Mediterranean cooking

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Caporegime
Joined
24 Oct 2012
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Godalming
Rather than a thread for each recipe I post / follow / request / whatever, here's a thread for mediterranean food, which for me is arguably the best food in the world. If you've ever been to Turkey and eaten proper Turkish food (not the touristy stuff, the real deal, made with local ingredients) you'll know what I mean.

I can't stand lamb so I won't be able to provide much on that front but feel free to post up some stuff anyway, hoping we can get some good recipes and ideas in here.

The first thing I'd like to make is proper chicken shish, granted I'll never be able to get the another-level ingredients grown on the med but by using our local farmers and a bit of research I reckon I might be able to come pretty close.

So I guess my first question would be whether anyone has any recommended chicken shish recipes? I'll google some myself and post up what I end up using but as some of the stuff on the internet is posted by people who consider a pisshead kebab to be proper Turkish cuisine, I'm hoping someone has a decent suggestion.

Over to you folks :)
 
Have a look at Paella too... It's a bit like a Sunday roast as in different Spanish regions all do it differently so it's a bit of a fusion dish... Doesn't have to have sea food as the protein for example, it could be chicken etc.

Absolutely gorgeous when done well .
 
Can't advise on chicken shish, but I often do Greek kebabs as a way to use up leftovers.

Traditionally the meat is skewered / kebab-style pork, but I find that left over slow roasted beef / lamb (e.g. from a sunday roast or smoked brisket) works really well.

Greek flatbreads
Meat, with a generous helping of oregano
Home-made pickled red onion
Tzatziki (failing that, sour cream or yoghurt both work)
Paprika

I warm the flatbreads up in the toaster, the meat however is most convenient, and then let people make their own at the table. Usually that means a narrow strip of meat down the middle, a generous shake of paprika, a generous spoonful of tzatziki, some of the pickled red onion and then I often add some more oregano for luck.

Typically for Greek street food you'd get some oregano chips in there for good measure, but I don't normally make that at home.

It's obviously not authentic, but the flavours work well together, and I really like having some approximations that can use up ingredients I've got left over. I always keep some flatbreads in the freezer for when the opportunity arises.
 
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mattyfez said:
Have a look at Paella too... It's a bit like a Sunday roast as in different Spanish regions all do it differently so it's a bit of a fusion dish... Doesn't have to have sea food as the protein for example, it could be chicken etc.

Absolutely gorgeous when done well .
Click to expand...

Yea I make paella with a mix of fish pie mix, prawns and chicken wings.

I think traditionally they make it with giant prawns but not being funny even if you can get them here it would cost you a fortune.
 
BUDFORCE said:
Yea I make paella with a mix of fish pie mix, prawns and chicken wings.

I think traditionally they make it with giant prawns but not being funny even if you can get them here it would cost you a fortune.
Click to expand...

You'd be supprised... Valencia paella is made with chicken and rabbit rather than sea food..
Some say it's the best..

But don't try telling that to someone from Andalucia region... It might start a fight, hahah!
 
Fantastic stuff, thanks all :cool:

I grabbed all the ingredients for a nice shish kebab and I'm working from home tomorrow so I'll be giving it a shot. Hopefully it turns out alright.
 
For shish.

I usually just marinate chicken, a mix of garlic powder, paprika, cumin, mild chilli powder, a little bit of turmeric as a dry rub first.

Salt if your blood pressure is ok.

Once it's nice and rubbed up, then put some lemon juice on, mix it up again, it should make the dry rub like a paste, leave it for at least 24 hours, longer if you dare.

For the salad, finely chop onion, cabbage, grated carrot, maybe if a bit of lettuce and tomato as you wish.

Drizzle over some white wine vinegar or cider vinegar, and some vegetable oil and leave it for at least 20 minutes, ideally more than an hour.

The acid in the vinegar basically "cooks" the onion so takes any bitterness out, cider vinegar in particular is very mild, so it won't make your salad taste like pickled eggs.

Serve that with bread or rice or whatever.

If you can cook the meat on something hot, the idea is to get it as charred as possible without burning it, or overcooking it, that's definitely a skill.
 
For your sauce I would recommend some natural greek yoghurt with minced garlic, salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice.

The more minced garlic, the better. This combo works extremely well with grilled chicken or kebab meat ;)
 
Had lunch at Gokyuzu yesterday (if you've not been, go! Their food is absolutely phenomenal and well worth braving the slums of North London :p) and it just refreshed my love of Mediterranean food. Now I need to learn to make their chicken shish, holy cow it's good.

Gonna start researching and playing around but if anyone has any pointers, I'm all ears :)
 
Can't say I'm especially enthused by Turkish recipes, but neither would I decline a trip to a proper Turkish restaurant. My perspective was changed when some Iranian friends in London took me to the restaurants that most of their local community favour - It's similar to Turkish stuff, but a good two levels above that!
Their home cooking too was miles better than anything I'd had before.
 
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