Those who rest in Crete can visit the Pallas restaurant. In an old building located in the historic district of Chania, manouri is served with pieces of crispy puff pastry, arugula, spinach and Greek goat cheese. But you can choose an easier way by going to the nearest store. Hotos brand costs 1.5 €, Mevgal – 1.3 € (per 100 g).

Myzithra

Among the best cheeses In Greece, one of the most popular is myzithra, made from pasteurized sheep's or goat's milk without the addition of cream. It comes in three flavors: fresh, sour and aged.

Fresh myzithra is unsalted and soft, reminiscent of ricotta, usually sold in egg-shaped packages. It has delicate taste and pleasant aroma, therefore it is often used in, and the addition of honey and fresh fruit turns it into a great breakfast.

A sour myzithra called xynomizithra is made with yeast and salt. The taste of cheese is sharp, salty-sour, crumbly structure. This variety makes an excellent addition to salads. fresh vegetables and pickled olives. But aged myzithra is often added to whole grain pasta. The cheese is sold in hard bars, it is more rich and salty.

In stores, Dodoni brand cheese is most often found (2 € per 100 g). And on Crete in the city of Chania, mizithra can be tasted at the traditional crayfish festival. Around the end of October, locals share their cooking secrets with tourists. But as an appetizer, it is served with calicunha: small cakes with fresh myzithra, vanilla and egg.

Many Greek cheeses, whose names are mentioned in the article, can be made outside the country. But traditional recipe, which allows you to achieve a high quality product, adhere to here. Therefore, once in Greece, try to try graviera, halloumi and other local cheeses in their homeland.

It is difficult to find a person who has never tried a Greek salad, because for this it is not at all necessary to go to his homeland. It's delicious and healthy dish it is quite possible to cook at home. To do this, you just need to know what kind of vegetables it includes, what it is dressed with and what kind of cheese is in the Greek salad? Now it's up to you to find the right recipe.

The History of Greek Salad

In Greece, in the homeland of this famous lettuce, it is considered rustic. And all thanks to such an uncomplicated composition. fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, onions, olives, olive oil and village cheese "Feta" were the very staples in the diet of ordinary peasants. But the story of the appearance on the table of the Greeks of the salad itself is connected with one curious case.

The fact is that back in the 19th century, vegetables, for example, tomatoes and even onions, were usually eaten whole, biting off a piece and eating bread or cheese. And only in 1909, one emigrant from Greece, returning from America to his home, decided to grind familiar products and connect them together. The reason for this was a bad tooth, which did not allow the young man to bite off whole vegetables.

Later, his sister, who also liked this dish, decided to treat guests to a village wedding with it. The success was stunning. Thus, the first appeared original lettuce with feta cheese. Now he is famous not only in Greece, but also far beyond the borders of this sunny country.

Cheese for Greek salad: name, description

According to the Greeks themselves, a salad that does not use feta can no longer be called Greek. This cheese has long been calling card Greece. It is made only in this country, exclusively in certain areas, for example, on the island of Crete, in Macedonia and some others.

Feta is a soft, salty, light-colored cheese made from sheep's and goat's milk. For its fermentation, a special renin is used. A prerequisite for making cheese is a certain ratio of milk: 70% sheep and 30% goat. Nothing else is added, no preservatives, dyes.

The technology for making cheese has remained unchanged for many years. First, an enzyme is added to the milk, thanks to which it is fermented to form a mass resembling cottage cheese. Then it is pressed into special pieces. After that, the formed mass is soaked in a special brine in wooden barrels two more months. So it turns out the same cheese for the Greek which with Italian and translates as "piece". Feta is the most famous and popular soft cheese in the world.

original salad dressing

According to the classic "rustic" recipe, the Greek salad is dressed only with olive oil. With only a small addition. To create a fragrant bouquet and unique taste Lemon juice and herbes de Provence are added to high-quality cold-pressed olive oil.

Salad dressing should always be prepared in advance so that all its components are connected to each other, and it has time to infuse and soak in their smells. For her you will need: 70 ml olive oil, juice of half a lemon (can be replaced with a tablespoon of wine or balsamic vinegar), fragrant herbs(oregano, thyme or Provence).

