just witnessed |
Encounters With Wines On Crete.
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The Delight Of Buying Wine And Stifado Meats And Enjoying Them All Monasteries Make Wine 
Most monasteries make wine primarily for their own use, or for selling in limited quantities within the monastery. And many of the monastery wines are produced in traditional, country style.But there is also a growing number of monasteries tending their vinyards more professionally, and using modern methods of vinification. And some of these "modern" monasteries, like The Monastery of The Holy Trinity of Jagarolon, situated on the higher slopes of Akrotiri, produce wines in such quantities that they can be found in wine shops. - We, ofcourse, found their Cabernet Sauvignon red in our favourite Kalyves wine shop, Cretan Wines. The Next Step for us, on our way to seeing what we can achieve from this wine in combination with learning the traditional stifado, was to see our butcher again. "Beef and lamb for a stifado, please. Miso kilo each." - And as you may guess, the butcher surprised us again. It took him just a few good swings of the cleaver to come within 10 grams of the wanted half a kilo of beef (in just the sizes of hunks of meat proper for a stifado), but it was unbeliveable to see that some more work with the clever on a bony lamb produced an exact reading of 500 grams on the scale. With the Meats Purchased off we went to our abode to learn about making a genuine stifado. Basically its a simple casserole, but a trick or two need to be taken into account to make it as tender and tasty as it is at its best. And a good bit of patience - this is not food you start making when the guests have already arrived. Though there are no strict rules, not even to the meat one uses (there's a rabbit stifado, a beef variant, one made of lamb only - or you can plain make a mixture), it all starts by frying the meat lightly in olive oil. Then you pour the meat and the oil into a (preferably earthware) vessel large enough to fit first enough water just to cover the meat (and later a volume of small onions that equals that of the meat, plus more liquid). The meat, olive oil, and water are now let to cook mildly for an hour. The spicy liquid is prepared while the meat is cooking. It consists of a mixture of 1/2 dl of olive oil, some tomato sauce, a glass of red wine, half a glass of vinegar, salt, pepper, and to your liking either laurel, cinnamon or cumin, or all of them. After an hour of mild cooking, the small onions (in volume equal to meat) and several cloves of garlic are added. And the spicy liquid is poured in. With all the ingredients in the vessel, the whole is let to cook mildly for 2 hours (the oven is a good place for that). During that time you should not stir the casserole but rather tilt the vessel occasionally so as not to break the whole onions. The Proof Of Success or failure is revealed when the steaming stew is taken out of the oven, let to rest a moment, and then served on the plates. Now there are some definite criteria: 1) the meat has be so tender that the shadow of your fork (not even your knife) is able to cut it into mouth-size pieces, 2) the whole onions have become soft, but keeping their form, and 3) the spice-world has pervaded the meat and the onions. The meat enjoyment is served with the carbon-hydrate (potatoes, rice...) and a large salad of your choice. When One Tops this traditional Greek food with a good Greek wine and some good, traditional Greek music, everything is so close to perfection... We had that experience because our monastery wine had the excellent, muscular body and taste of a Cabernet Sauvignon, and the music was authentic rebetika performed by many of the greatest artist of that gendre. - And foremost because our stifado met the criteria of quality. The question of the spice-world is ofcourse totally a matter of taste. There we prefer less cinnamon, rather an emphasis on cumin, and guite a bit of pepper and garlic.
-Hannu
P.P.S. Yesterday night we witnessed the mightiest duel between Zeus and our Ukkonen (Thunder) so far. The Olympic sport grew into such dimensions of violence, and spectacularity, that it started to remind professional heavy-weight boxing. Either one of the contestants seemed to loose his gentlemanly grip, because one of the lightning spears hit our Kalyves so hard that the lights were out from the village for 12 hours. |
11 Piano Paraludes
by Jani Malmi
Music
of the Week:
11 Piano Paraludes 
<-CLICK wisely to
HEAR
Turn your volume knob to the south-east!
Eli botikat kaakkoon!
©Jani Malmi - more enjoyment on his homepage.
If your heart is warm with
happiness, you'll need a glass -
if sorrow chills your heart, have two!
"Avidly testing reasonably
priced wine with a view and a vision in mind."
(c) Lassi
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WINE OF THE
WEEK
http://www.nettivuori.com/weeklywine
http://www.nettivuori.com/viikonviini
Texts, photos & visuals
© Hannu
Lehmusvuori
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