Recipes of Sifnos

Chick pea soup (revithada)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 kilo of chick peas
• 1 soup spoonful of baking soda
• ¾ of a kilo of onions finely cut
• ¾ of a water glass of olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• water
• lemon (when serving)

PREPARATION

The night before, put the chick peas into water. In the morning add the soda and leave them soak for another half hour. Leach them out (3-4 times). Put them in the skepastaria (special ceramic chick pea soup utensil) and add the finely cut onion, the olive oil, the salt and pepper and the water. The water that you’ll add must be enough so that when you cant the skepastaria it reaches the edge of the utensil and at the same time it must cover the chick peas. Certain people make a kind of paste with flour and water and they seal the utensil with it by applying it between the skepastaria and its cover! Cover the skepastaria with its cover and put it in the wood oven and leave the chick pea soup to be cooked for about 6 hours.

ADVICE The water that we use in Sifnos for the preparation of the chick pea soup is rain water that we save in out basins. You can cook the chick pea soup with bottled water, and you can also stew it in the electric oven for 6 hours at 150 degrees but unfortunately you won’t get the taste of the authentic chick pea soup.

Mastelo

INGREDIENTS

• 5-6 kilos of mutton or kid cut in big pieces
• red wine
• a lot of dill finely cut
• suet (optionally)
• salt
• pepper
• vine-twigs
• tinfoil or oil paper (according to where you are going to cook it)

PREPARATION

Wash out the meat with red wine. Put salt and pepper on it and powder the pieces with dill. Put on the bottom of the mastelo (special ceramic utensil for this specific dish without a cover) the vine-twigs crosswise forming a grid. Put the pieces of meat over the wine-twigs. Optionally, you can cover the pieces of meat with suet at the end of the process. Spray the food with 1 ½ - 2 wine glasses of red wine (if it is clear, you can use the wine that we used to wash off the meat). Cover the utensil with tinfoil and use a fork or a knife to make small holes on it. Put it in the wood oven for 4 ½ to 5 hours.

ADVICE If you want to cook the food in an electric oven, make it cook for an hour at 200 degrees and then continue cooking it at 100 degrees. If you are going to use an electric oven cover the food with oil paper instead of tinfoil and do not open any holes on it. Many people put under the wine-twigs potatoes powdered with salt and pepper cut exactly the way you cut the potatoes to make roast meat.

Chick pea croquettes (revithokeftedes)

INGREDIENTS

• ½ kilo of chick peas
• 4 boiled medium sized potatoes
• 4 medium sized onions finely cut
• grated mint
• a little grated marjoram
• parsley finely cut
• salt
• pepper
• flour
• frying oil

PREPARATION

The night before, put the chick peas in water. In the morning put the cooking soda and leave them soak for half an hour. Leach out the chick peas (3-4 times). Put all the ingredients in the electric food mixer (not in a blender)! If the mixture is watery, add some flour and work the mixture to incorporate the flour in it. Make small round balls, cover them with flour and fry them.

Baked macaroons (Amigdalota)

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups of almond kernel roughly crushed
• 1 cup of sugar
• vanilla flavor
• ½ of a cup hardtack
• 3 egg whites
• a bit of rosewater
• caster sugar

PREPARATION

Mix the almonds with the sugar and add the albumens, the vanilla flavor and the hardtack. Work the mixture until it becomes one mass and make little pear-shaped pieces. Put them in a large baking pan at the bottom of which, you must first put oil paper and bake them for 15 - 20 minutes at 180 degrees. When they start cooling, we pour the rosewater on them and we powder them with some caster sugar.

Honey pie (Melopita)

INGREDIENTS

• 1.100gr of saltless myzithra (skim milk cheese) or cream cheese from Sifnos
• 1 glass of sugar
• 6 eggs
• ¾ of a glass honey
• cinnamon for powdering
• butter and flour for the baking pan

PREPARATION

Work in the electric food mixer the myzithra or the cream cheese with the sugar, the eggs and the honey. Then pour the mixture into the baking pan, after having buttered it and powdered it with the flour. Bake the pie in a preheated oven at 200 Celsius degrees for about 50’. The moment you take it out of the oven powder it with cinnamon and cut it in pieces.

TIP "Melopita" is a traditional Easter dessert of Sifnos, but nowadays you can find during summer in various patisseries of the island.