Δε χορταίνει μ` ωραία λόγια η κοιλιά
“The belly doesn’t fill up on nice words.”
In Greek cooking, the approach to sauces is simple. While there are a few technique-driven sauces, such as avgolemono, the egg-lemon liaison that laces so many stews and binds so many soups, most sauces are easy to make. Most dressings and many marinades are simple emulsions of acid whisked with olive oil, riffs on the theme of what the world knows as vinaigrette.
It is in the contemporary Greek kitchen, spun from the whisks of modern Greek chefs in Greece and in Greek restaurants around the globe, that a new range of sauces and dressings has emerged over the past decade or so. Many have been co-opted by home cooks. I love them all. For the most part, the new range is an evolution of the classics: avgolemono spiked with alcohol or reddened with a pinch of saffron; ladolemono, the basic lemon–olive oil emulsion, as an open invitation to tweak with herbs, cheeses, liqueurs, honey, ginger, and more; basic tomato sauces perked up with orange and ouzo. The variations are endless.
It’s safe to say that almost all dressings and marinades in the Greek kitchen call for olive oil, coupled with an assortment of other ingredients, from fresh citrus juices to alcohol (both deglazed and not) to yogurt, honey, mustard, herbs, garlic, ginger, and more. Marinades are used to “cure” raw fish dishes, a much-embraced newcomer to the Greek table, as well as to enhance grilled foods, from vegetables to fish, seafood, and meat. Dressings are mainly used over salads.
The Greek salad—that timeless assembly, in its purest, most authentic, seasonal form, of great tomatoes; unabashedly sharp onions; crunchy cucumbers; grassy, slightly bitter peppers; kalamata olives; and feta—need be dressed in nothing but olive oil and good sea salt. To my mind, any other addition in the dressing department (not to mention lettuce!) adulterates the clarity of flavor of this true Greek classic.
For boiled salads, such as those of wild greens, or horta, the rule of thumb is olive oil and lemon juice for sweet greens, olive oil and vinegar for bitter ones. Other cold boiled vegetable salads, such as of zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and potatoes, are typically dressed with a simple ladolemono. Boiled beets usually like vinegar rather than lemon juice.
The selection that follows is a reflection of my personal favorites and of the sauces and dressings I use most in my own home cooking.