Friday 25 July 2014

Summer, Klephtiko Recipe, Thoughts on Motherhood and Fund-Raising.




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.

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