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Cretan Easter Lamb or Goat with Wild Greens and Egg-Lemon Sauce

Cretan Lamb and Greens Casserole with Egg-Lemon Sauce / Arni Fricasse

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 1/2 pounds lamb shoulder, cut into stewing pieces

2 cups coarsely chopped onion

2 1/2 pounds trimmed greens (any combination of spinach, chard, chicory, sorrel, wild fennel, vine shoots,  bryony, or thistles)

Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce:

2 large eggs

Fresh strained juice of 2 lemons

Heat the olive oil in a large wide stewing pot and add the lamb. Brown on all sides over medium-high heat. Remove and set aside. Add the onions to the pot and saute, stirring,  over medium heat until translucent, about eight minutes. Place the meat back in the pot and stir together with the onions. Season with salt and pepper. Add enough water just to cover the lamb. Cover the pot and simmer for about one and a half  hours.

In the meantime, wash and drain the greens. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil and blanch the greens for a few minutes to wilt. Drain and rinse under cold water in a colander. Add the greens to the lamb and continue cooking for another half hour. Add more water during cooking if necessary. There should always be liquid in the pot.

Make the avgolemono: Using a wire whisk, beat the eggs and lemon together until frothy and then  take a ladleful of pot juices and add them to the egg mixture in a slow steady stream, whisking all the while. Pour the avgolemono into the pot, remove from heat, and tilt pan so that the sauce is evenly distributed. Serve immediately.

Lamb Baked in Greek Yogurt is a specialty of Epirus.

Lamb or Goat Baked in Yogurt / Arni Psimeno se Yiaourti

Makes 4-6 servings

1 leg of lamb, bone in (about 4 lbs.)

5 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

2-3 tbs. Olive oil

Thyme

Freshly ground black pepper

3 cups strained Greek yogurt

4 eggs, lightly beated

Salt

Lemon juice

Olive Oil

3 tbs honey (optional)

Wash the meat. Make small sharp incisions all over the surface of the meat. Ground the garlic, 2-3 tbs. Olive oil, a little thyme and pepper together in a mortar and pestle. Stuff the incisions with this mixture. Rub the lamb all over with olive oil and lemon juice, salt, pepper and additional thyme. Roast on a rack in a preheated oven at 400 degrees F. Roast the lamb for about 50 minutes.

Whisk together the eggs, yogurt and pan juices  and pour over the lamb. Add honey to the mixture during whisking if desired. Bake for another 35-40 minutes, until the yogurt solidifies and forms a golden crust.

Macedonian braised lamb with parsley and egg-lemon

Parsley-Scented Braised Lamb with Avgolemono

Parsley, the Macedonian herb par excellence, is a main player in this local dish.

6 to 8 servings

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1-2 kilos (2-4½ lbs.) lamb shoulder, bone in, cut into serving pieces

750 gr. (1½ lb.) fresh flat-leaf parsley, stems removed and leaves finely chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 large egg, separated

Juice of 2 large lemons

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and brown the lamb. Stir in the parsley and reduce the heat to low. Season with salt and pepper. Add enough water to come about halfway up the contents of the pot. Cover and simmer until the lamb is very tender, about 1½ hours, adding water if necessary to prevent sticking. There should always be liquid in the pot.

When the lamb is cooked, prepare the egg-lemon sauce: Beat the white until foamy and almost stiff. Whisk the yolk and lemon juice together. Fold the yolk-and-lemon mixture into the beaten white. Add a ladleful of the pot juices to the egg mixture in a slow steady stream, whisking all the while. Pour the avgolemono into the pot, remove the pot from the heat, and tilt the pot so that the sauce is distributed evenly.

Byzanti

Byzanti / Paschal Lamb Stuffed with Rice, Pine Nuts and Raisins 

Easter in the Aegean is a feast  not of spit-roasted lamb—the cliché image of the Greek paschal table—but of stuffed, wild island goat. Spring herbs, especially wild fennel, nuts, rice, spring onions, and sometimes cheese go into the mix, which is  then stuffed into the cavity of the goat before baking it, typically in a wood-burning oven. I have never been able to trace the root of the name of this unique stuffed island goat recipe, which hails from the remote island of Karpathos and is seasoned most unusually with cloves, a spice reserved for the pastry kitchen in most of the rest of Greece.

