Sweet cheese pies for Easter

EASTER KALITSOUNES

(Kalitsounes are sweet cheese pies)

Ingredients for the sheet

1 kg. self raising flour

1 cup olive oil

1 cup milk or kefir,

250 g. margarine from the refrigerator,

500 g. yoghurt,

50 g. sugar

1 sachet of dry yeast,

1/2 cup of warm water.

Stuffing

Ingredients

1500- 1700 g. Soft, white, unsalted cream cheese (1μυζήθρα ή κάποιο άλλο παρόμοιο τυρί)

2 eggs

120 g. of sugar

15 g. of cinnamon

Instructions

Stuffing

Put the cheese in a bowl.

Stir in the sugar and cinnamon and knead lightly.

Beat the eggs briefly and pour them into the cheese.                                    

Knead all the ingredients to homogenize the mixture.

How to make the dough

Dissolve yeast in a cup of warm water.

Put a TB of flour in the cup to proliferate fungi quickly.

Put a cup of olive oil in a bowl.

Grate the margarine with a tomato grater, in the olive oil.

Gently mix these ingredients with a fork.

Add the yeast and mix again with the fork.

Beat the eggs lightly and pour them in the bowl with the olive oil.

Stir in yoghurt and mix.

Add sugar and mix again.

Put the flour little by little into the bowl and stir constantly.

When the dough is soft and smooth and doesn’t stick to hands, stop adding flour.

Wrap the bowl with the dough around with plastic wrap and put over it a clean fluffy towel.

Leave the dough in a warm place to rise.

How to open the sheet

Sprinkle with flour the surface upon which you are going to work.

Take a part of the dough and with your hands open it in a thick sheet.

Sprinkle the sheet with flour and opening it more with a rolling pin.

The sheet should not be too thin, because then kalitsounes break easily.

Use a small platter 10 cm in diameter, to cut the sheet into small circular sheets.

Put water in a cup and dissolve 2 TB of sugar in it.

With a brush moisten lightly with water the circles of the sheet.

On each circle put a TB stuffing on the half sheet. Turn the other half of the sheet and cover the staffing.

The water that you have already put over the sheet helps the two halves of it to stick together and include the stuffing between them.

This prevents the filling from running out of kalitsounes.

The water helps to maintain kalitsounes soft.

Place the kalitsounes in pan next to each other.

Beat an egg lightly and coat the cheese pies from above.
With a toothpick puncture the upper surface of each pie and make small holes from which the air will escape and the pies will not burst.

Put the pan in the oven on the first rack from the bottom.

Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes.

Keep the kalitsounes in the refrigerator.                                                                                                                        

Posted by Katy hat-Kotsovinos at 1:43 pm

No c

Soup especially for Easter

SOUP FOR EASTER (mageiritsa in Greek)

This soup is especially made for the Easter. It is a difficult dish and needs a lot of preparation.

I can divide the work in five main steps.

In the first step you must cook and clean the lamb meat and the lamb head.

In the second step you must boil, clean and cut the viscera.

In the third step you must cook the viscera properly.

In the forth step you must cook all the meat together in the broth.

In the fifth step you must make the egg and lemon sauce and put it in the soup.

Ingredients

80 g. margarine

2TB olive oil

2 kilos of lamb or goat meat (from the neck or the front leg)

The head of one lamb or the head of one goat

1 large lamb pluck or two small plucks of goats

300 grams of fresh green onions

2 large eggs

2 large lemons

Salt to taste

50 grams Carolina rice

Instructions

Wash thoroughly the meat of the lamp and its head and put them in a very big pot.

Place the pot over high heat to boil.

Just before boiling, foam appears on the water surface.

With a ladle carefully remove the foam and toss it.

Put a little salt into the pot and leave the meat to boil for ten min. After that, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 2 hours.

When the meat is well cooked, it becomes soft and unsticks from the bones.

Remove with a slotted ladle the meat from the broth and put it in a pan to cool.

Later on, before using the meat in the soup, you will separate the meat from the bones.

Let the pot with the broth to cool completely.

Put this pot in the freezer for about fifteen minutes to coagulate the fat present in the broth.

When the fat thickens it forms a white layer that floats on the broth.

With a spoon, remove the white layer of fat and discard it.

The soup is lighter when the broth is defatted.

Strain the broth and let aside for later use.

Put 3 l water in another pot and place it over high heat to boil.

Once the water boils, pour in the pluck.

Let the pluck to boil 5-6 minutes and then remove it from the water.

Put it in a pan and let it to cool.

You should use only the parts of the pluck that when cooked become tender.

These parts are the liver, the heart, the lungs and some glands that the animal has around its neck.

Toss the rest of the pluck namely, all the fats, the bronchi and all the connecting tissue. 

With scissors cut the liver, the heart and the lungs into pieces that have the size of a small bean.

Keep these pieces in a bowl cover with a kitchen towel.

Remove with your fingers the glands that there are around the animals neck and put them in the previous bowl.

Kidney has a distinct taste which is not pleasant for each one.

Many people discard them.

If you want to use the kidneys, you must boil them first.

Put water in a small pot. Put it over high heat to boil.

