Synglitiki “Tita” Zervos comes to the United States in 1961 imagining she’ll live in the White House or a Hollywood mansion. From her tiny island of Kalymnos off the Southern coast of Greece (population 1,500), it seems possible. Based on American movies, her impression of the United States is all presidents and movie stars. Little does she know what lies ahead: a life full of cooking, family, and later – memories.
Note from Alan Lake: We may know stuffed grape leaves by their more formal name, dolmades, but Greek peasants/commoners call them fela – a word that means simply “leaves.” There’s a short window of time in May and June when fresh leaves are at their best. Too small, and you can’t stuff them. Too large, and they get tough.
To explain how she knows when grape leaves are the right size, Yiayia makes a fist and then extends her fingers. “Somewhere in between, that’s the best size,” she says. They grow in sandy soil, and once picked can be dried or frozen. Yiayia freezes hers.
People are protective of the spots where they find them, keeping them secret, as with truffles. We’re in luck. Yiayia picked hers a couple days before we made the dish, and they’re as fresh as can be. A different animal from the bottled, to be sure.
Fela can be vegetarian or contain meat or lamb or pine nuts, depending on your taste. Fela/dolmades are most often eaten on Sundays, but here, any time will do.
Ingredients
1 large soup bone w/some meat still on it, browned and reserved (besides imparting flavor, this helps in preventing sticking or scorching)
3 lbs. ground beef (80/20 works best, you don’t want it too lean)
2 large onions, diced
3 stems flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
1 cup long grain rice, washed, drained
2 t. tomato paste
12 oz. tomato sauce
1 t. salt
1 t. pepper
For the avgolemono sauce
2 egg whites
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup pot juices from fela
Method
1. Mix all ingredients together, including whatever meat you can cut from the soup bone. This adds a different texture to the ground beef mixture. Chill. Moisten meat mixture with a bit of chicken stock or water. It should be a bit glossy.
2. Prepare fela/dolmades. Ideally, the fela should have been picked fresh in May–June and frozen for year-round use – or, it’s available in ethnic grocery stores by the jar. First, rinse well. Bring water to a boil with the juice of 1 lemon. Add fela to water and blanch for 5 minutes. If they’re still tough, blanch for an additional 5 minutes. Strain and set aside to cool. Remove 1/4 inch of the stem, as they can be tough.
3. Assemble fela. Use a heavy-bottomed pot – 6 quarts at least. Place beef soup bone on bottom of the pot. Open leaves and place stem side on the bottom. Add approximately 1 T. meat mixture to the lower 1/3 of the leaf. Fold leaf over the filling and then fold in the edges of both sides in, as as you would a burrito or egg roll.
4. Cook fela. Place in pot seam side down, layering tightly around and over the soup bone. Dilute 2 cups water with 4 chicken bouillon cubes, crumbled, and pour over fela in the pot. Add 1/2 stick of unsalted butter, cubed. Place a dish over the top to weigh down and cook for 1 hour over medium heat, covered.
5. Before serving, make the the avgolemono sauce.
In a chilled mixing bowl, beat egg whites until fluffy. Add yolks one at a time and continue to beat. Slowly drizzle lemon juice in.
6. Add pan juices slowly and adjust seasoning as needed with salt and pepper. Pour avgolemono over the top of the fela and swish the pot around to combine the juices. Reserve some sauce for garnishing once plated. Eat hot or cold. It’s even better the next day.
Happening upon LTH Forum was a game changer for me. After nearly two decades, I returned home to Chicago knowing the streets but not what was on them any longer. The city had changed quite a bit in my absence.
A mention of LTH in the Reader (probably by Mike Sula but I can’t remember) teased me with a cut-to-the-chase of like-minded people in all things culinary. Every weekend for the first year I was back, my sister would show up at my apartment asking “Whattayagot? ” in an accent heard only around these parts. By that she meant, where would we be eating based on my newly gleaned knowledge from LTH discussions the preceding week? We sampled Thai grocers and Pakistani BBQ, attended a few events, and in so doing met a lot of new people. People I never would have met left to my own devices. While I had old friends here that helped tip the scale to come back, now I have new friends too – many of which who’ve come via LTH.
In reading the forums, certain writing stood out. I found myself laughing and agreeing with some, and shaking my head and wondering with others. The first time I was able to put a face to a name was during the historic Fanny’s debacle of ’06. Having been weaned on Fanny’s, I went in with high expectations. I left feeling I’d experienced an abortion (a.k.a. the meal) without anesthetic. Misery loves company, though, and the company was excellent. That evening I met a couple of people who would become my friends. And then I met more. And more. So it’s safe to say that LTH had significant influence on me (as it has on many that are reading this). This is but one reason many of us at LTH take this community so personally.
As if we own the damn thing.
But we don’t. Steve Zaransky, Ronnie Suburban and Dave Dickson do. So, I’d like to introduce you to two people (one I met that fateful evening, the other a short time later) that act as caretakers for LTHForum. Steve Zaransky and Ronnie Suburban. Since we’ve fressed so often together over the ensuing years, both in their homes and in the many restaurants found here on LTH, I thought they’d be naturals for this Home Cookin’ series.
Editor’s Note: This article is the third in a series by Alan Lake, all about home cooks, their stories and recipes. Read part one here for a description of what Home Cookin’ is all about.
Once upon a time in a restaurant in Palm Beach, a manager came back to the kitchen, saying to me, “You’ve got to meet this guy out there. What an ass, getting all bent out of shape over nothing. He reminds me of you.”
Our high-rolling two-top, consisting of a man and his wife, had ordered some vintage port (a Fonseca ’77) after their meal. In walking it over to pour it tableside, my manager friend inadvertently shook the bottle, which disturbed the sediment, thus serving them glasses filled with it. So the man busted her on it, and rightfully so. She came and got me to smooth things over, and he and I have been friends ever since. At the time, none of us knew that this is a guy that knows his sh*t – that’s lived high and low, through good and bad, all over the world.
Editor’s Note: This article is the second in a series by Alan Lake, all about home cooks, their stories and recipes. Read part one here for a description of what Home Cookin’ is all about.
Alan Lake: Intro
When I think who in my life best represents the spirit I hope to encapsulate in this series, one name leaps to mind: trixie-pea, a.k.a. Kristina Meyer.
We’re connected, she and I, and think we both knew it the minute we met. Over the years I’ve been the recipient of numerous trixie-pea throw-downs. Not many people I know can pull off an elaborate Burmese picnic the way she recently did, putting together a spread of nearly a dozen dishes at a remote, outdoor location. And maybe none of those involved could tell how authentic it was, but one thing we did agree upon was just how effing fabulous it all tasted. Like everything she makes.