Therefore, it depends not only on what kind of cheese will be present in the Greek salad, but also on the dressing itself. true taste dishes. Now it remains to collect all the ingredients together and proceed directly to the cooking process.

Classic Greek salad recipe

In the preparation of Greek salad, there are also secrets that must be taken into account. It seems that it is difficult here: chop vegetables and soft cheese, season them and mix thoroughly. But it's not like that at all. The original recipe for Greek salad with Feta cheese does not involve mixing the ingredients, but laying them in layers.

To prepare this dish you will need the following ingredients:

• 4 medium-sized tomatoes;
• 2 cucumbers;
• 1 large green bell pepper;
• ½ onion (sweet, purple);
• 150 g of feta;
• 8 pieces of black olives;
• some capers;
• dressing prepared according to the recipe above.

All salad ingredients are cut into large pieces and stacked in layers in a certain sequence.

1. Cut cucumbers: small slices, large ones in half again. Put on the bottom of the salad bowl.

2. Peel the pepper and cut into half rings. Arrange on top of cucumbers.

3. Peel the tomatoes from the stalk and cut into four parts.

4. The onion is cut into half rings. After that, it must be washed in cold water to take away the bitterness. Squeeze the onion and put it next, after the tomatoes, in a layer.

5. Decorate the dish with capers and olives, which do not need to be pre-cut.

7. Lay on top whole piece cheese and drizzle with remaining dressing.

8. Immediately before serving, salt, pepper and mix the Greek salad. Cheese "Feta" at the same time carefully breaks into large pieces.

This is how Greek salad is prepared in his homeland. However, many chefs in different countries have long gone from the traditional recipe, and offer restaurant visitors a dish that already includes other types of cheese.

What can replace feta cheese in a Greek salad?

If you can’t find feta before preparing the Greek salad, you can try replacing it with another pickled cheese. Cheese has a similar taste. This cheese is also suitable for Greek salad, since it is also soaked in brine, but, unlike feta, it does not crumble so much and is more compressed, so when added to a dish, it still has to be cut.

Brynza has a more salty taste. For a Greek salad, cheese of this kind is less suitable only in the sense that the dish is very easy to oversalt. To prevent this, cheese must be soaked in cold water for several hours. boiled water. This will make it less salty and more like traditional Greek cheese.

There are other options for replacing feta. Often in recipes, Greek cheeses sirtaki and fetax are used. Both of them have a pronounced salty taste so be careful when using them in recipes. Otherwise, you can oversalt the dish, which, as a result, spoil it.

Greek salad with Fetax cheese: a step by step recipe

This is no longer the original Greek salad recipe. And it's not just a different kind of cheese. Lettuce leaves are used instead of onions. The rest of the ingredients are similar. The Greek recipe requires the following components: tomatoes (2 pcs.), Cucumbers (2 pcs.), Bulgarian pepper, lettuce, olives, fetax (150 g), olive oil (30 ml), salt.

Step by step cooking recipe:

1. Cucumbers, tomatoes and bell pepper cut into large pieces.

2. Tear lettuce leaves with your hands.

3. Cut the fetax into large cubes. It has a dense structure, so unlike feta, it will not crumble.

4. Olives can be cut in half or added whole to a salad.

5. Mix all the ingredients in one salad bowl, season with olive oil and salt to taste.

The above recipe for Greek salad with Fetax cheese is in no way inferior in terms of palatability classic version. If desired, you can change the salad dressing by adding lemon juice and aromatic spices to the olive oil.

Greek salad with sirtaki

Stepping back from original recipe you can cook no less tasty salad, but with a different cheese. Sirtaki also comes from Greece, but they also learned how to successfully cook it in Russia from cow's milk. It is denser in texture than feta. It cuts well into cubes, does not crumble.

