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| Portrait of Irene by Bill Cook |
My sister Irene Gevezes has been living on Ikaria, a Greek
island in the Aegean Sea for almost 40 years. Among her many skills and
talents, Irene has become a formidable cook and during a previous visit to the
island, I filmed Irene as she prepared a number of traditional Greek dishes
including purslane salad,
lemon-peel spoon sweet, and goatsmilk cheese.
Now that I am back on the island for an extended stay, I
have started filming more recipes with her, and these will be added to my YouTube channel as each is completed.
In the video below, Irene is making a traditional slice, or
pie, using ingredients sourced mostly from her home garden. Even the grated
goats milk cheese she uses in the pie is made from the milk she gets daily from
her own goats.
Pumpkin & Fennel Pie
Main Ingredients:
Pumpkin, fennel, spring onions,
silver beet, plain flour, two eggs beaten, grated goat milk cheese.
Herbs & Spices:
Mint, lemon balm, turmeric,
cumin, salt and pepper, 8g yeast,
Also:
Water, olive oil, vinegar, Raki
or Ouzo as needed.
Preheat oven to 180C (Irene uses
an electric oven)
I am not going to give a detailed description of the
preparation and cooking processes here. You can see those in the video. I will
say though, that the whole process―from 'go to whoa'―will take several hours,
which includes preparation and cooking time.
Early in the video I say to Irene that she has not
"measured" any of the ingredients. Of course, throughout the
preparation and cooking process Irene does measure the ingredients, although
not by weight. Mostly she is measuring by quantity. For example, we see
a large colander full of fennel, and a large orange plastic bowl full of diced
pumpkin and chopped silver beet leaves. Also, when Irene places all the
ingredients into the large saucepan it is filled to the brim.
If you are going to make this pie, or slice, don't worry
about preparing too much filler or pastry. As Irene points out in the video,
she simply freezes any excess filler and pastry for later use (the left over
pastry makes a great pizza base as well).
If you don't have access to homemade goat milk cheese (and
how many of us do?), substitute grated feta cheese, mozzarella, or other white
cheese of your choice.
Finally, in the early part of the video Irene uses the
expression "wilt it" while preparing to cook the fennel. What Irene
means by this is to simmer the fennel (and later the pumpkin) on low heat until
thoroughly cooked.
If you have any questions. Don't hesitate to ask them via
the Comments section below. I will pass them on to Irene and add the answers in
the same manner.
