serves 4
I stumbled upon this remake of a true Greek farm breakfast at Avli, a lovely sprawling restaurant situated in a five-hundred-year-old house in Rethymnon, Crete. Katerina, the owner, has resuscitated many old Cretan recipes, and this hearty porridge is a hit even in the heat of a Greek summer.
Whole wheat, bulgur wheat, and trahana (see here), a milk-based, pebbly grain product that is one of the oldest foods in the world, are the main grains for Greece’s traditional breakfast porridges. The latter imparts a delicious sour flavor and can be interchanged with the bulgur or whole wheat kernels called for in the recipe. I sometimes also make this with buckwheat; the proportion of water to grain is the same, about 3 parts water to 1 part grain. Note that if you’re using whole wheat kernels, you’ll need to soak them overnight, so plan ahead.
2 cups (280 g) bulgur wheat or whole wheat kernels (see headnote)
1 cinnamon stick
2 cups (480 ml) milk
Pinch of salt
4 to 6 tablespoons (60 to 90 ml) Greek honey
½ cup (25 g) finely chopped fresh parsley
½ cup (25 g) finely chopped fresh mint
⅔ cup (95 g) seedless raisins
1½ cups (350 ml) pomegranate seeds
Ground cinnamon
If using whole wheat kernels, rinse them, put them in a bowl with water to cover, and soak them overnight. Drain.
Place the bulgur or whole wheat kernels in a medium saucepan with 6 cups (1.4 L) water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and add the cinnamon stick and milk. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring, until creamy, about 10 minutes for bulgur and 45 minutes to 1 hour for whole wheat kernels.
Season with the salt and honey, using more or less according to your taste. Just before removing from the heat, stir in the parsley, mint, raisins, and pomegranate seeds. Remove the cinnamon stick.
Serve in shallow bowls, sprinkled with cinnamon.
Baklava, the classic Greek dessert of phyllo dough filled with nuts, flavored with cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, and dampened with simple honey or sugar syrup, is a dish that has inspired my cooking in more than the dessert department.
The combination of all those warm spices, evocative of the East, translates well to so many other recipes. If you’ve got baklava on hand, try cutting it up into small chunks and mixing it into a container of softened good vanilla ice cream, then refreezing it. I’ve made baklava ice cream sandwiches and baklava-flavored flans. But it’s in the day’s first meal that those warm spices inspire me the most. Here are two recipes for classic American fare flavored with the aromas of Greek baklava.
