’TIS THE season for snacking! Parties that drag on forever require food to munch on. In that regard, I have come across some interesting finds.
Greek chef Anthony Kouroutsavouris had me try a couple of imported cheeses. He even prepared my favorite, Cretan dakos—crunchy dried bread (barley rusks from the island of Crete) topped with chopped tomatoes, olive oil and real feta cheese with a pinch of Greek oregano.
I love how it crumbles in the mouth, the bread crackling like chicharon.
The juicy, coarsely chopped tomatoes, aromatic oregano, fruity olive oil, and creamy, smooth, slightly salty feta on top of the rusk makes Cretan dakos a healthy, great-tasting snack. It’s amazing how it makes you feel satisfied yet nice and light on the tummy.
Chef Anthony garnished my dakos with a huge Gaidouroelia olive, extraordinarily meaty and somewhat buttery, a must-try for olive aficionados.
He says this olive variety has been allowed to grow so much that the fruits became extremely large, many weighing more than 20 grams apiece, some as heavy as 30 g.
Because of the olive’s size, it has been called prune or donkey olive, and has become a popular cultivar in the past 35 years—grown for its novelty as well as its meatiness and flavor. This olive also produces aromatic olive oil.
The feta cheese Anthony used on my dakos is worth mentioning. Traditional Greek feta is produced from pasteurized fresh milk of sheep and goat. It is of excellent quality because of the free-range animals in the mountains of the Peloponnese. It has a pleasant tinge of spiciness.
If you’ve been searching for real good feta, this one is it.
Contact 6618240 or 0906-4328630.
Park Avenue Desserts
Chef Buddy Trinidad’s Park Avenue Desserts holiday gift baskets should excite those with a sweet tooth.
My personal favorite is the Eureka, a crispy rice treat with cranberries, topped with gooey caramel, dipped heavily in chocolate and sprinkled with Himalayan pink salt.
Eureka is a party in the mouth: sweet, salty, tart, fruity and crunchy. The first Eureka I had was cold, straight off the fridge. Later I realized, on my second Eureka, that I like it better slightly thawed, just to the point that once bitten, your teeth sink into soft chocolate and the caramel at the temperature that it pulls and stretches.
My son Diego’s favorite is Buddy’s molten brownie bites. The brownie flat tops are so chocolaty, so dense. It’s best served by warming it for a few seconds on the microwave to get that much-desired molten, oozing chocolate effect. Nevertheless, the brownies are delicious at room temperature!
If you are looking for an alternative to fruitcake, you must try Park Avenue’s Holiday Cake. It has very little flour in it; instead, the eggs bind it together. It has no sugar, but the molasses and the large portions of dried fruit sweeten it.
Buddy takes his holiday cake a step further by drenching it with premium Don Papa Rum from Negros.
Park Avenue Desserts, tel. 0906-5187112
‘Galantina’
I have been so busy lately that my meals mostly consist of what I can find in the refrigerator.
Luckily my chiller is well-stocked with delicious pickings like Magic Kitchen’s Galantina that tastes exactly like the one my Lola Luz (Mendoza) used to make.
This galantina tastes homemade and packed with quality ingredients. This is not the fine type of galantine, but a rustic one.
My fondest galantina memory would be slicing it straight from the ref. I would enjoy having it cold, dabbed with a little mayonnaise and mustard.
The garnishing of paper-thin slices of pickles makes a world of a difference. The sweet-and-sour crunch gives Magic Kitchen’s traditional galantina a nice, refreshing, modern twist.
Contact 6378002 or 0917-8485228.