Cretan Dakos, or Koukouvayia (Owl) - Ντάκος

I have returned from my Blog Interruptus with a tale of autumn adventures on the island of Crete, along with a recipe for all those tomatoes in the pantry. Enjoy!

Cretan Dakos - Click to Enlarge Image

In my travels about Greece, I have been to Crete twice. The first time I touched foot on the legendary isle of King Minos, I spent a day there as one leg of an Aegean culture cruise; we visited Knossos and the Herakleion Museum. I was so inspired by my visit to the former that I was left with a burning desire to return someday and see more of that famous isle. As I sailed away that first time from the Cretan shoreline, I half-expected Talos to appear along the coast to see me off...

Years later, I landed on Cretan soil again. This time, I spent a couple months exploring the island by foot, motorbike, and boat. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my sojourn there had the character of a sacred pilgrimage, or perhaps it was something akin to an initiatory walkabout or rite of passage. In every way that mattered, I was committed to seeing Crete's wild places and exploring her backcountry, and to learning about her people and their folkways. In short, I was intent on immersing myself into the geist of the place. Yes, my purpose was to commune with the very spirit of Crete herself. With that in mind, I threw myself upon the tender mercies of the Fates.

I arrived in Herakleion in mid-September and stayed on Crete till mid-November. The weather was generally good, the tourist season was over, and the seas were at their warmest having been heated by the sun all summer long. During my visit, I camped on shorelines, slept in hostels and hotels, was a guest in private homes, and once, I even spent a frigid night in a desolate shepherd's redoubt on the upper slopes of Mount Ida (Psiloritis). Suffice it to say, I gained an intimate knowledge of Cretan topography; from the island's northern shoreline to its southern beaches and meandering coastlines, I immersed myself in the landscape. I traversed Crete's mountainous backbone on foot, starting from the mythical Idaeon Andron and the Nidha Plateau, and ending up in the great Messara Plain on her southern flank.

This course brought me into contact with Crete's people and history in a manner that few tourists get to experience anymore. Best of all, I kept a careful journal of my Cretan travels which allows me to relive most aspects of that trip. I am grateful for the experiences themselves, as well as the opportunity to share them with others.

Interestingly enough, I was aided in my efforts to discover the Cretan way of life by an Englishman and his half-Greek wife. If Steve, or Tina Pryor, ever read these words, I want them to know that our meeting remains an inspirational highlight of my life. I thank them for introducing me to Crete, and to their little village of Axos, which lies in the afternoon shadow of Mount Ida (Psilotiris). The two of them welcomed and shepherded me into the bosom of that most ancient land. I shall never forget their generosity.

Crete is a universe unto itself. From her bustling port cities on the northern shore, to the timeless isolation of hamlets in out of the way inlets along her southern coast, there is something for everyone on Crete. In a popular Greek song, Nikos Xilouris refers to Crete as "the key to Paradise", and I am convinced that he was correct. Which brings me to another salient point.

The Cretans are natural poets. To this day, they maintain a wonderful facility with a syntactical arrangement that forms the basis of Greek folk poetry and verse: decapentesyllabic (fifteen syllable) rhyming couplets. Try saying that ten times fast! In any given situation, a Cretan is able and quite willing to produce a ditty-on-the-spot, if you will. At such moments, they will be able to cleverly rhyme off something playfully erotic or satirical. These couplets are called mantinades and they are usually accompanied by the plaintive strains of the Cretan lyra. It really is marvellous to observe, most especially after a few glasses of tsikoudia, a grape marc spirit (Cretan 'moonshine').

Along with all her physical beauty, her mythology, history, poetry and music, Crete offers one more bounty for restless spirits: the Cretan diet. Much has been said or written about the cuisine of Crete and I will not exhaust the topic in this post. Suffice it to say, the Cretan diet in all its simplicity and salubrity is the original inspiration for what is today known as the "Mediterranean" diet.

As we are blessed with a surfeit of tomatoes from this year's kitchen garden, I have been using them up as quickly as possible. One of my favourite ways to enjoy an unconventional tomato salad is the Cretan Dakos, or as it is also called, Koukouvayia (Owl), pronounced as "koo-koo-VAH-yee-ah". My understanding is that it takes this name from its resemblance to the eye of an owl when viewed from above. This owl-eye effect is even more pronounced when two Dakos are placed side by side on a plate.

Owl's eye view - Click to Enlarge Image

Ingredients:

Cretan barley rusks
Fresh tomatoes, diced
Real Greek Feta cheese, crumbled
Greek extra virgin olive oil (try Kolympari, an excellent Cretan olive oil)
Fresh mint. finely chopped
Dried Greek oregano
Red wine (optional)
Olives

1. Soak the Cretan barley rusk slightly w/water or a splash or two of red wine and set aside for a couple minutes.
   
2. Drizzle the rusk with olive oil and let it sit for another couple minutes until the oil is absorbed, then drizzle another tablespoon or so over top of it.
3. Combine the diced tomato with the chopped mint and top the rusk with the mixture, then add the crumbled feta cheese, a pinch of oregano, and another touch of olive oil.
4. Finish by placing an olive on top of it all.