The recipe for Greek salad with Sirtaki cheese involves the use of tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, olives, olive oil and fresh basil. It is customary to chop all the ingredients coarsely so that you can feel the taste of each of them. The salad is dressed with fresh olive oil and basil (½ bunch) or dry (1 teaspoon). Sirtaki - salted cheese, so salt is added at the very last moment when dressing the salad. Otherwise, the dish may be spoiled.

The recipe for Greek salad with Sirtaki cheese is great alternative traditional version cooking. It can be submitted as festive table as well as for breakfast.

Mozzarella in Greek salad

A tasty and healthy dish of fresh vegetables can be prepared with the addition of Italian mozzarella. It has a dense texture, but at the same time it has a delicate salty taste. For Greek salad, mozzarella cheese is no worse than sirtaki or fetax.

This recipe uses the same ingredients as the ones above. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, olives, soft cheese and olive oil are the essential ingredients of the salad. But whether to add onions depends on the excellent preferences of the cook.

Greek salad dressed with traditional olive oil dressing, lemon juice and Provence herbs.

Greek salad with Adyghe cheese

Real Greek cheese made from sheep's milk can not be found in every store. Of course, they learned how to make it in Russia from cow's milk. But the taste of such cheese (feta, sirtaki or fetax is not the point) is not at all the same, and the price is still high. How to find a way out?

There is another option that is ideal for Greek salad - Adyghe cheese. It is more insipid in taste, but with skillful preparation of the dressing, it may well replace more expensive cheeses. The rest of the Greek salad recipe remains unchanged.

Greek Salad Encyclopedia: Ingredients, Dressings, Rules, Tips, classic recipe Greek salad and its many modifications:

The most famous Mediterranean salad

Let's start with the incredible: Greece has everything except… Greek salad! No, of course, in numerous restaurants aimed at welcoming and entertaining foreign tourists, the staff have learned well that the question of whether they have the above-named salad on the menu should be answered in the affirmative and at the same time vigorously nod your head to hide your own attitude to such a widespread myth. However, the truth is that what we call Greek salad, in Greece itself (as well as many other Mediterranean countries) is called dozens of different names, among which there is not only the one we are used to.

The most common local "name" a hero has today's article, rustic salad”(in the original language - χωριάτικη σαλάτα, “salad horiatiki”), which very eloquently, accurately and fully reflects the essence of the treat served to guests: natural products affordable, amazing quality. The second common name is trite and obvious: vegetable salad. However, they say that over the past few decades, the Greeks have come into use with another name for Greek salad - Russian salad: apparently, our compatriots order it en masse in restaurants, firmly linking the Greek dish with their own customs.

To avoid further confusion, let's just agree that let's allow ourselves to make allowances for our own traditions and call a dish of fresh vegetables and cheese, which is widely prepared in the Mediterranean countries, Greek salad, however, at the same time, we will certainly keep a small notch in our minds as a memory of how it should be properly called.

So let's go through basic components Greek salad? Special value this dish due to the fact that it contains almost everything that a person needs: proteins, fats, carbohydrates. A portion of a delicious salad, rich in taste and charming in its color saturation - and we can assume that a full meal has taken place. The salad recipe is optimal: such a dinner not only gives a feeling of satiety for a long time, but also normalizes metabolism, gently cleanses the intestines, saturates the body useful substances and micronutrients.

Greek Salad Ingredients

Tomatoes

If you think that a Greek salad can be made from semi-plastic greenhouse tomatoes without taste and smell, which lie in even beautiful rows on supermarket shelves, you are committing a crime against the entire Greek culture of healthy eating.

A prerequisite for a real Greek salad - fragrant tomatoes grown in open field, better - farm or village. Ideal - tomatoes grown with their own hands in their own garden.

There are no restrictions on the variety of tomatoes. Depending on your personal preferences, you can take fleshy red tomatoes, juicy pink ones, rich black ones, discreet yellow ones.

cucumbers

The rule concerning the method of growing tomatoes is equally true for cucumbers: the fruits must be fresh, firm, juicy and very fragrant. Sluggish green sticks, which modern stores offer in abundance, are categorically not suitable for Greek salad.