1 whole milk-fed goat, about 10 pounds/5 kilos, plus viscera (liver, kidneys, and lungs)

3 lemons

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup extra virgin Greek olive oil

½ cup unsalted butter

10 scallions, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tablespoon cumin powder, or more to taste

1 tablespoon cinnamon powder

½ tablespoon ground cloves

4 cups short grain rice

4 cups  tomatoes plus juices, finely chopped

1 cup pine nuts, toasted

1 cup golden sultanina raisins

3 cups  fresh dill, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 375˚F (190οC).

Rinse the goat very well inside and out. Pat dry. Cut the lemons in half and rub them over the body and inside the cavity of the lamb, squeezing as you go. Season the lamb or goat generously with salt. Set aside.

Rinse, drain, and finely chop the liver, kidneys and lungs. Heat half the olive oil and butter in a large, wide pot over medium heat and cook the chopped viscera until lightly browned. Add the scallions and garlic and cook until soft. Add the rice and stir to coat. Add the spices and stir for a minute or so to release their aroma. Pour in the tomatoes. Season generously with salt and pepper. Cook until the liquid is reduced by about half. The mixture should be loose. Add the pine nuts, raisins, and dill. Set aside to cool.

Carefully stuff the cavity of the goat with the rice mixture. Sew it closed with a large needle and thread. Rub the goat with remaining butter and olive oil and season the outside generously with salt and pepper. Roast uncovered for one hour to brown. Reduce heat to 300˚F/150˚C and continue roasting slowly for another 2 to 3 hours, or until the goat is very tender.

Baby Goat Braised with Wild Fennel

Goat Braised with Wild Fennel

Goat and wild fennel are a natural duet of flavors all over Greece in the spring.

Serves 4 to 6

2 pounds/1 kilo goat, cut into serving pieces on the bone

¼ cup flour

Salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup extra virgin Greek olive oil

6 scallions or spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped

6 fresh garlic cloves and upper greens, peeled and finely chopped

2/3 cup dry white wine

Pinch of sugar

Juice of 1 ½ lemons

2 cups chopped wild fennel or 2 medium fennel bulbs, finely          chopped and 1 bunch dill, finely chopped

Season the flour with salt and pepper and dredge the meat, shaking off any excess. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium flame and sear the meat, turning it with kitchen tongs to brown on all sides. Remove the meat to a plate.

Add the scallions, fresh garlic, and, if using, the chopped fennel bulb in the pot. Stir for a few minutes until soft. Place the meat back in the pot. Pour in the wine. As soon as the alcohol steams off, add enough water to cover the meat. Season with salt and pepper. Cover, bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour and 40 minutes, or until the meat is so tender it falls off the bone. Check liquid content every so often and add water as needed.

About halfway through the cooking time, add the wild fennel or dill to the pot. Pour in the lemon juice, stir, and resume cooking until the meat is done. Remove, cool slightly, and serve.

Psima

Halkidiki-Style Easter Lamb, Baked over Herbed Rice

Lamb and goat baked over vegetables are Easter specialties in various parts of Macedonia. In Pella and Goumenissa, for example, a similar dish calls for baking the meat in an egg crust over scallions. This dish, called Psima in local parlance, is also baked over a hearty layer of vegetables and rice and made even more flavourful with the addition of raisins, a traditional product in Halkidiki.

Serves 8 to 10

Salt

1 pound/1/2 kilo lamb’s liver (optional), trimmed of membranes

4 ½ pounds/2 ¼ kilos lamb shoulder, bone-in, trimmed of fat and          cut into stewing-size pieces

Freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup extra virgin Greek olive oil

¼ cup/1/2 stick unsalted butter

2 pounds/1 kilo spring onions or scallions, white and green parts,          cleaned and cut into 2-inch (5 cm) pieces

1 cup short-grain rice

1 cup golden seedless raisins

1 cup chopped fresh dill

½ cup chopped fresh mint leaves

3 ½ cups water

Preheat the oven to 375˚F/ 190˚C and lightly oil a large baking pan.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil and blanch the liver, if using, for 5 to 8 minutes until it has changed color completely. Remove and finely chop.

Wash, trim, and pat dry the meat with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over high heat and sear the meat, turning to brown on all sides. Remove from the pot.

Using the same pot add the butter and sauté the spring onions, rice, raisins and herbs, and season with salt and black pepper. Add the chopped liver to the rice mixture.

Spread the rice mixture over the bottom of the pan and place the meat on top. Pour in the water. Cover with a sheet of aluminum foil.

Bake for 1 ½ to 2 hours, adding more water to the rice mixture if necessary. Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, and serve.

