Greek cuisine

Greek Foods List is a characteristic Mediterranean cuisine, sharing characteristics with the cuisines of Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, and the Levant. Modern Greek cookery makes broad use of olive oil, vegetables and herbs, grains and bread, wine, fish, and various meats, including poultry, rabbit and pork. Also significant are olives, cheese, aubergine, courgette, and yoghurt. Greek desserts are characterized by the central use of nuts and honey. a number of dishes use filo pastry.

Mezés is a collective name for a variety of small dishes, characteristically served with wines or anise-flavored liqueurs as ouzo or homemade tsipouro. Orektika is the formal name for appetizers and is often used as a reference to eating a primary course of a cuisine other than Greek cuisine. Dips are served with bread loaf or pita bread. In some regions, dried bread (paximadhi) is softened in water.

Typical dishes

Greek Foods List is very varied and although there are a lot of common characteristics amongst the cooking traditions of dissimilar regions within the country, there are also many differences, creation it difficult to present a full list of representative dishes. For instance, the vegetarian dish " Chaniotiko Boureki" (oven baked slices of potatoes with zucchini, myzithra cheese and mint) is a characteristic dish in western Crete, in the region of Chania. A relations in Chania may consume this dish 1-2 times per week in the summer season. However, it is not cooked in any other area of Greece. Many food items are wrapped in Filo pastry, day date 2 replica either in bite-size triangles or in large sheets: kotopita (chicken), spanakotyropita (spinach and cheese), chortopita (greens), kreatopita (meat pie, using minced meat), etc.

The list will in attendance some of the most ambassador Greek dishes that can be found throughout the country and the most well-known of the local ones:

Soups

• Bourou-Bourou, a vegetable & pasta soup from the island of Corfu.
• Fakes, is a lentil soup and one of the famous everyday Greek soups, usually served with vinegar and olives.
• Fasolada, a bean soup defined in many cookery books as the traditional Greek dish, sometimes even called "the "national food of the Greeks It is made of beans, tomatoes, carrot, celery and a generous amount of olive oil usually served witha variety of salty side dishes.
• Kotosoupa,A lemon chicken soup.
• Magiritsa, is the traditional Easter soup made with lamb offal and thickened with avgolemono.
• Patsas, a tripe soup, surprisingly considered a good breakfast.
• Psarosoupa or 'fish soup' can be cooked with a variety of fish types, and several kinds of vegetables (carrots, parsley, celery, potatoes, onion), several varieties include the classic kakavia which is drizzled with olive oil.
• Revithia, a chickpea soup.
• Trahana soup, a mixture of fermented grain

Vegetarian main dishes

Very popular during fasting periods, such as the Great Lent:

• Aginares a la Polita: artichokes with olive oil.
• Arakas me aginares: fresh peas with artichokes in the oven.
• Bamies: okra with tomato sauce (sometimes with potatoes and/or chicken/lamb).
• Briám: an oven-baked ratatouille of summer vegetables based on sliced potatoes and zucchini in olive oil. Usually includes eggplant, tomatoes, onions, and ample aromatic herbs and seasonings.
• Domatokeftedes: tomato fritters with mint, fried in olive oil and typically served with fava (split pea paste). Mainly a Cycladic island dish.
• Fasolakia freska: fresh green beans stewed with potatoes, zucchini and tomato sauce.
• Gigantes: baked beans with tomato sauce and various herbsOften herbsOften made spicy with various peppers.
• Horta (greens) ,already mentioned in the appetizers section, are quite often consumed as a light main meal, with boiled potatoes and bread.
• Kinteata, dish from boiled young nettles.
• Lachanodolmades: Cabbage rolls, stuffed with rice and sometimes meat, spiced with various herbs and served with avgolemono sauce or simmered in a light tomato broth.
• Lachanorizo (Λαχανόριζο) (Cabbage with rice) Meat and seafood dishes
• Chtapodi sti schara: Grilled octopus in vinegar, oil and oregano. Accompanied by Ouzo.
• Giouvetsi: lamb or veal baked in a clay pot with Kritharaki (orzo) and tomatoes.
• Gyros: meat roasted on a vertically turning spit and served with sauce (often tzatziki) and garnishes (tomato, onions) on pita bread; a popular fast food.
• Kleftiko: literally meaning "in the style of the Klephts", this is lamb slow-baked on the bone, first marinated in garlic and lemon juice, originally cooked in a pit oven. It is said that the Klephts, bandits of the countryside who did not have flocks of their own, would steal lambs or goats and cook the meat in a sealed pit to avoid the smoke being seen.
• Keftedakia ,fried meatballs with oregano and mint.
• Moussaka an oven-baked layer dish: ground meat and eggplant casserole, topped with a béchamel sauce which is then browned in the oven. There are other variations besides eggplant, such as zucchini or rice, but the eggplant version melitzanes moussaka is most popular.
• Oven-baked lamb with potatoes .One of the most common "Sunday" dishes. There are many variations with additional ingredients.
• Païdakia: grilled lamb chops with lemon, oregano, salt and pepper.
• Pastitsio: an oven-baked layer dish: Bechamel sauce top, then pasta (like in every baked pasta dish)and ground meat
• Pork with celery
• Soutzoukakia Smyrneika (Smyrna meatballs): long shaped meatballs with cumin, cinnamon and garlic and boied with a tomato sauce. Often served with rice or mashed potatoes.
• Souvlaki: (lit: 'skewer')grilled pork small pieces or gyros, tomatos, onions and tzatziki as sause all wraped with pita consindered as fast food

