A Greek Dinner
This is a bonus recipe! Instead of just one, you get three! Because they all go together to make a very nice meal.
Full disclosure: I am not Greek, but I know people with Greek heritage. And yet, I did not learn any of these recipes from them. The shrimp recipe is basically a NYT recipe. I found the spinach rice recipe while following a link about the Mediterranean diet. The fasolakia recipe is a mash-up of two recipes I found on the internet.
I am presenting them in the order you should start.
Pro tip: Prepare the green beans, potatoes, and spinach before you start anything. Oh, and be sure to dump the potatoes in a large bowl full of water, so they don’t turn brown before you are ready to use them. You could also do all your measuring of spices and whatnot beforehand, mise en place and all that.
Fasolakia (green beans and potatoes braised in tomatoes)
This is the mashup of two separate recipes for fasolakia. One had more interesting seasoning, but involved cooking in an oven-worthy dutch oven. The other was stove top, but rather tamely seasoned. So I opted for the stove top method and the oven based seasoning. And anyway, your oven is going to be busy broiling the shrimp.
Ingredients
12 oz package fresh green beans
2 medium potatoes
1 can diced tomatoes with garlic and olive oil (or whatever)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
½ cup chopped onion
½ cup water
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 bay leaf
Dash of oregano
Dash of cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Process
Rinse the green beans. Trim the ends and cut into bite size pieces.
Peel the potatoes and cut each into 16 half wedges (i.e. cut each potato in half, then cut each half into eighths). If you are following my earlier recommendation, this is when you dump them in water until you are ready to continue.
You should basically have about as much potatoes as beans. Or close.
Heat the oil in a large pan. Over medium heat, saute the onions until translucent. Add the garlic and spices.
Add the beans and stir to coat. Add the can of diced tomatoes and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 15 minutes. Stirring occasionally.
Stir in the tomato paste. Add the potatoes and salt and pepper. Simmer covered another 25 or 30 minutes until potatoes are fork tender. Add additional water if necessary.
That’s it. You can garnish with fresh parsley if that’s your thing. As leftovers, this is really good with some crumbled feta cheese.
Spinach Rice
Ingredients
10 to 16 ozs of fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
¼ cup olive oil
1 medium white onions finely chopped
2 garlic cloves (or 1 teaspoon prepared minced garlic)
1 cup long grain white
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 cups chicken stock (low-sodium preferred)
salt and pepper to taste
Process
I like to use one of those large-ish plastic containers of baby spinach, which is usually 10 or 12 ounces. You can use more spinach depending on taste. Do you want this to be a spinach dish or a rice dish?
Most packaged spinach does not need to be rinsed. But I do like to give it a coarse chop.
In a large saucepan heat olive oil over medium to medium low heat. Add onions, garlic and rice. Saute until onions are translucent. Stir in tomato paste and then add spinach, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Mix well.
Just as if you were sautéing fresh spinach, you have to add it a bit at a time, and keep stirring while it loses some of its volume. I didn’t add the bay leaves or S&P until the spinach had cooked down a bit. I didn’t want to break the bay leaves.
Pour in chicken stock and cover the saucepan. Simmer until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. This will take 20 to 25 minutes. Note, this is longer than rice would normally take, but don’t forget that you have fried it a bit. Be careful to make sure the bottom doesn’t burn near the end. Remove bay leaves and serve.
Greek Style Broiled Shrimp (the star of the show)
Ingredients
3 or 4 (or more) garlic cloves (or 1 ½ - 2 teaspoons of minced garlic)
1 teaspoon salt
2 or 3 teaspoons of oregano
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
Black pepper
½ can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano, drained
1 ½ pound peeled shrimp
Feta cheese crumbles
This is a slight modification of a recipe I found on the NYT’s Cooking site.
Process
Move the oven rack close to the broiler. Turn on your broiler.
Mash the garlic into the salt to form a paste. Add the oregano, lemon juice, olive oil and black pepper. Mix well. The original recipe suggests this will still be a paste. It is more like a slurry. Coat the shrimp in the slurry and place on a shallow baking dish. I just dredged them through the mix. Seemed pretty easy. Add extra oregano if you like. Sprinkle about half a can of the drained tomatoes on the shrimp.
Broil the shrimp 2 to 3 minutes per side. Obviously, this depends on how hot your broiler is and how far away your shrimp are. In my oven, 2 ½ minutes per side is basically perfect.
Sprinkle with feta. Serve.
Pro Tip #2: Serve this with a crusty bread (like warmed ciabatta rolls), so you can sop up the drippings in the pan with your roll. Make everyone know this is allowed. Like the olive oil they bring with your bread at restaurants.
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