If a crazy thought runs through your head to peel the fruit from the skin, take a good old broom and drive it away. No self-respecting Greek would deprive cucumbers of their important component!

bell pepper

Again, remember that Greek salad is a rustic and simple dish, and we pass by the perfect bell peppers, which can be purchased at the supermarket. In the absence of access to personal gardening, the destination is the farmers' market, where grannies with string bags, strong grandfathers on bicycles, lively ruddy young ladies in colorful scarves come together.

Choose elastic fruits with a fresh stalk: if it is grafted, this signals that the pepper was plucked a few days, or even weeks ago. They can be used for stuffing or making sauces, but as a component of a Greek salad, they are completely unsuitable.

Feta

Do you want to make a Greek salad or a Greek-like salad? This point is very important when it comes to cheese. The fact is that, according to the decision approved in 2007 in the EU, only cheese can be called feta. Greek origin made from cow's or sheep's milk. Anything you buy from stores with that name that isn't made in Greece is not feta.

Thus, it turns out that an authentic Greek salad can only be prepared using cheese brought from a distant and sunny country on the Mediterranean coast. You can buy real feta in supermarkets, but few people dare to spend a lot of money on something that has domestic counterparts that are no less worthy and of high quality. Which cheese to buy to make a real Greek salad is, of course, up to you.

Olives

To prepare a Greek salad, you will need quality pitted olives. When choosing a product, try to do without canned something in metal cans with attractive labels, look for small shops specializing in the sale of goods from Italy or Greece - these are the shops where you can buy pickled olives and black olives highest quality. You need juicy hard fruits of a beautiful chocolate color with a well-marked eggplant shade. The stuffed versions are good and tasty, but not at all suitable for making a real Greek salad.

Olive oil

Many famous chefs believe that high-quality olive oil is a third of the key to success: it is it that unites the disparate components into a single whole, enveloping them with the extraordinary spirit of the Mediterranean. Naturally, we are talking about extra virgin olive oil, which is obtained by mechanical pressing.

This oil does not contain any additives, has rich taste and fragrance and is extremely beneficial to human health. Please note that the color is olive extra oils Virgin should not be close to yellow and amber tones, it is more green - thick, rich and grassy. The taste of this oil is very characteristic - it is barely perceptibly bitter, deafening with a mixture of salty, sour and sweet, striking with richness, surprising with subtlety.

Onion

Knowledgeable people say that in many ways perfect taste Greek salad depends on how you prepare the onions. Yes, yes, just cook - there are a lot of recipes for Greek salad on the Internet, but only a few sources open the veil and say that before adding onions to the salad, bitterness, stiffness and anger should be removed from it. The taste of this dish should make you love the world and rejoice at people, so the onion needs to be peeled, cut into rings and put for a couple of minutes in the marinade prepared in advance: a little hot water, salt, a spoonful of sugar. When taking the onion out of the marinade, in no case do we squeeze it and do not deform it, it should remain whole and beautiful.

oregano

Oregano is a staple Greek culinary herb and is added wherever possible, a flavor of many Greek dishes have an oregano accent. Of course, you can season the salad with Italian basil, French rosemary or Georgian cilantro, but it will not be quite a Greek salad, or even not a Greek salad at all. Oregano (although it is nothing more than oregano) is a magical herb, do not neglect it if you decide to experience the true taste of an authentic classic dish.

Classic Greek salad recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cucumber;
• 1 tomato;
• 1/3 bell pepper;
• 1/2 blue onion;
• 5-7 olives;
• 80 g of feta;
• salt, a pinch of dry oregano;
• 50 ml olive oil.

How to cook Greek salad

We wash vegetables, cut them large pieces. Put in a salad bowl.
Peel the onion, cut into half rings, pickle a little if desired. Put in a salad bowl.
Add olives without brine.
Salt. Mix carefully.
Put a few slices of cheese on top of the vegetables. Even more correctly - solid - one! - a chunk. It's an old village tradition. It differs from the modern fast food style of cutting feta into cubes.
Sprinkle with oregano.
Drizzle the salad generously with olive oil and serve. Maybe with a slice of lemon.