Cut each kidney in the middle and put them in the boiling water.

Boil them for 10 min to get rid of their unpleasant odor.

Then cut the kidneys in small pieces and put them in the bowl with the rest of the intestines.

Now it is time to clean the boiled lamb meat.

Toss the fat, any pieces of skin you can find and the bones that there are in the meat.

With scissors cut the meat in pieces that have the size of a small bean.

Put those pieces of the meat in second bowl.

Take any pieces of meat you can find in the boiled head of lamb and put them in the second bowl with the meat.

Peel the onions from the outer leaves, rinse them and cut those in small pieces.

Put in a large and deep pot the margarine and the oil and place it over medium heat.

Once margarine is melted, throw in the chopped green onions and stir.

Sauté the onions until they become soft.

Stir in the green onions, the pieces of intestine of lamb and reduce heat.

Stir often to prevent sticking.

The pieces of lungs need to be cooked longer than the pieces of the liver.

Put a few pieces of lung in a small plate and try some of them to see if they are softened.

If they are not let them cook longer.

The viscera need to cook at least 40 minutes, to soften well.

With a spoon take some viscera and put them in a small plate.

Try them to see if they are soft and tender.

If they aren’t cook them more.

Wash the rice and strain it. (Rice may be omitted).

Put the rice in the pot with the viscera and stir.

Scour the dill and wash it well.

Put in the pot with the viscera the pieces of the boiled lamb meat and the pieces of meat from the lamb head.

Stir a few times and then pour in the strained broth of meat.

Finely chop the dill over the meat and add salt and pepper.

Boil all meat together over medium heat for 10 min.

 Turn off the heat.

Egg and lemon sauce

Squeeze two lemons.

Put in a bowl the eggs and beat them with a whisk.

Pour the lemon juice little by little into the eggs stirring continuously.

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

Repeat this 4 more times.

In this way the eggs are slowly cooked and the sauce remains smooth.

Remove the pot from the heat and pour in the soup the egg and lemon sauce stirring constantly.

Taste the soup and if necessary correct seasoning.

This soup in made every Easter and is served warm at midnight after the mass of the resurrection of the Christ.  

                                                                                                                                                            

Goat stew with rice

GOAT STEW WITH RICE

Ingredients

1.5 kg goat meet (I prefer the neck and front leg, but all parts of the animal are suitable)

Salt, pepper, oregano

1/3 of tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

100 g. olive oil

2 cups rice for pilaf

50 g. margarine

250 ml of whipping cream 30% fat

200 g. feta cheese

200 g. grated parmesan

The juice of one medium lemon

Half the peel of a small lemon

20g. flour

Instructions

Buy the meat overnight. Ask the butcher to cut it to 6 or 8 pieces.

Wash the meat and then marinate it.

Put salt, pepper, oregano on it and smear it around with oil.

Leave it overnight in the fridge.

The next day put it in a pot.

Pour water in the pot until it covers the meat and reaches three centimeters above it.

Put the pot over high heat and wait to boil.

Just before boiling, foam appears on the water surface.

Skim  the meat and toss the foam.

When the water boils reduce the heat to medium.

Leave the meat uncovered to boil for two hours.

After two hours, check if it is ready.

The meat is ready when it is soft and unsticks easily from bones.

Remove meat from broth and put it on a serving platter.

Add a little salt on top of it.

Leave it to cool.

You can make pilaf using some broth of the meat.

You can serve the meat with pilaf.

But you can create a different dish, which I describe below.

Goat meat with cheese sauce

Scour the boiled meat from fats, rinds and anything hard.

Cover the meat with aluminum foil and leave aside.

Put the pot with the broth in the freezer.

After 15 minutes a layer of fat is floating on the surface of the broth.

Take the pot from the freezer.

With a spoon remove the fat from the broth and toss it.

Strain the broth in a bowl.

Count how many cups of broth there are in the bowl.

A part of the broth you will use to make the pilaf and another part to make the sauce.

Pilaf

Put in a small pot 5-6 cups broth.

Place the pot over high heat to boil.

Put the rice in a colander and rinse under the tap.

Leave it to drain briefly.

Put in another pot the remaining olive oil and place the pot over low heat.

Pour the rice into this pot and stir. 

Let the rice to cook briefly. Stir frequently to avoid burning.

Pour the boiling broth to the rice and stir.

Add salt and the lemon peel.

Let the rice boil for 10 min and then pour in the lemon juice.

Continue cooking until the rice is softened.

Remove it from the heat.

Meat sauce

Put a nonstick skillet over medium heat.

Put in 50 grams margarine and stir it to melt.

Add 20g.flour and stir continuesly, until it is cooked.

Drop into the pan the pieces of purified meat and stir.

Let them simmer for two minutes.

Pour the cream in the skillet and stir.

Add the feta smashed and the parmesan grated and stir.

Pour 2 cups broth in the skillet.

Add grated cumin, grated coriander and a little ground pepper.

Let all the ingredients to boil for a few min until the sauce thickens slightly.

Serving

Make in the middle of a dish a knoll of pilaf.

Over the top of the knoll put as many tablespoons of meat sauce as you want.