Easter on Ikaria, spit-roasting a goat at Agios Isidoros.

My friend Ilia once spent half a day in a London park turning a whole lamb over a pit of hot coals, anticipating the moment when he’d cut the crisp garlicky meat and find in every morsel the smells and flavors that would carry him back, even if momentarily, to Greece at Easter. Instead, as if to confirm that wet, soggy England was just the wrong place to be at the height of spring, the lamb turned out to be a leaden uncooked mass, spit-roasted over too low a heat from too high a distance. Demoralized, disappointed, but persistent, they ate it anyway, accompanied by a salad of tasteless English lettuce, potatoes, and wine in vast amounts to help them forget.

Moral of the story: Spit-roasting a whole lamb (or goat) isn’t as easy as it seems.

While I have never attempted to sully my otherwise untainted police record abroad by tying up an animal and burning it at the stake (which is what a New York cop would probably accuse), I couldn’t conceive of Easter in our village without partaking in the rite. Although the souvla is otherwise a tradition of mainlanders, especially those from Roumelli, it makes for such a good time that the tradition has been adopted by almost the entire country. There are though certain rules of thumb to follow before setting up the wood or coals and rotisserie.

First, though, let me say that despite a deft hand in matters culinary, I, personally, do not attend the spit. Anything having to do with whole animals and open pits and roasting and communal cooking has been, since remotest time, the realm of men. It’s easy to understand why. The pitmaster needs certain strengths that are unquestionably masculine: First, a certain musculature that enables the cook to lift the animal, fit the long metal skewer through the length of it, and to tie it securely. While either sex can achieve the skillful hand needed for spicing and marinating the poor little lamb, sheer endurance is needed to roast it. Here, mien and body size again come into play, since over the four or five hours it takes to roast the lamb to lemony perfection, the pit master usually is plied with immeasurable amounts of wine.

Here, from the collective memory of the men I know who have from year to year assumed the tedious responsibility of turning the spit, are a few words of advice for how to do it properly.

First, the lamb itself should be plump without being too fatty. Nursing lambs are under three months old, and should weigh in at around 5-7 kilos / 10-14 pounds. No matter what the butcher tells you, chances are that anything over that is four months and older, hence not a tender young spring lamb.

Make sure the lamb looks and smells fresh. It should have a bright color, and there shouldn’t be any sort of sticky mucouslike film anywhere on the animal–the telltale sign that it was either slaughtered too long ago or that it wasn’t properly refrigerated. You can tell a good lamb, too, from its liver–if the butcher cuts it out for you to examine. It should be dark and smooth, with absolutely no blotches.

If you are in Greece for Easter, you might be faced with the dilemma to buy Greek or not. As for Greek vs. imported lambs, regardless of what the butcher promises or the sign reads, there is a simple rule of thumb to tell the difference. Imported animals usually have their heads and viscera removed. Greek lambs are intact. One word of caution: Buy the lamb three or four days before Easter and leave it “to rest” in the refrigerator (NOT the freezer).

As for the actual spit-roasting: Opt for either an electric or battery-operated spit. Manual roasting is long, hard work. Make sure you have ample fuel–either charcoal or wood, and include some fragrant wood in the bundle. Olive wood, even dried twigs of herbs, lend a lovely fragrance to the meat. Have salt, pepper, oregano or thyme, garlic, olive oil, and plenty of lemon juice on hand for the marinade.

Remember, the whole point of spit-roasting is that the meat cooks slowly and steadily. The skillful grillperson knows how strong the heat source has to be and how far away from it the animal should turn. One rule of thumb: The embers have to remain hot throughout the several hours it will take to roast the lamb. In the beginning, the lamb has to turn quickly and at some distance from the heat so as not to burn. Once it has taken some color, move it several pegs closer to the embers. Throughout the entire roasting process, though, it should be brushed frequently with the marinade. I medium sized spring lamb (5-7 kilos) will take at least 4 hours to roast on a spit. Always try the meat before removing the animal from the fire, and always let it rest for at least 30-40 minutes before serving.

Mageiritsa, the Greek Easter soup

Most Greeks the world over enjoy a hot bowl of mageiritsa soup after the midnight liturgy on the Saturday night before Easter. The soup, made with lamb  or goat organ meats, is a perfect example of the home economy that characterizes the Greek cuisine. Nothing, in short, is wasted.
The soup marks the end of the Lenten fast. It is also meant to play a more practical role on the table, by “calming” the stomach and preparing people who’ve been abstaining from animal products for 40 days to ease into the carnivorous feast that Greek Easter inevitably ends up being.

