Having a fair-sized garden entails a lot of work but one of
the perks is that when the fine weather comes we can entertain a good number of
friends all together since space is not a problem. Catering for large numbers,
however, means carefully selecting dishes that don’t reduce the hostess to a
frazzle before the guests have even arrived.
One of my standby dishes is klephtiko
- or one of its many
variations - which comes with an interesting history to its name. Particularly
towards the end of the Ottoman Empire dominion in Greece, there were those who,
rather than succumb to these overlords, took to the mountains, living in
hardship and often in extreme climatic conditions. These Greeks were known as
the Klephts - a word deriving from the verb klevo:
to steal – for they survived on foodstuffs either donated by the local people
or acquired by stealth – in the usual sense of being furtive and in the
Shakespearean sense of theft!! I rather like to think of them as similar to the
Border cattle reivers, families whose lives had been devastated by the
continual warring between the Scots and the English and who had resorted to a
similarly predatory way of life in order to survive.
The meat – however acquired – needed to be cooked without betraying the
whereabouts of our hungry rebels so klephtiko
was the answer. A pit was dug, hot coals were placed in the bottom and on
top of them, sealed inside a clay pot, was the meat (usually lamb) and whatever
else they could find. The pit closed over, the food was left cooking away there
for perhaps as long as 24 hours – hunger permitting! No smell, no smoke, just a
delicious aromatic stew.
Nowadays we seal the meat in cooking parchment
wrapped in baking foil and one hour in the oven suffices. I shall list the
ingredients I would use for four people and it’s up to you whether you want to
prepare four large packets or go for six to eight smaller versions. In the
summer heat here I tend to make the smaller portions as appetites are
diminished – and that way seconds are always available! Not being particularly
partial to lamb, we use pork in this recipe.
Ingredients :
600 gr pork cut into generous
cubes
6 medium potatoes sliced into rounds of medium thickness
4 large carrots cut into julienne strips
3 courgettes sliced
400 gr small cabbage cut into chunks
Feta cheese – allow for a 3 cm square piece per packet
3 tomatoes sliced
2 onions sliced
The pork cubes are marinated
overnight in about 300 gr of Greek yoghurt, with oil, lemon juice, oregano, garlic
salt, salt and pepper to taste. The following day, fry the meat in its marinade
for about 20 minutes.
Roast the potato slices in a baking tray with a little oil until they
have softened.
Boil or microwave the carrots
in a little butter and a little soy sauce until they begin to soften.
Cut up squares of parchment paper
and tin foil, according to how many packets you want to make.
Now it’s time for assembly.
Place a tin foil sheet on the table, and the
parchment paper on top. It’s good to have all the ingredients laid out to
facilitate this fiddly part of the procedure.
Use 2 or 3 potato slices as a
base, put 2 or 3 meat chunks with some of its juices on top, then assemble all
the rest, topping the mound with the feta cube, adding a little oil, lemon
juice, salt , pepper, and oregano to taste. Tightly wrap this up in the parchment paper,
then in the tin foil. Pop all the packets on a baking tray and cook for an
hour. They will stay hot for quite some time, or can be easily reheated just
before your guests arrive. Now you might, like my friend Margaret on the
Shetland Isles, decide life is too short for all this bother (!) but once
assembled that’s the job done and all that is needed is a fresh green salad as
accompaniment. Iceberg lettuce with a mustard, balsamic vinegar, honey, oil and
blue cheese dressing is our favourite with klephtiko.
People are always impressed when
the tray of silver-wrapped, surprise packages is served. You can eat straight from the packets or use
the invert-and-empty-onto-plate method, as demonstrated below by H and some dinner guests from earlier times. What you do need to have to hand is a
bag to collect the wrapping refuse.
It seems strange for me to cite
this dish, given that recently I had the unique experience of having a guest
who ate not a morsel of this very dish. Nor of the oatcakes with vegetable
puree starter: one of fava - like a
pease-pudding - and one of our olives mixed with feta. In fact the lady
in question ate only ice-cream, eschewing our accompanying home-grown, home-made
cherry sauce and shortbread fans. As H observed, the only thing she ate was the
only non-home-made item. No sweat: her loss. Others asked for seconds. Doggie, Leon, delighted in all the left-overs.
Why I mention her was that she was remarkable
in another area: at the table she regularly made negative statements about her
husband and son: the former could not drive at night; her son did not socialize
with people of his own age, did not eat x, y and z, could not climb ladders –
and clearly neither of them spoke up for himself. The strange thing was that
she seemed to take pride in making these pronouncements. It was as if in
‘disempowering’ her men folk, by dwelling on their inabilities, she established
some form of authority over them. There was something almost narcissistic about
it all in that somehow the focus remained on her.
Now I have never adopted the role of motherhood – undoubtedly a
demanding one – but as an educator I have seen many instances where it has gone
wrong and this is one case in point. Where instead of the child being encouraged
to develop and become self-reliant, its weaknesses are indulged and remarked
on, perhaps to foster dependence on her, to empower her rather than the son.
A much better example of motherhood is Helen
whose daughter was born with a serious heart condition and spent the first
three weeks of her life at Yorkhill
Hospital in Glasgow, undergoing two major operations. To express her
gratitude for all the care and treatment her daughter had, off went the bold mum
and signed up for the London Marathon
in aid of the British Heart Foundation. This she duly ran earlier this year, so
far raising in sponsorship over five and a half thousand pounds for research into cardiac disease.
Let me introduce you to Meg,
the Marvel – isn’t she a cutie? And one who is clearly thriving on all the
special care and attention - both medical and familial - she has been given.
Helen tells
me that the fundraising page is still open, so if anyone would like to make a
contribution to this very worthy cause, here is the link:
Incidentally, as well as kindly allowing me to
use their family snaps, Helen suggested that I factor in the father role to the
family equation. Certainly, our dad-dinner-guest bears some responsibility in
not trying to keep mum’s narcissistic tendencies under control. What Helen
wanted to stress was how important her
husband and family’s support was in her endeavour. Beforehand her husband
kept the children while she went on her regular training sessions and, on the
day, he shepherded round a busy London to cheer her on. And in pointing
this out, Helen demonstrates perhaps one of the most important features of good parenting: the selflessness that means putting your
child’s needs first.
In this happy family snap of
Helen and family it is clear that Meg, the babe-in-arms, has an excellent
support system. May all the members go from strength to strength and continue
to derive joy from family life.
On our home front we are enjoying
summertime. Two of the tres in our garden I think are particularly beautiful. Our
young magnolia tree is developing into a lovely cup-shape and behind it the
acacia tree has produced its beautiful ‘powder puff’ flowers.
May you relax over the summer months and bask in the warmth of the sun and in good company
of friends and family.
