Cooking with Koula

I learned of Koula Barydakis' cooking lessons from the CIC website, and have been looking forward to attending my first one all month. Koula and Luella, another attendee who has been to Koula's class before, were nice enough to wait for me while I struggled to find a taxi in Chania (there were none) and eventually make my way to Koula's apartment via local bus. It turns out I could have walked there in the time it took me to attempt the various modes of public transportation once in Chania, and at least now I know that.

We chatted for a while over coffee and cake, and then got started. On the menu was chicken and pasta in a red sauce, cheese pie, and a fresh cucumber & tomato salad with onions, feta and some of Koula's own olives.

Koula has given me permission to reprint the recipes we used, which I will do at the end of this entry.

I felt like I learned some good techniques and got some great ideas from this lesson. For starters, I think I'll be more comfortable working with dough/pastry going forward, after watching how Koula worked with hers. I think I've always been far too stingy in my use of flour when rolling out the dough, which has resulted in much sticky frustration. Koula was liberal with hers and I was amazed at how thinly she was able to roll it out without it coming
apart. Also, I learned that I need to let it set out at room temperature for a couple of hours before rolling. Finally, she spread a LOT of olive oil on the top before putting it in the oven, which she informed us will result in a very light, flaky crust. I've never done more than brush the top lightly, thinking for some reason that too much oil would make it greasy and dense. I was so very wrong, because the crust on Koula's pie was sublime.

When it came to the chicken, I'll be honest and say that my first thought when finding out about the dish was "big deal, I know how to make chicken in sauce". How very wrong I was, once again. She used spices that I wouldn't have considered, like dried orange peel and cinnamon, and whole peppercorns and all-spice tied up in a little sachet. She also used shredded carrots, which made the sauce nice and thick and is something else I had never thought to include before. Finally, she cooked the pasta directly in the sauce toward the end, which is something that I didn't even know could be done. The result was that the pasta absorbed the flavors of the sauce, and became so much more a part of the rest of the dish than had it been simply covered by the sauce.

Everything was perfect, and I really enjoyed conversing with my two lunch companions throughout the afternoon about many different subjects. I felt incredibly relaxed in their company, and
totally satiated after our wonderful meal and a very nice bottle of Cretan white wine.

Koula has co-authored a cookbook, which I look forward to purchasing once I'm back in the States (I'm trying to keep my luggage going home as light as possible so I'm holding off on purchases right now). It's called "Foods of Crete: Traditional Recipes from the Healthiest People in the World", and it can be found on Amazon.com.

I'm looking forward to the next lesson!!




Me and Luella, who is from Vancouver. It's always nice to meet a fellow North American here, there seem to be so few of us!





Koula and Luella after our meal.




Some of Koula's own olives, which she was kind enough to put in a bag for us to take home with us. I had several with lunch today, and I'm telling you...they're like crack. I couldn't stop eating them, they are that good.




Chicken with Pasta
1 1/2 kilo chicken or rooster cut in pieces
3 grated onions
3 cloves garlic
1 cup olive oil
4 grated carrots
1 cup red or white wine
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
mix of whole peppercorn and allspice (tied into a small sachet so they don't spread out into the sauce)
1 1/2 cup tomato sauce
3 fresh grated tomatoes
2 pieces of dried orange peel
salt
1 kilo of pasta

In large pot, saute onions and garlic in olive oil, then add chicken and brown to seal. Add grated carrots and stir while adding the wine, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, orange peel, grated tomatoes, tomato sauce, salt and pepper/allspice.

Add about 2 cups of water and let boil for about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and let cook for 5o minutes. Add pasta and cook for another 5-10 minutes, until pasta is desired consistency. Note: Koula used an organic, locally made pasta which worked well with this cooking method. I don't know how your typical store-bought variety pasta would work, but I'm sure I'll find out at some point!

Dough for Cheese/Spinach Pie

1 1/2 pounds of flour
1/2 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons of vinegar (you can substitute raki or ouzo if you'd like)
Warm water (as much as needed)
1 tsp. salt

Pour flour into large bowl. Make a hole in the middle of the flour and add olive oil, vinegar, salt and some water. Mix. Add more water until you have the consistency of bread dough that doesn't stick in your hands.

Cut dough into two balls, leave in a pan and cover with a wet cloth. Let sit for two hours.

Roll out each piece of dough with some flour to make pieces of phyllo

Note: Having just re-read the recipe for this dough, I'm realizing that my problem may still lie in knowing exactly how much water is the right amount. That seems to have confounded me before. Oh well, I guess I'll know when I try!

Koula used myzithra cheese, about a cup of strained yougurt, four eggs, some local herbs and some salt in the filling for our pie. It was delicious.