Tradition says that the soup must be made on Holy Saturday, arguably for reasons that have more to do with food hygiene than tradition–organ meats are highly perishable, so the faster one eats them after cooking, the better.

The classic mageiritsa recipe contains all kinds of offal–intestines, liver, kidneys, lungs, etc.–as well as rice, shredded lettuce, lots of dill, scallions and egg-lemon sauce, or as it’s known in Greek, avgolemono.

There are also many regional variations, which mirror the country’s history and geography. In some places, the soup is made only with the lamb’s head or trotters. In some areas, local cooks take the trouble to braid the intestines, making them more attractive!

In Thessaly, which is in the central part of Greece, mageiritsa is flavored with mint and made more like a stew than a soup. In the Peloponnese, some versions call for adding tomato but also the egg-lemon liaison. In Corfu, the local soup is also more like a stew and is called tsilikourtha.

A few practicalities…

What exactly do Greeks mean when they refer to innards? Essentially the internal organs, particularly those of abdominal and thoracic cavity. These include heart, lungs, liver (without gall bladder), spleen and kidneys.

After the mad cow scares of the last decade, the sale of such meats has been greatly limited both in the U.S. and in the E.U. In a nod to Greece’s longstanding traditions, offal has not been banned, but it may only be culled from animals that are under one year of age.

Washing those intestines!

This is not fun. Intestines, as most of you can guess, have a distinctive smell. They have to be washed very well. The way to do this is to turn them inside out, rinsed over and over and rubbed wth salt and/or lemon to whiten them and neutralize their distinctive odor.

Classic Mageiritsa

8-10 servings

Viscera/ organ meats (lungs, hear, liver, intestines, etc.) from one baby lamb
Lamb’s head
Salt
3 quarts/ liters  water
½ cup extra viegin Greek olive oil
3 bunches green onions, washed, peeled and chopped
1 lb. / 500 gr. lean lamb, chopped
4-5 Romaine lettuce heads, washed and shredded
1 ½ cups chopped parsley
1 ½ cups chopped dill

1 cup short-grain rice
5 eggs, beaten
Juice of 3 lemons
Salt and pepper

Rinse the organ meats very well in plenty of cold water to remove all traces of blood.

To wash the intestines, rinse very well and invert, using a knitting needle as your guide. Continue rinsing and then rub with either lemon or salt.  Chop the intestines and aside in refrigerator until ready to use

Rinse the head very well. Place in a pot with plenty of salted water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cok slowly for about 2-3 hours, skimming the foam off the top and replenishing the water as needed. Remove the head, reserve the broth and strain, if desired.

Chop the organ meats. Heat the olive oil in a large, wide pot and saute the organ meats. Add the scallions and saute for a few minutes, until translucent.

Place the strained broth back into a large soup pot. Add the sauteed organ meats and scallions to the broth.Bring to a boil. Add the shredded lettuce, herbs, salt and pepper. Simmer the soup for about one hour, covered. Replenish the water as needed. There should be about 3 quarts total. Stir in the rice. Simmer until the rice is soft.

In a separate metal bowl, whisk together the eggs until very frothy. Slowly whisk in the lemon juice. Then, slowly 2 ladels full of the hot soup broth, careful not to get solids in the ladle. The hot broth should be added drop by drop. Return the tempered egg-lemon micture to the pot, with the heat turned off, and tilt the pot back and forth so that the avgolemono is evenly distributed. Do NOT cover the pot. Serve immediately.
“Genteel” Mageiritsa (without organ meats)

Instead of organ meats, use a lamb shank. Season it with salt and pepper, sautee it in olive oil in a large soup pot, add the scallions, then add water or meat stock. Season to taste. Cook all together for 2 – 3 hours or until the meat falls off the shank.  Remove the shank, let it cool slightly, and remove and shred the meat. Place it back into the broth, together with the shredded lettuce and herbs. Cook together for 30 minutes, Add the rice. And follow the directions above for making the egg-lemon liaison.

Thessaly Mageiritsa "Stegni" or Dry

Mageiritsa “Stegni” (Dry)

Regional specialty from Thessaly

4 servings

750 gr. lamb liver, membrane removed
¼ cup unsalted butter or olive oil
1 bunch green onions, white and tender green parts, cut into large pieces
1 ½ cups. tomatoes, preferably fresh, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks,
Freshly ground black pepper

¾ cup dill, snipped

Blanch the liver in salted water for a few minutes Remove with a slotted spoon and let cool slightly. Chop.

