Little Cooking Tips - Eggs

Greek scrambled eggs with tomatoes (Kagianas or Strapatsada)

littlecookingtips — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 20:13:51 +0000

Greek scrambled eggs with tomatoes (Kagianas or Strapatsada)

Photo and text by Panos Diotis and Mirella Kaloglou.

Calories (per serving):

611

Servings:

serves 2

Preparation Time:

10 minutes

Cooking Time:

10 minutes

This recipe is one of the most popular here in Greece during the summer.

Strapatsada, or Kagianas as it is called here, is a quick and easy recipe made with simple ingredients: Tomatoes, eggs and olive oil. Basically, you scramble the eggs with some grated tomatoes and olive oil and serve. As simple as that; yes, it sounds very simplistic (after all this was a peasant's food), but its taste is not! This end result is a food with a complex, amazing flavor!

Of course, as with many simple Greek recipes likes that, there are dozens of variations.

The usual way of serving this, is with a little crumbled feta on top and some fresh baked or toasted bread. What can you add in this recipe? Some onion or bell peppers, sautéed before adding in the rest of the ingredients. You can also add herbs, like dry oregano, fresh mint, fresh dill, fresh parsley, fresh or dry thyme...You can add spices, like a pinch of cinnamon in the grated tomato. The combinations are endless.

This is a recipe used for breakfast, lunch, or a quick and filling snack. You only need about 3-4 minutes of preparation (grating the tomatoes) and less than 10 minutes of total cooking time.

That's why this is a comfort food that many of us grew up with. Most of us have wonderful memories of a quick, delicious summer lunch with eggs and tomatoes scramble, when the family returned tired from the beach.

In this recipe, we suggest our favorite version of Kagianas, where we add coarsely chopped onion, dry oregano and feta. We think this way the recipe remains simple, and the taste is fantastic!

So, now that the summer is here and the tomatoes are ripe and tasty, let's see how to make this wonderful tomato and egg scramble!

Ingredients:

- 2 medium sized tomatoes (400gr/14oz), coarsely grated

- 1 small red onion (60gr/2oz), coarsely chopped

- 1 teaspoon dry oregano

- 2 eggs, beaten

- 90ml/6 tablespoons olive oil

- salt*, pepper

- 50-100gr/1.7-3.5oz crumbled feta for serving (optional)

*Don’t add much salt if you serve with feta

Preparation:

Remove the green core from the center of each tomato and cut in half (pic.1). Using a hand grater (box is better), coarsely grate each half (pic.2-3-4).

Pour the olive oil in a medium or large skillet and put in on medium to high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onion and sauté for a couple of minutes, until translucent.

Add the tomatoes and the oregano (pic. 5) and cook until most of the moisture is evaporated (pic. 6). Add the eggs (pic. 7) and cook until they set, about a couple of minutes.

Sprinkle with feta and serve with lots of toasted bread! Kali oreksi!

Tips:

1. If the tomatoes aren't sweet enough (not very ripe), you can add a pinch of sugar when you add them in the skillet.

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Method:

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Easy Creamy Hollandaise Sauce with Garlic

littlecookingtips — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:10:37 +0000

Easy Creamy Hollandaise Sauce with Garlic

Photo and text by Panos Diotis and Mirella Kaloglou.

Calories (per serving):

209

Servings:

serves 4

Cooking Time:

20 minutes

Hollandaise is one of the 5 mother sauces of the French haute cuisine which can be easily altered to produce dozens of other sauces. It’s a simple creamy sauce, made with butter and egg yolks, having an optional addition of lemon juice.

We love using Hollandaise and changing it according to the dishes we serve. The most common and popular combinations for serving Hollandaise is with eggs Benedict, or steamed vegetables. Fish is another popular choice for this sauce.

In this recipe we chose to add some garlic in the sauce in order to serve it with fried fish fillets. The result was amazing! We also used the same sauce with steamed veggies many times and it was a great success.

Many people are reluctant to make Hollandaise at home, because some recipes are a bit complicated. Most recipes are suggesting clarified butter. This means you have to make it, or you have to find some store with Ethnic/Deli food and buy Ghee that’s an Indian version of clarified butter. It’s true that an Hollandaise sauce made with clarified butter has a lighter taste. But this isn’t mandatory for Hollandaise.

