A Blog from Greece – Life at The Lemon Tree on Crete                      
Lusting after Pasta… Pasta can be eaten as a quick snack or a meal in itself; it has many forms. A pot of boiling water and it can be ready to eat in a matter of minutes.

As an everyday meal to many Greeks, pasta is popular both as a side dish or a main dish as it offers a mean fill and will keep you going for longer than something from the snack bar.

You can buy pasta ready made, dried or from the fridge. Plain or filled or you can make it yourself. On the shelves of the many stores on Crete (like elsewhere) there are many different types of pasta: spaghetti, taglitelli, macaroni and variations that you would not think possible. Some have durum wheat and some are semolina based, my thoughts on this are that they are all lovely cooked, drizzled with some good olive oil, salt and pepper and some freshly grated parmesan; you could not ask for more. It is a sublime meal in itself.

Pasta can be very tasty with a sauce and the combinations are endless. One of our favourites has been freshly made strips of tagletti, tossed in olive oil and freshly ground black pepper with shavings of parmesan and fresh basil from the bushes in the garden. Simple and perfect! Some years the basil plants have flourished and produced a bounty of herbs for our pasta dishes, whilst other years they just seem not to take hold. Some of the basil plants on the island are quite amazing and throughout the village in the summer there are pots of basil flourishing on courtyards. At the nearby monastery there are huge basil plants that tower above you and one can only imagine the feasts that must be enjoyed at the long wooden tables in the shade of the hot summer days once all the visitors have gone.

Most cooking programmes in Greece feature an old lovely lady in her eighties making a form of pasta. For people such as myself they knit a fine web, making pasta by hand with no help from a up to date, top of the range flashy machine. If you were to give them this it would end up collecting dust on a high shelf.  They have their bowls within which they know the precise measurements. In goes the flour, the eggs, mixed with water or olive oil depending on their own particular recipe. In go their hands and so begins the gentle squeezing, pinching and kneading. The making of the dough is then finished. With a stick, looking something like an old cane they then roll it. Some break it off in little lumps and some do their own thing, either way it is quite amazing to watch as the skill, dexterity and speed displayed is quite wonderful. Quite a favourite of mine it to watch them break it off into little balls, they then flatten them and wrap them around a stick, roll them in their hands and then slip them off; you get a short piece of spaghetti and they make a pile of hundreds and then cook them - looks great.

Having worked in kitchens 20 years plus I have never really got involved in the making of pasta dough. It always looked grand but I had other things to do. It was time then, to take the bull by the horns and have a go. It would not be a catastrophe if it went wrong, a couple of euros, what the hell. I got my ingredients, did the measuring, got my hands in my stainless steel bowl with no lines or cracks, tipped the eggs in and the flour and semolina drank all of this - it was quite amazing; it pulled it in like a hook with a tuna attached.

With a few minutes of kneading it was smooth and I felt as if I had been making pasta all my life; it was not scary and I had found a new friend. I got down my rather thick rolling pin and shook some semolina over the table; cut it in half and rolled it as thin as I could. Found my cutter, and then cut it into the shape required. I popped on my filling, rolled out another piece to go on top. I went around the edges with an egg wash and then popped them into a boiled a pan of water with salt and olive oil or what I think of as green golden liquor. They stayed in for 5-7 minutes.

We ate them for lunch; they were superb with a light mushroom sauce and we were floating in a parallel universe.

Thus my adventure had begun; you do not need a pasta machine but I have found that it does produce good results but it does not have to be top of the range super expensive – something simple will do. In truth it is probably better to get one made in Italy rather than China as the quality is just better.

The simple recipe I have adopted for pasta is as follows and is a versatile mix that can be used for a variety of different pasta shapes and forms (including the chicken and vegetable wraps in a recent blog )

Ingredients
375-400grammes strong flour
3-4 eggs depending on size
Good pinch salt
Salt and pepper
Herbs
I stock cube finely crushed
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
Half espresso cup approx of water - if required for adjustment
(Remember I am working on the Greek flour that is available to me – you may need to adjust accordingly to what you are using; you will quickly get a feel for it)

Method

Place flour in mixing bowl  -  bigger the better
Add all dry products
Mix eggs thoroughly with oil
Add to dry ingredients
Mix together using fingers – you may need to add a little of the spare water if the mixture is too dry
Mix into ball and knead for few minutes
Put into plastic bag and then refrigerate for 30-minutes
I normally use a rolling machine clamped to my table but if you are clever enough you can roll it by hand using a long rolling pin
When at required thickness it can be used for spaghetti, lasagne or can be made into ravioli.
I normally go down to a 5-6 on the pasta machine gauge and this can then be made into various types
I either fry it gently with a filling or boil it in various shape form for about 3 – 5 minutes in lightly salted water

Pasta making is also great for getting the kids involved in the kitchen, they both love the shiny machine and the rolling cog action – kind of like a special digger in the kitchen (you just have to not be too precious about it as in don’t invest a lot of money in a state of the art machine). The chance of rolling a little bit of pasta between fingers will bring them running in from play outside, with trikes quickly cast aside – kind of like edible play doh??

Our emphasis in these blogs from Crete is on food because that is what we do at The Lemon Tree, but we aim in these little blogs from Crete to also give a reflection of life in a Greek Village on Crete. Simply put, we live here; have a family here and a business. Thus we encounter daily both the joys and tribulations of life in a Greek village, some of which are familiar to the whole of Crete and Greece, some of which are unique to village life; some which villagers alike share or  are experienced by us as settlers in this land. Alongside these writings you will find recipes and ideas about food.

For previous blog articles please click on the link at the bottom of the ‘blog page’ and if you are searching for a particular food recipe such as curry or food ingredient such as cabbage  – then type in the keyword in the search box on the website and Hey Presto! This will bring up the recipes that contain this ingredient.

We write the blogs together; mostly the food stuff is Mark and some of the other bits are Anita or what we come to through general chat (or heated discussion, depending on the day….) Mark is dyslexic - he writes a first draft, hands     it over to Anita (who puts on her old English teacher’s hat) to redraft and develop, adding a bit here and there; this seems to work!
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