper,

1/2 square cm hot red pepper

  

Egg and lemon sauce

Ingredients

2 eggs,

Juice of 2 medium lemons

Instructions

Peel the onions.

Chop one of them in the blender.

Put salt on the minced meat and knead it well to catch it.

Add a little ground pepper and two tablespoons of oil and knead. 

Add the chopped onion into the ground meat and knead again.

Clean and wash the parsley. Cut it in very small pieces and add it into the minced meat and knead.

Wash rice and strain it with a strainer.

Put the rice in the minced meat and knead to mix all the ingredients well.

Put in one pot water 3-3.5 liters and place it over high heat.

Once the water starts to boil, pour into it two onions finely cut.

Wait 2-3 minutes and then add salt and a little hot red pepper.

Put on your palm a piece of mixed ground beef as a nut.

With your hands make a small ball from it.

Place the little ball in the boiling water.

Repeat this process until you finish all the mixture of the ground beef.

Pour into the pot the remaining olive oil.

Reduce heat and let the giouvarlakia to boil over medium heat.

One and a half hour of cooking is enough to soften the rice and the ground beef.

Then is time to make the egg and lemon sauce.

Egg and lemon sauce

In a deep bowl knock two eggs well with the whisk.

While you continue mixing the eggs add the lemon juice little by little into it.

With a soup ladle take some boiling broth from the pot and pour it slowly into the eggs.

Stir constantly with the whisk.

Repeat this step three more times.

Remove the pot from the heat.

Pour slowly the egg and lemon sauce into the pot and mix with a ladle.

Let the food for a while to cool and then serve.

Giouvarlakia with feta

In this recipe you can replace the egg and lemon sauce with feta.

Put in each soup dish 50 grams feta and smash it with a fork.

Served with a soup ladle the giouvarlakia hot in the dish.

Feta cheese melts and mixes with the sauce of the food.

If anyone wants more or less salt in his food, increase or decrease the amount of feta acordingly. 

Meatballs fried

MEATBALLS FRIED

Ingredients

700 g. ground beef

2 large dry onions

6 cloves garlic

20g. olive oil + olive oil for frying

50 g. corn oil

1/2 tsp of ground cumin,

Oregano, a little pepper, a little grated coriander,

Flour for frying

1 medium potato

1 medium tomato, not ripe
1 large egg

15g. breadcrumbs

Istructions

Peel the onions and the garlic.

Chop them in the blender.

Put in a bowl the minced meat.

Add salt and knead the minced meat well.

Add the minced onions and garlic into the bowl.

Knead again the minced meat to mix it well with onions and garlic,

Pour olive oil over the previous mixture and knead again.

Add the herbs and knead again.

Mash in the blender the potato and add it into the minced meat. Knead again.

Mash in the blender the tomato and add it into the minced meat. Knead again.

Sprinkle over the meat the breadcrumbs. Knead again.
Break the egg into the minced meat and knead well to blended materials and flavors.

It is better to brew the minced meat overnight because the next day you can fry the meatballs.

This way you give the meat the time needed to settle the flavors.

Frying

Put in a nonstick pan olive oil until it covered the entire bottom.

Add into the pan the corn oil.

Place the pan over high heat and wait until the oil becomes hot.

Lay in the palm of your left hand flour.

Place over the flour a piece of meat, as a nut.

Buzz minced meat into your palm until it forms a little ball.

Place the little ball in the hot oil.

Continue this way until all the minced meat becomes meatballs.

Arrange the meatballs in the pan next to each other.

Reduce heat to medium.

Let meatballs cooked on one side and then turn on the other.

Do not leave the pan unattended because meatballs burn easily.

When cooked on both sides take them out on a platter, which is covered with kitchen paper towel.

The paper towel absorbs oil and the meatballs are not heavy.

Salad with beans and olives

SALAD WITH BEANS AND OLIVES

Ingredients

250 g. dried butter beans boiled,

250 g. white beans cooked separately from the mullet

350 g. drained pickles

1 large onion   + 3 green fresh onions

2 carrots

2 red peppers

150 grams of black olives with vinegar

1 bunch dill

1 tablespoon mustard powder or hot mustard

80 g. olive oil

1 tsp vinegar

Salt to taste

Instructions

Clean carrots, peppers, onions, scallions and dill and wash them well.

Finely chop the cucumber, peppers, carrots, olives, onions, scallions and dill and put them all into a bowl.

Add the mustard and oil and into the bowl and mix. Add cooked beans and remix.

Try the taste. If the salad needs more salt or vinegar add some.

 

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