Heat 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil in a large, wide pot and wilt scallions and liver together, stirring until lightly browned, 7-8 minutes. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and add enough water just  to cover the contents of the pot. Cover and let simmer over low heat until the liver is very tender and juices thick, about 1 hour. Ten minutes before removing from heat, stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons butter or oil and dill. Remove and serve.

The Country Cooking of Greece

It’s almost here! Coming this October, Chronicle Books.

Koulourakia are the name of these Greek Easter cookies.

The most cliché image that comes to mind with Easter in Greece is that of a whole lamb on a spit, roasted to crisp perfection. It is not the only way Greeks enjoy their Pascal lamb, though. The Easter table all over the country mirrors the age-old wisdom of any rural people, that nothing should be wasted, and the main foods of Easter are more or less the same all around Greece—lamb or goat, offal, fresh spring cheeses, tender lettuce, artichokes, certain herbs, eggs, and specialty breads and cookies, among other things. But the regional variations on the Easter theme are immense.

Specific recipes have evolved from place to place based on the lay of the land, on the local flora, on the origins and history of local populations. Easter, of course, is also a celebration of spring, of rebirth, both literally and figuratively, and many of the foods that are associated with the holiday symbolize that renaissance.

After 40 days of strict fasting—as is dictated by the Greek Orthodox church (but rarely followed by the general population any longer)—the Easter feast has to begin slowly, with a light meal after the midnight liturgy on Saturday night. The fast is generally broken with mageiritsa, an offal-based soup flavored with avgolemono sauce. Tsoureki, the fluffy, egg-laden Easter bread, is also on the table, as is a lettuce and dill salad and a bowl fof red dyed eggs. Greeks have a custom when it comes to the eggs: they crack them one-to-one. Whose ever egg remains in tact supposedly has good luck in the ensuing year.

In some parts of the country, the Easter fast is broken not with a soup but with some other offal dish, such as the tsilikourtha, or  sautéed lamb’s liver, which is the specialty on Corfu.

Cooking Ahead

On Easter Sunday proper, the meal is an all-day feast, one that has taken days to prepare for. In traditional Greek homes, the eggs are dyed and the breads and cookies are prepared on Holy Thursday. Holy Saturday is for making mageiritsa.

Easter lambs sold whole at butcher shops around Greece.

Lamb and Goat Specialties

Whole, spit-roasted lamb or goat may be the most popular way to prepare the main course, but it is really a tradition that belongs to the center of the country, to Thessaly and Roumeli. Elsewhere, the Easter meat specialties are different. For example, goat is the meat of choice on many Aegean islands, because goats are more prevalent than lambs. Local cooks prefer to stuff them and roast them whole, often in the village bread-baker’s oven. The stuffings vary from place to place. On some islands, rice and herbs such as dill and fennel, go into the stuffed goat or lamb. Pine nuts, raisins, cinnamon and almonds are also popular, as is, of course, offal. In some places the stuffing also contains cheese.

Offal

Nothing is wasted on the Easter table, and so Greeks have long savored plenty of offal as part of the traditional feast. The best known offal dish is the kokkoretsi, a kind of large sausage usually roasted on a spit but sometimes oven-roasted. There are countless recipes for sautéed liver and for various skewered offal dishes. One of the most delicious is a dish called souflitses, lettuce leaves stuffed with  various innards and cooked in tomato sauce. It is a specialty of central Greece.

Spring Cheeses

Fresh whey cheeses are a seasonal delicacy all over the Aegean and they often find their way onto the Easter table in  both savory and sweet dishes. All over the Aegean, for example, sweet cheese tartlets in varying shapes are customary. Some are seasoned with mastic or mahlepi, others with orange blossom water and/or cinnamon. Combinations of lamb or goat and cheese are also popular. One of the most delicious dishes comes from western Crete, where local cooks make an Easter pie with cheese and lamb seasoned with a little cinnamon.

Tsoureki, the Greek Easter bread, is sold in shops and made at home.

Breads

Greek Easter bread is a fluffy plaited loaf enriched with eggs and decorated with dyed red eggs. It is called tsoureki. The braids symbolize the Holy Trinity and the red eggs the blood of Christ.

Sweets

The most common sweet are the cookies called koulourakia,  which, like the Easter bread, are also usually twisted or braided, then brushed with egg and baked.