Week 5 - πρωινό - Greece

BOUGATSA

Welcome to a special Olympic edition of our breakfast tour.  Today's edition features breakfast from the country where it all began - Greece!

Breakfast in Greece is actually quite a simple affair.  Most Grecians start their day off with a simple cup of coffee - that's it.  Lucky for this blog, they get hungry a little later on in the morning and around 11 o'clock will stop for a little something to tide them over to lunch, often a pastry from their local bakery.

One such pastry is the Bougatsa.  Made in small shops all over Greece (but originating in Crete), Bougatsa is a phyllo dough pastry made with a filling of lemony semolina custard and a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar.  (other common fillings are cheese or meat)

This recipe was a little bit daunting to make.  Producing a lump-free custard required lots of patience at the stove (plus a little help from the sieve later on).  And getting the right thickness of phyllo crust required some good old-fashioned trial and error.  At one piece the filling exploded out of the shell, at two it still looked a little anemic, but Goldilocks was finally happy at three....

Bougatsa won my heart immediately.  The phyllo was crisp and buttery (I used ghee for a more buttery flavour), and the combination of the warm lemon custard filling and the cinnamon was so simple and so delicious!

The Verdict:

For Ease of Preparation:

Making Bougatsa wasn't really as hard as I expected and could be done relatively quickly with some practice.

For Degrees of Separation:

It's not Khichdi, but it's not exactly jam and toast either.

For Guestability:

Imagine your guests waking up to warmly baked Greek pastries!   Mmmmmm.....

For Sustainability:

We were full after just one piece but once you eat one....

Overall Appeal:

I usually try to do a fair average here, but Bougatsa gets bonus points because it was so scrumptious!

Greece was stellar but I'm sure England won't disappoint us.  Join us next week as "me and the Old Pot and Pan try some Bubble and Squeak in the old Cat and Mouse!"