June S
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Country cook
Michael Psilakis is changing public perceptions about his native Greek cuisine

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/11/03/ST20091...

By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 4, 2009

HERAKLION, CRETE -- Michael Psilakis needs a goat. He reserved one,
but there was confusion about when the famous chef from New York would
pick it up, and the village butcher sold it to someone else. Without
it, Psilakis could not make the braised goat, the moussaka, the pasta
with goat ragu or the traditional Cretan wedding rice, which is cooked
in goat broth. Most of the menu he has planned to show me would be
ruined.
"Typical," Psilakis says as he winds his way past fresh seafood,
vegetables, local honey and touristy T-shirts in the central market of
Heraklion, Crete's largest city. He lights a cigarette and inhales
deeply. "This is so Greek."

Psilakis, 40, is one part irritated but two parts amused. He has spent
his entire professional life evangelizing about and explaining Greek
food, so anything typically Greek, even a typically Greek mistake,
gets a pass. His haute establishment Anthos is the only Greek
restaurant in the United States to have received a Michelin star; his
more rustic Kefi helped establish Manhattan's Upper West Side, long a
culinary desert, as a dining destination. This past spring, he was
invited by the White House to cook for a Greek Independence Day
celebration. Now Psilakis has a new cookbook, "How to Roast a Lamb"
(Little, Brown, 2009), that tracks his culinary development from the
souvlaki and cheese pies called tiropitas he watched his mother make
when he was growing up on Long Island to the smoked octopus with
fennel puree and lemon confit that is a signature dish at Anthos.

Psilakis (pronounced see-LAH-kees) is serious about wanting Americans
to understand Greek cuisine. In part, it's because he is, like all
good chefs, reverent toward food, particularly its power to evoke
memories and its ability to unite the family at the table. (Psilakis
often compares his childhood to a scene from the movie "My Big Fat
Greek Wedding" in which the protagonist describes her family this way:
"You never just have a minute alone just to think, 'cause we're always
together, just eating, eating, eating!")

In part, though, it's because Psilakis has something to prove: that
Greek food deserves the same respect among Americans that French and
Italian cuisine receive. Greeks were making wine centuries before the
first vines were planted in Burgundy. The Mediterranean diet was born
in Crete, where Psilakis's father grew up, not in Italy. Yet France
had Julia Child. Italy has Marcella Hazan. "How many times has someone
asked me if this is really Greek food?" he says of the sophisticated
dishes at Anthos. "They don't get it."

"How to Roast a Lamb" aims to define Greek food. But the book is also
a love letter to Psilakis's family. The recipes are a tribute to his
mother: her spanakopita, stuffed baby eggplant and pastitsio, a kind
of Greek lasagna scented with nutmeg. Many of the stories focus on his
father, Gus, who died in September 2007. Indeed, the book's title
stems from one of Psilakis's formative food memories: the first time
he watched his father slaughter a lamb and understood where meat
actually comes from.

Food was at the center of his family life. But Psilakis did not decide
to cook until -- wait for it -- he began working as a waiter at T.G.I.
Fridays, he said. Making people feel welcome and feeding them was what
he had always done at home. It felt right. Soon, friends invited him
to help open a small Italian restaurant. Later, Psilakis took over,
working some days as both chef and waiter to make ends meet. In 2004,
he opened Onera, Greek for "dreams," in Manhattan. His mission to
promote Greek food had begun.

* * *

Greeks don't like change, Psilakis tells me as he carries the goat we
eventually found at another butcher into the kitchen at the Boutari
winery outside Heraklion. The building is a blend of yellow stucco and
glass that reflects the surrounding hills, planted in vineyards and
olive groves. Even this nod to modernity is an affront to some
Cretans, who with varying degrees of success have fought off invasion
by the Romans, the Venetians, the Turks and, during World War II, the
Germans. To Psilakis, however, the building embraces the soul of Greek
wine, and interprets and elevates it.

That is Psilakis's goal for Greek cuisine. The meal he has planned
uses local ingredients, such as the goat and wild oregano (which has a
lemony finish "that you simply cannot find in the States"), and the
way Greeks employ them. Psilakis's goat, for example, will go into
several dishes. The meat will be braised with aromatic vegetables and
tomatoes; some of the sauce will be reduced to dress homemade pasta
called hilopites. The bones will be used for stock, which Psilakis
will in turn use to cook the rice. If there's any leftover goat, he'd
like to make moussaka.

