It’s All Greek To Me!

It’s an old saying, but it could be my mantra about healthy eating: the food of Greece is fresh, delicious and fun to make as well – and thanks to a terrific cookbook club I belong to, we are all going Greek!

Greece is a country that sits on the Aegean Sea, so seafood is plentiful – and that’s the greek dish I will be making as part of this “all things greek” cooking exercise!

“Going Plaki!”

I first made this dish twenty years ago – and most recently last night – the photo above is the end result…but what exactly is it?

First, a description:

“Plaki”, pronounced “Plah-KEE”, is a food genre that describes Greek dishes baked or roasted with a good bit of quality olive oil, tomatoes, and vegetables. Greek fish known as “psari plaki” belongs to this genre of saucy baked dishes.

So the dish itself can refer to anything cooked with traditional Greek ingredients, but most use fish as it is so plentiful in Greece…and that’s what I will be doing as well so let’s get cooking!

You can see all of the ingredients here: I usually use Tilapia with this dish as it is thin, but they were out, so I went with some meaty catfish!

2 tbs. olive oil

1/2 stick butter

1 pound whitefish: tilapia, cod, catfish or branzino

4 potatoes, sliced thin

2 onions, one diced and one sliced thin lengthwise

4 tomatoes, two diced and two onion sliced thin

2 lemons, sliced thin

6 cloves of garlic, minced, and yes I use more!

1 tbl oregano

1 tbl sweet paprika – optional, I didn’t use it this time

fresh parsley for garnish

The first step is to cook one diced onion in olive oil, along with the garlic…after five minutes, add the diced tomato and oregano…salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Here is how easy this is:

Now, time to bake the fish…I use butter as a base along with olive oil but that’s your call…

I added the butter, then the olive oil, then I laid down the thinly sliced potatoes…next I added the sliced onion and the tomatoes after that:

This is also an easy and fun way to layer a dish…I added the oregano at the ned – here’s a look:

After baking for a half hour or so, I made sure the fish was cooked and then I plated the dish:

This is right after I plated the dish, then I added the “plaki” that we made first…this chunky sauce holds a ton of flavor as well:

After I plated the dish, it was time to take a pause…I realized I needed to work on the plating: there’s a lot going on, so here it is cleaned up a bit with the fresh parsley on top:

I used the chunky sauce on individual bites – I didn’t want to “junk up” the plate…but it did turn out very well: it’s a very light dish even though it doesn’t present that way!

This celebration of Greek cuisine was all part of a terrific cookbook club:

This delicious Greek Salad says it all: Greek food is fresh and vibrant! As always, Jo does a terrific job running her “BKD Cookbook Club”, where all of the recipes from this Greek food fest will be housed – click here to see more about it!

I cook a lot with fish, like this provencal dish – made just up the coast from Greece in France – it’s known as “fish in crazy water”:

What water is this fish in, and what make it crazy? Click here for the recipe that will answer all of your questions!

The key to a delicious, greek-like dish is to keep the ingredients fresh and pure, like this Halibut dish I made:

Fresh everything makes the difference! See this recipe here:

Finally, Alex and I have begun to eat more swordfish as well and you can see a recipe from our friend Patricia Wells here!

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Categories: Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Chef memoirs, Cookbooks, Eat This!, Fine Dining, Food, Food Travel, Food Writing, Recipes, Travel, Wacky Food

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