You can also use some good quality butter, without melting it and clarifying it first, and the result will be superb! How do we do that? With this recipe we are using a very quick and easy method of making Hollandaise. This way we can have a beautiful creamy sauce for any occasion. If you don’t like garlic, simply omit it, and make a traditional Hollandaise using the same recipe.
Now let’s see how we prepare it!

Ingredients:

- 2 egg yolks (large eggs)
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons water
- 100gr/3.5oz (about 7 tablespoons) cold butter, cut in large cubes
- 1 garlic clove, minced

Pour some water (about 1 inch) in a small pot and place it over high heat (pic.1).

Select a metallic bowl that can cover the pot as a lid if placed on it (slightly wider than the pot’s opening). Make sure that the bowl does not touch the water surface.
Add the yolks, the lemon juice, the water and the butter in the bowl and set aside (pic.2).

Once the water in the pot starts boiling, turn off the heat. In seconds, the water settles down. Place the bowl on the pot and start whisking vigorously (pic.3). You want to use the steam/vapor from the water under the bowl to cook the sauce. Add the garlic and salt (pic.4).

Whisk for a few minutes until the sauce thickens. Serve warm.

Tips:

1. Make sure that the water has stopped boiling before you place the bowl on the pot. You do not want to overheat the bowl and “cook” the eggs. This is a bain marie cooking method.
2. Do not get anxious if the sauce doesn’t seem to thicken in the first couple of minutes. It will, just keep whisking!

Meal:

Sauces - Marinades - Syrups

Method:

Pot

Cuisine:

Europe

Main Ingredients:

Eggs

Special Characteristics:

Fast&Easy

Low Cost

Vegetarian

Cherry “Cheesecake” French Toast Sandwich

littlecookingtips — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:26:18 +0000

Cherry “Cheesecake” French Toast Sandwich

Photo and text by Panos Diotis and Mirella Kaloglou.

Calories (per serving):

255

Servings:

serves 2

Cooking Time:

10 minutes

This French toast recipe is one of our top ones. We love having it for breakfast but also sometimes as a quick, easy and delicious dessert :)

French toast, also known as eggy bread, is one of the simplest things you can cook of course;
You just soak some bread slices in beaten eggs and milk and fry it in butter. You can have French toast as a sweet dish, adding sugar, vanilla or cinnamon or a savory one, adding salt or bacon and/or other delicious condiments. For many people (us included), French toast is one of the first things we tried when we were learning how to cook.

The advantages of French toast? You can make it very quickly, you need just a few ingredients, it's affordable, and you can also make some use of any stale or leftover bread.
And of course, it’s DELICIOUS!

Also, if you 're looking for a wonderful breakfast in bed for you special someone, like in Valentine's day, this is the recipe you can use to surprise him/her with. Even if you don't celebrate Valentine's Day, you can still use this recipe to make something scrumptious for your significant other on a day of your choosing. You can also serve this as a more "festive" breakfast with your family, starting their day with a delicious treat. This breakfast will surely be remembered.

When you make French toast, the range of possibilities is endless. In this version, we suggest a stuffed French toast recipe. We mixed cream cheese with a wonderful organic cherry jam, and made French toast sandwiches using milk, vanilla and sugar, dusting them with powdered sugar and cinnamon before serving.
Of course, you don't need to prepare anything the day before. You just mix the 2-ingredient cheesecake-like stuffing and use it right away!

There are two easy methods to create the French toasts in this recipe:
The first one is Mirella's favorite: In this version, you fry the soaked bread slices and then you add the stuffing, making the sandwich. This version is a bit crispier.
The second one is Panos' favorite, where you add the stuffing in the bread slices, making the sandwich, and then you dip the whole thing in the milk-egg-vanilla bowl to soak before frying it. This is a less crispy perhaps version, but it’s juicier.
Both versions are completed by dusting some powdered sugar and cinnamon. And both are delicious :)

So let's start making this easy, simple and yet so special breakfast.

Ingredients:

For the filling
- 45g (2 tablespoons+1teaspoon) cream cheese
- 45g (2 tablespoons) cherry jam

For the batter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
- 1 egg
- 20g ( 2 tablespoons) sugar
- 60ml (1/4 cup), milk

Mix the cream cheese and the jam in a medium sized bowl, until smooth (pic.1, pic.2).