Desserts and sweets

Amygdalotá or pasteli exist in many varieties throughout Greece and Cyprus, and are especially popular in the islands. They consist of powdered blanched almonds, confectioner's sugar and rose water, molded in various shapes and sizes. They are snow-white and are considered wedding and baptismal desserts.

1. Baklava, phyllo pastry layers filled with nuts and drenched in syrup or if it is greek in honey.
2. Diples, a Christmas and wedding delicacy, made of thin, sheet-like dough which is cut in large squares and dipped in a swirling fashion in a pot of hot olive oil for a few seconds. As the dough fries, it stiffens into a helical tube; it is then removed immediately and sprinkled with honey and crushed walnuts.
3. Galaktoboureko, custard baked between layers of phyllo, and then soaked with lemon-scented honey syrup. The name derives from the Greek "gala"(γάλα), meaning milk, and from the Turkish börek, meaning filled, thus meaning "filled with milk."
4. Halva, a nougat of sesame with almonds or cacao.
5. Karidopita, a cake of crushed walnuts, soaked or not in syrup.
6. Koulourakia, butter or olive-oil cookies.
7. Kourabiedes, Christmas cookies made by kneading flour, butter and crushed roasted almonds, then generously dusted with powdered sugar.
8. Loukoumadesb similar to small crusty donuts, loukoumades are essentially fried balls of dough drenched in honey and sprinkled with cinnamon.
9. Loukoumi is a confection made from starch and sugar, essentially similar to the Turkish delight. A variation from Serres is called Akanés. Loukoúmia are flavored with various fruit flavors, with rose water considered the most prized.
10. Melomakarona, "honey macaroni", Christmas cookies soaked in a syrup of diluted honey syrup (meli in Greek) and makaroni(pasta), then sprinkled with crushed walnuts.

Cheese

There is a wide diversity of cheeses made in various regions across Greece. The vast bulk of them remain unknown outside the Greek borders due to the lack of knowledge and the highly localized distinctive features. a lot of artisanal, hand made cheeses, both common varieties and local specialties, are produced by little family farms throughout Greece and offer distinct flavors atypical of the accumulation produced varieties found commercially in Greece and abroad. A good list of some of the varieties of cheese shaped and consumed in Greece can be found here.

Drinks

• Greek frappé coffee, a foam-covered drink derived from spray-dried instant coffee that is consumed cold.
• Greek coffee, made by boiling finely ground coffee beans, and is served thick and strong, and often sweetened. It is always unfiltered, with the coffee sediment at the bottom of the cup.
• Wine is the most common drink in Greece. Legend claims that wine was invented on the island of Icaria.
• Beer includes a wide variety; common brands include Vergina, Heineken Heineken, Amstel, Zeos, Mythos, Alfa Hellenic Lager, Fix, Henninger and Kaiser, all of which are produced locally, some under license.
• Ouzo (an 80-proof clear alcoholic beverage that is flavored with anise; it turns milky white with water or ice; the best said to be produced on the island of Lesbos).
• Tsipouro or (esp. in Crete) tsikoudia/raki (Mostly home-brewed, a clear drink similar to ouzo, often with higher alcohol content, and usually not flavored with herbs. The city of Volos at the centre of Greece is well-known for its Tsipouradika (literally: tsipouro places). In Thessaly tsipouro is always flavored with anise.
• Retsina (a white wine that has some pine resin added, originally as a preservative, but nowadays for the flavor; this is an Athens region specialty. It should not be aged.).