Psilakis knows this is not the way Americans cook. He also knows most
of them are unfamiliar with or afraid of goat and octopus, the base
for another dish on his menu. "I know Americans don't make this to
then make that," he said. "But I wanted to show how it was done."

We start with the goat. Psilakis and Harris Sakalis, one of his former
sous-chefs who now lives in Greece, make quick work of butchering the
animal into recognizable cuts. Goat, Psilakis says, is lean like lamb.
Rich cuts such as the tenderloin can be roasted, but much of the meat
is best braised to avoid drying it out.

In his classic braise, Psilakis is cooking the leg in red wine and
tomato. First, he sears the meat until it turns golden brown. The meat
comes out of the pan and in go carrots, onions and celery -- a classic
mirepoix -- plus garlic, because he likes it. He deglazes the pan with
red wine, returns the meat and covers it with water. At the
restaurant, Psilakis would cook with stock to intensify the flavor.
Water is what his mother and many home cooks use. "The beauty of this
dish is it requires only one pan," he said.

Psilakis's recipe calls for dried oregano, thyme and rosemary, but he
encourages home cooks to use whatever spices they like. For his part,
he puts cinnamon sticks and bay leaves in almost everything. Cooks who
don't want to use goat can easily substitute another lean meat, such
as chicken, pheasant or rabbit.

With the goat simmering on the stove, we move on to the octopus and
chickpea salad. It's a dish I requested. Octopus is transcendent when
it is cooked well, which it usually isn't: Instead of being tender and
meaty, it arrives like octopus jerky. The chew is enough to put many
Americans off octopus for good. (Also off-putting, I learn upon my
return, is that Mediterranean octopus is considered unsustainable by
the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch. Squid is an acceptable
substitute in this recipe, though cooking procedures and times will
need to be adjusted.)

The mistake cooks make with octopus, Psilakis says, is that they think
of it as seafood, most of which is best lightly sauteed or grilled.
But octopus, like goat, is a braising meat: brisket of the sea, if you
will. For his family members, who appreciate a chewy texture, he'll
grill octopus. But in every dish at the restaurant, the octopus is
braised first to break down the fibrous meat.

Preparing octopus right turns out to be easier than I expected. One
slice removes the head, then I pop out the pointy beak and cut apart
the legs. (Most octopus is sold frozen and already prepared.) We heat
a skillet and sear the meat, being careful not to crowd the pan. When
the octopus turns a brilliant violet, we add a whole garlic clove and
bay leaves. (The recipe calls for crushed pepper flakes, but we don't
have any.) Then, we cover the pan and put it in the oven. The heat
pulls water from the octopus to create the braising liquid.

While the octopus cooks, we prepare the salad. The chickpea confit
calls for dried beans to be cooked, then cooled and drained and cooked
again in fruity olive oil and spices. But Psilakis says it's fine to
use canned chickpeas to save time. He does recommend the extra confit
step, which adds richness and a layer of flavor from the aromatics. As
with a braise, Psilakis is happy for cooks to replace the garlic,
cumin and mustard seeds he calls for with whatever they like; fennel,
star anise and cardamom all work well.

* * *

Dinner is served under an arbor crawling with vines and shiny white
grapes. We start with the octopus and chickpea salad, flecked with
plump sun-dried tomatoes and fresh herbs. Alongside the braised goat
is the rice, cooked in the goat stock and finished with a pat of goat
butter, and quick-pickled beets served with Greek yogurt and a
generous glug of the winery's olive oil. "There's a beauty in rustic
food that you can never capture in haute cuisine. It takes you on a
journey," Psilakis said. "I know you've had a meal, probably in Italy,
that takes you somewhere."

That I indeed had that meal in Italy seems to frustrate Psilakis. It's
not only that people think first of Italy. It's that Psilakis doesn't
believe food should be treasured only when it is exotic. His dearest
food memories are these: making his parents poached eggs and blueberry
muffins and serving them in bed, pitting cherries for preserves with
his mother, growing tomatoes and hunting rabbits with his father. Food
marks special occasions, Psilakis said. "But the point is, you don't
have to go on a vacation to have a moment like that. You can have it
at home."

--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbo...@gmail.com
(or) kalamos...@aol.com
www.kalamosbooks.com