Serve and enjoy!

Pánta Kalá! (Always Be Well)


Sam Sotiropoulos
Greek Gourmand™
http://www.greekgourmand.com
Greek Food Recipes and Reflections
Copyright © 2008, Sam Sotiropoulos. All Rights Reserved.

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Village Greek Salad (Χωριάτικη Ντοματοσαλάτα)

Village Greek salad in all its glory - Click to Enlarge Image

Exactly when the tomato arrived in Greece is a matter of conjecture; there are various apocryphal anecdotes and references but nothing definitive. One thing is certain; it arrived sometime after Columbus returned from the New World in 1493. The tomato is native to the Americas and was introduced to Europe after the Discovery made by the great 15^th Century navigator on his celebrated voyage across the Atlantic. If Christopher Columbus was of Greek origin as some claim, it may have arrived in Greece earlier than commonly supposed. In any case, the tomato qua tomato has been a part of European and Greek recipes for no more than a few centuries all told. It is downright astonishing how this species of nightshade spread and insinuated itself into the national cuisines of the European continent in such a relatively short time. After all, where would Italian cooking be without the tomato? How about the Spanish food fight festival known as the Tomatina? What of Greek salad?

Like the Italians and the Spanish, Greeks use the tomato in everything from casseroles to soups; they stuff them, roast them, bake them, fry them, dry them, grate them, pulp them, and turn ‘em into sauce. Opa! But the single most popular way for tomatoes to be consumed in Greece is in a salad; and not just any salad of course, but a Greek salad. Just what makes a Greek salad anyway? If you ask a Greek this question, he/she may require clarification. “What kind of salad do you mean?” they might ask. After all, Greeks have all manner of salads or salates as they call them (in Gk. pronounced “sah-LAH-tehs”, which is plural for “sah-LAH-tah”); from Taramosalata, to Lahanosalata, to every kind of salata you can imagine… and even some you cannot. In short, Greeks are the biggest salad eaters on the planet; for them everything is potentially a salad.

So, if what you mean by Greek salad is a tomato salad that includes feta cheese, olive oil and oregano as its most basic constituents, you will need to be specific. More often than not, if you are in a Greek restaurant, both in Greece and abroad, the classic tomato salad with feta cheese is usually referred to as a ‘horiatiki salata’. The word horiatiki is Greek for “village” and is pronounced as “hor-YIA-tiki”. Typically, a horiatiki salad will include onions and cucumbers as well, and in most cases black olives too. As my family is from Arcadia in the Peloponnese we also include Greek pepperoncini in our version of the famous salad, as the small “Golden Greek Peppers” are a specialty of our region.


My father's pride and joy, a 1 kg. tomato! - Click to Enlarge Image

I used tomatoes from our kitchen garden for this dish, as we still have quite a few left. My father-in-law brought us some seed from Greece in the spring, so our tomatoes are actual Greek tomatoes. Yesterday, I pulled the remaining tomatoes off the vines as we had a frost warning for the overnight period. This year, the family prize for the largest tomato went to my father who managed to grow a truly behemoth bunch of tomatoes; the largest of which was a 1 kg (2.2 lb) monster, as pictured above. The award was a bottle of ouzo. The monster tomato ended up in a salad exactly like the one pictured in this recipe, and it was tasty!

Ingredients:

3 medium sized ripe tomatoes cut into quarters or sixths
½ a cooking onion, sliced
½ a cucumber, peeled, halved and sliced
Several Greek pepperoncini (be sure to squeeze them to drain the brine before using)
Some Kalamata or wrinkled black olives (the choice is yours)
½ cup (125 ml.) crumbled Greek Feta cheese
¼ cup (60 ml.) Greek extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons (30 ml.) Greek wine vinegar* (optional, I normally do not add it)
1 teaspoon (5 ml.) dried Greek oregano
Fresh ground pepper
Salt to taste* (optional, I normally do not add it as the Feta is already salty enough)

1. Wash and cut the tomatoes, cucumbers and onions and put them together into a salad bowl.
2. Add several olives and pepperoncini to the bowl.
3. Sprinkle the crumbled feta overtop of the vegetables, then follow with fresh ground pepper, oregano, and the olive oil (salt and vinegar are also options at this point, but are not required ingredients. I do not add salt because as I stated above the Feta cheese is already quite salty, and any additional salt will only serve to make the tomatoes drain their water, thereby limiting the standing time of the salad).
4. Mix everything together a couple turns, but don’t overdo it, and serve.

Kali Orexi! (Bon Appetit)

Sam Sotiropoulos
Greek Gourmand™
http://www.greekgourmand.com
Greek Food Recipes and Reflections
Copyright © 2008, Sam Sotiropoulos. All Rights Reserved.

Read More..