Greek salad dressings and dressings

The classic Greek salad is dressed with the highest quality olive oil, however, variations are allowed that diversify the taste of the salad, make it interesting and unusual.

Try making a dressing based on olive oil and lemon juice. You can add some white wine and balsamic vinegar. drop of honey, soy sauce, narsharab, a little grain mustard, orange peel will make the dressing even more original.

The main rule for making salad dressing is that the sauce should be very rich in taste, but pleasant. If you have prepared a dressing, but you don’t like it (yes, yes, you must try it first!), The salad will not fix it, rather, it will ruin the salad itself.

Ways to diversify a classic recipe

There are many options that allow you to diversify the usual rustic salad. In some recipes, it certainly includes leaf lettuce. Lightly salted salmon and canned tuna, boiled cold pasta and baked bell peppers, cooked lentils and raw cauliflower, capers and anchovies, avocados and mushrooms - everyone chooses additives according to their taste and wallet.

By the way, another option is endive leaves. They are good not only for an additional flavor note - they are very cool to serve a salad in a portion. It turns out unusual and stylish.

Feed options

Greek salad is so popular all over the world that numerous experiments in serving it became quite a natural course of development of this dish.

Many chefs of famous restaurants build "turrets" of vegetables, alternating them with cheese. There is a serving in "boats" of bell pepper or lettuce, in pita bread and on toasted slices of bread, in small cups in the manner of verrins and huge bowls, the contents of which can feed half of China.

Vegetables are laid out on a plate in bright multi-colored rows, alternated in appetizing layers in a salad bowl, roughly cut into a couple of parts, neatly cut into small cubes - there are a lot of options for serving Greek salad, and it seems that every day chefs from all over the Earth come up with new and new ones. interesting ways treat your guests delicious dish from fresh vegetables and tender soft cheese.

5 rules of real Greek salad

1. The ingredients for the rustic Greek salad are cut into large pieces. No, not just large, but as large as possible - they should hide the maximum taste in themselves, plus for cooking the most ordinary everyday meal It is unacceptable to spend more than 5 minutes of time.

2. Do you make salad for yourself and your family? Then put your doubts aside– and mix the contents of the bowl with your hands. Ru-ka-mi! This will not only add soulfulness to the salad, but also allow you to keep the vegetables whole without crushing or even crushing them.

3. When adding olive oil, you should not only pay attention to its quality (only the best, only proven!), but also on its quantity. The canonical Greek salad should be oily, very oily - no real Greek woman would spare olive oil, because she knows that after the salad bowl is empty, a delicious "juice" from vegetables, cheese and dressing will remain at its bottom. Greeks dip slices of freshly baked bread into this liquid and enjoy the extraordinary taste of homemade food.

By the way, for this process, the inventive people of a sunny country even invented a separate word - “ladobukies” (“oil pieces”), which means a completely indecent, but incredibly savory soaking of bread in salad sauce.

4. Don't cut the cheese. Limit yourself to one large slice, which is laid out on top of vegetables. So more beautiful, tastier and more "Greek".

5. Greek salad is prepared immediately before being served, and after serving, it is eaten immediately. He does not need to infuse, the products should be as fresh as possible and just chopped.

The History of Greek Salad

They say that the birth of lettuce falls on the 20-30s of the 19th century. The fact is that tomatoes, one of the main components of Greek salad, appeared on the territory of this country only in 1818 - and it was after they almost instantly gained popularity and popular love that they began to be used in salads.

However, history claims that it was only a prototype of the modern Greek salad - let's say, its distant genetic ancestor, no more. At the time when the first tomatoes appeared in Greece and onion, these vegetables were not cut into pieces, but were eaten exclusively whole. Only almost a century later, with another wave of emigrants, one of the Greeks came to the United States, who guessed to cook favorite dish in a slightly modified format - after cutting vegetables into small pieces.

In Greece, among other things, there is a proverb: having known a village salad, you will know Greece (or another wording: a village salad is all Greece in one plate). Enjoy the taste of fresh vegetables and soft cheese and get to know Greece!