Greek Cooking Class in Naxos!

As we mentioned in our Naxos post, our new friends Marie-Jeanne and Marco recommended a private cooking class they took in a nearby town, Galini. Our hotel host, Nicolette, has a cousin named…well, her name is the Greek word for Friday, but she goes by the nickname Voula (sp?). Voula has a wonderful restaurant in Galini called Platia, and she does cooking classes as well. Marie-Jeanne and Marco gave us glowing reviews of the class, and Monisha has actually mentioned that she would really enjoy doing a cooking class at some point on this trip, but it’s hard to find one that she’s confident is great and a good value. With their and Nicolette’s recommendation, this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Plus, did we mention we like Greek cuisine?

When we arrived, we were greeted by the warmest welcome you could imagine. Huge smile, big kisses on the cheek, and expressive Greek words we didn’t know, but could understand anyway. She sat us down at a table with an assortment of little tasty morsels. First she gave us a small plate of a homemade gelatinous grape sweet with almonds inside. Then she served us three different kinds of cheeses to try; two goat and one sheep milk cheeses. Next were sweet preserves: candied orange peel, cranberry, and…something else. The orange peel was our favorite, and surprisingly tasty. With the tasty morsels, she gave us a taste of raki (a Greek hard alcohol), homemade Naxos wine, and a shot of cranberry juice with raki in it – the last was the best, and again, surprisingly tasty. At some point, Monisha lifted her glass and said, “Yamas” – we recently learned Cheers in Greek! Voula was thrilled at this, and eagerly joined in, poured herself a glass, and toasted, “Yamas! Yamas!” This went on for quite some time, actually. Even after we had finished our glass, and had been sitting there quietly for a little, she would again excitedly lift her glass, “Yamas!” So we’d join in, lifting our empty glass, and “Yamas” back.

Once we had tasted all of the little table morsels, she took us outside to show us the garden. They have ducks, tons of chickens, all sorts of vegetables – we cooked with all vegetables from the garden, and fig trees filled with delicious figs. She picked five or so for each of us to eat right from the tree.

Finally, to the cooking portion. It was totally amazing! We expected to enjoy it, and hoped we would learn a thing or two. But mainly we expected to learn a new ordering of steps we have more or less done before: chop vegetables, cook some things in a pan and bake some things, etc etc. But we actually learned several totally new techniques that we’re really excited to try out! 1. Grating garlic with the fine side of a cheese grater! 2. Blending onions and garlic in a food processor and then cooking it in a pan in lots of oil. Yes, blending it! This was the first step to an awesome tomato / vegetable sauce for filling stuffed vegetables. It was so unexpected, yet when we saw it in progress and then the final product, we decided it was pure genius. 3. Making homemade sundried tomato paste by pureeing tomatoes and then leaving them to hang in a cloth in the sun for a month, then adding oil to it. Okay this one probably won’t make it’s way into our list of typical cooking practices due to how easy it is to get already made tomato paste that’s quite yummy…but would be fun to try sometime.

So we spent a couple hours cooking away, learning new things, and discovering there were more and more dishes we didn’t even realize we were making / they had started and we were finishing or just eating. All the while, Voula was giving us hugs, smiles, and encouragement. It was impossible not to enjoy and feel good about ourselves with our ebullient Greek leader delightedly exclaiming every step of the way: “Beautiful! Beautiful!” She barely speaks a word of English beyond that, and that made the experience all the more enjoyable.

Yes. The dishes turned out incredible. Truly, truly incredible.

Oh! That eggplant dish Monisha said was her favorite she’s had this whole trip? One of the eggplant dishes from this cooking class just may have been ever better.. Eggplant (cooked in lots of oil) with a Naxos cheese rolled up inside, intense tomato sauce on top, all baked in the oven the cheese was melty and oozing out. Some of the most flavorful eggplant we’ve ever had. (Like we mentioned, all of the vegetables were grown in their garden.)

Onions stuffed with spiced minced meat, and also topped with tomato sauce. Amazing. Again, so much flavor. The whole topping things with a homemade tomato sauce (we think all made with the blending onions and garlic and cooking it in olive oil technique and then adding tomato) is something we definitely want to use!

Stuffed vegetables – eggplants, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes. The stuffed tomatoes were the most delicious. This is one of the dishes we made entirely start to finish, and is solidly on our ‘To Make for Box’ recipe list.

Tatsiki, Dakos salad, OH – fried zucchini balls – another STELLAR dish; Monisha loved the mint in it, though Nolan wasn’t sure he like the mint flavor so much in this dish (though still thoroughly enjoyed it).

Dessert! Orange juice cake. When Voula originally said we were making orange juice cake, Monisha was actually a little disappointed. It didn’t sound particularly exciting to her. But damn was she wrong. It was totally delicious. And a lot of fun to make. First we sort of scrunched up sheet of phyllo dough on a baking sheet and baking it to get it crispy. Meanwhile we made the orange juice syrup which involved cooking down a bunch of orange juice with zest, a cinnamon stick, and the empty peel halves thrown in! We crushed up all the crisped phyllo dough sheets which was quite satisfying, and it in the batter. After the cake is baked, we poured all of the orange juice syrup over the cake – it’s a ton of juice, and it created a thick (maybe ½ inch) layer that’s initially just sitting on top of the cake. After letting it sit for 10 or so minutes, however, all of the juice had soaked into the cake! The result was an incredibly moist, juicy, and delicious cake.