This is the way to cook halloumi. It is very popular done on a barbecue as a vegetarian burger, but served like this, dusted in semolina, fried in olive oil and drizzled with warm honey, black sesame seeds and oregano, it is one of the best mezzes I know. If you can get kefalotiri cheese, try that; it is very special too.
San Marzano tomatoes have dense flesh and a rich, sweet flavour. They are considered by many chefs to make the best tomato sauce, but good quality plum tomatoes could be substituted.
These pencil-thin sticks studded with green olives are great served with olive oil or your favourite dips for a party. Equipment and preparation: You will need a mixer fitted with a dough hook.
Enjoy this homemade loaf of ciabatta as a sandwich with mozzarella, basil, tomato and prosciutto, or simply ripped into pieces and dipped in olive oil and good-quality balsamic vinegar.
The Greeks love their sweets, and this one is almost as central to their cooking culture as baklava or rice pudding. It is quite common to add an orange sauce to galaktoboureko. I made this one typically sweet and sticky.
This Cypriot cheese-filled pastry uses ground mahlepi (a Greek spice made from the ground stone of the St Lucie cherry) in the dough, giving a hint of almond flavour. Delicious with a filling of pecorino romano, halloumi and sultanas.
The red mullet off Monemvasia are supposedly the best in the Aegean. A net full of them, red yes, but pink too with flashes of yellow as the sun rose on a still dark blue sea is a lovely recollection, and fried for breakfast later they were quite memorable. A month later though, I saw three autumn mullet in our fish shop and I cooked them simply with a dusting of semolina. I used to think the Mediterranean mullet were better than ours, but now I know the ones that come to Cornwall in autumn are prett