Beat the eggs in large bowl (pic.1) and add the milk (pic.2), the sugar (pic.3) and the vanilla (pic.4). Whisk to combine (pic.5).
Add some butter (2-3 tablespoons) on a large skillet/frying pan and put it on medium heat. When it melts, swirl to coat.

Method 1 (crispier):

Dip a bread slice in the egg-milk mixture to soak. Make sure every part of the bread is soaked (pic.1).
Put it in the skillet and cook until golden on both sides (2-3 minutes). Flip halfway through (pic.2).
Remove from skillet and put on a plate. Cut in half diagonally to form triangles.
Put some of the filling (about 1 tablespoon, pic.3) on one half and top with the other to form a sandwich.
Dust with some powdered sugar and cinnamon (use a small strainer).

Method 2 (juicier):

Cut a bread slice in half (diagonally) to form triangles.
Put some of the filling (about 1 tablespoon, pic.1) on one half and top with the other to form a sandwich.
Dip the sandwich in the egg-milk mixture to soak. Make sure every part of the bread is soaked (pic.2).
Put it in the skillet (pic.3) and cook until golden on both sides (2-3 minutes). Flip halfway through (carefully, use a spatula).
Remove from skillet and put on a plate.
Dust with some powdered sugar and cinnamon (use a small strainer).

Kali oreksi!

Tips:

1. You can use a cookie cutter to cut shapes out of your bread slices for various occasions (Christmas tree sandwiches, heart sandwiches for Valentine’s Day etc.).
2. If the bread slice turns brown very quickly (under 20 seconds), or the butter starts to smoke, it means the heat is still too high. Remove the skillet for a while, lower the heat further and then put it back on.

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Method:

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Special Characteristics:

Fast&Easy

Low Cost

Vegetarian

Creme Brulee (Crème Brûlée) with a beautiful Mastic flavour

littlecookingtips — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:10:52 +0000

Creme Brulee (Crème Brûlée) with a beautiful Mastic flavour

Photo and text by Panos Diotis and Mirella Kaloglou

Calories (per serving):

237

Servings:

serves 4

Cooking Time:

1 hour

We all know the classic Creme Brulee. This recipe is a bit different; instead of using just vanilla or lemon/orange zest for aroma, we also used the amazing Chios mastic.
For this recipe try to find the original Chios mastic with its unique flavour, as there are imitations available that do not have the same taste.

Ingredients:

- 7 egg yolks (6 if using large eggs)
- 500ml (2 cups) full fat cream
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
- 1 teaspoon of Chios Mastic, crushed into powder
- 3-4 teaspoons of white sugar for the caramel frosting

Put a small pot on medium to high heat and add the cream.
When the cream is hot (it's starting simmering), remove from heat and add the Mastic and the vanilla. Stir well to incorporate into the cream.
Put the egg yolks and the sugar in a big bowl and whisk for a while to create a smooth result.
Add the cream mixture in the yolks-sugar mix, stirring continuously, until combined.
Pour the result into 4 ramekins and put them in a small baking pan.
Add warm water in the baking pan (be careful not to drop water into the cream in the ramekins), until the water level covers 1/3 of the ramekins (in height).
Bake in 150 degrees Celsius (300 Fahrenheit) for 50 minutes.
Remove the ramekins from the baking pan, and leave them aside for 20 minutes to cool down.
Next, put them in the fridge, at least for 2-3 hours.
Sprinkle the surface of each cream with about 1 teaspoon of sugar and tilt the ramekin to create an even sugar layer.
Using a kitchen torch (in low setting) caramelize the sugar. If you don't have a kitchen torch, you can use the oven's grill in its highest setting, leaving the oven door open (to avoid baking).
Put the cream in the fridge for another 40 minutes and it's ready to serve!
It may seem a bit fussy, but it's not! It's actually an easy recipe ...and the result will be very rewarding!

Tips:

1. The type of sugar which you will use for the caramel topping will define the caramel thickness. If your prefer a lot of caramel, then use brown sugar. If you like a thin, fine layer of caramel, use caster sugar. Our suggestion is to use classic white sugar, as the result is satisfying to most people.
2. If you use a torch, make sure you have the appropriate space and the right surface to work on (metal or marble/stone surface is recommended) in order to avoid any accident. And be careful!

Meal:

Method:

Cuisine:

Main Ingredients:

Special Characteristics:

Low Cost