• Eat Your Books

  This is a reissue of Vefa's Kitchen published in 2009.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Pasta with meat sauce (Makaronia me kima)

  • Deborah on February 03, 2015

    Thanks, MCVL -- I fixed that cheese ingredient error and added a substitution comment. Deborah

  • mcvl on February 03, 2015

    V. good, should come out a little soupier than an Italian pasta. The indexer has lister only Parmesan cheese -- the recipe called for "mizithra, kefalotiri, or Parmesan." Tsk tsk.

• Mussel fritters (Midokeftedes)

  • Kaycee on January 23, 2011

    taramosalata p.157 makes 2 cups crispy bread or crackers

  • Kaycee on January 23, 2011

    Also in Party Food p.31

• Mount Pelion bell pepper and onion pie (Piperopita Piliou)

  • Ladyberd on December 19, 2011

    This is one of my favorites. It's great for a crowd - I make it ahead an then heat it in the oven to crisp the phyllo.

• Meat-stuffed grape [vine] leaves (Dolmadakia me kima)

  • schambers on August 28, 2010

    Goat is an excellent choice for the meat. The lemon sauce really makes it.

• Braised red beans (Barbounofasoula)

  • bernalgirl on January 13, 2023

    This is a wonderful bean dish as a side or a veg entree. I used Ranch Gordo scarlet runner beans and cooked them half-way before adding the tomatoes and tomato paste to avoid toughening. I also added a pinch of chile flakes and a bay leaf as I cooked the beans. It all cooks down to tender beans with a savory broth the consistency of gravy, and is perfect topped with feta and chopped olives.

• Charcoal-grilled chicken (Kotopoulo sta karvouna)

  • twoyolks on July 10, 2016

    I didn't like the flavor the marinade imparted. It was too heavy on the brandy flavor. I don't have a rotisserie so I grilled it over indirect heat which cooked the chicken well.

• Stuffed lamb roll in grape [vine] leaves (Arni rolo se klimatofila)

  • shonaghd on April 15, 2013

    Although it takes time and an extra pair of hands helps to roll the lamb, this recipe is delicious. I have substituted swiss chard for the vine leaves on occasion when vine leaves were not available. Highly recommended.

• Black-eye pea [black-eye bean] and green pea stew (Mavromatika fasolia giahni me araka)

  • Jaybak on July 09, 2015

    Black eye beans only needed a few hours soaking and about 30 minutes cooking before becoming tender.Used some tinned tomatoes and tomato paste instead of fresh also had some stock to use up so used that instead of water. Tasty dish from simple ingredients.

• Lamb with aromatic greens (Arni me mirodika horta)

  • amoule on April 03, 2015

    pg.427

• Mackerel baked with eggplants [aubergines] from Pontus (Kolios me melitzanes sto fourno)

  • Three_Quarters on July 20, 2013

    I used fresh eggplant, parsley and basil from the garden, plus canned tomatoes. I also substituted tuna for the mackerel, because it's what I had — I would reduce the baking time by about 10-15 minutes if using tuna steaks. It was so simple and delicious, like most of the recipes from this book.

• Potatoes roasted with lemon or tomato (Patates fournou lemonates i me domata)

  • ldtrieb on August 02, 2018

    Made in a pan on the barbecue because of the heat. Finished on stove top. Really delicious.

  • a2cook on June 10, 2016

    This is just okay (3.5/5). The long marinating time didn't add much to the flavor. Could use more lemon and oregano. Much prefer Aglaia Kremezi's roasted potatoes (http://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/recipes/392604/roasted-potatoes-with-garlic-lemon)

• Chicken pie of the Vlachs (Vlahiki kotopita)

  • totoro on August 26, 2015

    Excellent. This was very straightfoward and inexpensive to make. Creamy but not too-wet filling with a lovely subtle flavour from the allspice. I made a half recipe using two skin-on breasts (pulling them from the onion and leek pan early and tearing up the skin with the meat) which worked surprisingly well.

• Cornmeal pie from Epirus (Batsaria i kalabokopita)

  • a2cook on October 23, 2016

    Wow, this is good! And, it tastes even better the next day, so try to resist eating it all or double the recipe to have enough for leftovers. I tweaked the recipe slightly by adding 1/2 tsp of fine sea salt to the batter to counteract the natural sweetness of cornmeal. The recipe calls for a 16 inch round pan, which I don't have, so I used a 10 x 13 Le Creuset roasting pan. This resulted in a slightly thin pie (a little over an inch), so I'll use a smaller pan next time for a thicker pie. Start checking for doneness at the 40 - 45 minute mark.

  • turnipgreens on August 03, 2018

    The recipe calls for a 16" round pan. I believe this is wrong for the following reasons: 1. The pan used in the picture for this recipe, on p 471 of the cookbook, is shown in several other pictures in the cookbook. This pan is 9" or 10" round, not 16" round, judging by good estimates of the sizes of items (rolls, chicken legs) appearing in the pan. 2. a2cook used a 10x13 roasting pan instead of a 16" round pan, and found the 10x13 pan produced a too-thin pie. Note that a 16" round pan has an area of 200 square-inches, a 10x13 pan has an area of 130 square inches, and 9-10" round pans have areas of 64-78 square inches. Given that the 10x13 pan was too big for the recipe as written, given that the pan pictured for the recipe is 9-10" round, I believe that the correct size for a pan for this recipe is 9-10" round.

• Eggplant [aubergine] dip (Melitzanosalata)

  • Agaillard on August 06, 2021

    I just made this and it is a nice little dish, what you would expect of an aubergine dish and super simple. I didn't manage to cook the aubergine without them browning a little but that isn't important. I found also there is no need to finely cut the garlic since all goes to the blender anyhow. Vinegar and parsley are important as well as salt...

• Pork with sauerkraut and bulgur wheat from Drama (Hirino me lahno toursi ke pligouri)

  • amandabeck on August 26, 2018

    This recipe might strike you as a bit odd, but it turns in a wonderful, warm, cheeseless casserole when baked! The sauerkraut and bulgur soak up all the wonderful sour tomato-y flavor. Highly recommend.

• Baklava

  • NathalieS on August 06, 2019

    Excellent results! Family even said one of the best baklava they had ever tasted (they just want me to bake more). That said, I found the recipe lacked essential details when it was time to assemble. Novice cooks would have a bit of a hard time figuring out how many layers of nuts one should end with in the end. I'm not sure if the nut measurements are accurate either between the cups and the weight. I ended up using 3 cups of each nuts although the recipe suggests 2 cups. I didn't have a scale to weigh the ingredients.

  • mdagl on July 01, 2022

    Delicious. Made the whole house smell like Christmas!

• Fried triangles (Bourekakia tiganita)

  • pattyatbryce on August 26, 2020

    Big errors in this recipe in my book version. No discussion of addition of multiple ingredients. Also, how do you not cook the ground beef?

• Shrimp [prawn] casserole with vegetables from Thessaloniki (Garides plaki)

  • Petrakisses on October 24, 2020

    Cooked to Vefa's instructions, most of the prawns were still raw. This recipe confirmed for me, prawns are their best not messed with, and ought to be barbecued or fried alone.

• Food52

  Picked for Food52's August 2018 Cookbook Club.

  Full review