Why horta is her favourite Greek word and feta is fantastic: talking with Diane Kochilas

As My Greek Table returns to SBS Food, we talk to host Diane Kochilas about Greek pies, cheese and glorious greens.

Diane Kochilas on Naxos. Source: My Greek Table

--- See My Greek Table at SBS On Demand ---

Diane Kochilas is a lucky woman, and she knows it: in her popular TV series My Greek Table, she gets to share the food she loves with a passion with people around the world - including dishes based on her favourite Greek word, horta. 

"Learn how to say my favorite word in Greek, which is horta, greens, and make a beautiful dish like this, tsigareli, and I think you'll start to look at something very basic in an exciting and new way," she says in the show, as she cooks a dish of braised greens with tomato and feta. "This kind of cooking, these delicious greens, to me, represent the heart and soul of the Greek kitchen."

Tsigareli (braised greens with tomato and feta), inspired by a visit to Corfu. Source: My Greek Table

Talking to SBS, Kochilas says she feels blessed to be able to share the food she loves. 

"My Greek Table — a lot of love goes into making the show! We have a great team. I feel truly blessed to be able to do the series, to share an incredible place that is complex and stunningly beautiful and known for the healthiest most delicious food in the world…with others!"

Mushroom hunting with Mushroom farmer and forager Eleftherios Lachouvaris on the island of Evia. Source: My Greek Table

In the series now starting on SBS Food and SBS On Demand, Kochilas takes us across Greece, including visits to Athens and Messina, and to several Greek islands, including Mykonos, where she makes a rustic onion pie with a local chef; Naxos, where she visits a remote mountain hideaway and tries dishes including a skillet pumpkin pie that is found only on a few Greek islands; and Evia, where she goes mushroom hunting with an edible fungi expert. In Chios, she joins the locals to see how they make souma, the local firewater, which is distilled from fermented figs. She even goes for a run with ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes. In each episode, she also cooks dishes inspired by the people she meets and the food she has tried. Feta is a common theme in this season, appearing in recipes from tarhana soup with seafood and a creamy Ionian polenta dish to sweet tsimbites, little cheesecake-like pinched pies.

Pinched pies - tsimbites - from the island of Tinos. Source: My Greek Table

"Sometimes the simplest country recipes are the ones that have the most interesting stories," she says, and there are lots of stories shared as she meets local cooks and producers. 

As well as her television show, Kochilas, who divides her time between Athens, New York and Ikaria, is also the author of  numerous cookbooks, hosts tours of Greece and also offers online cooking classes (including one that caught our eye, Fearless Phyllo, where students learn to make two version of this classic dough and use them in recipes), but we were lucky enough to grab her for a quick chat about cheese, pittarakia (Ikaraian pita) and why horta is her favourite Greek world. 

When you are cooking tigareli in the show, you say that horta is your favouritie word in Greek. Why is that? I'm guessing it's part of your passion for fresh, healthy plant-forward food?

You got it! Greens are a seminal part of the Greek kitchen and they are everywhere apparent! The flora in Greece is quite varied and rich and the variety of wild greens one can pick between the fall (autumn) and late spring is mind boggling. We cook them as simple boiled salads, add them to phyllo pies, to braised dishes with lamb, pork, chicken and fish, use them as a bed for eggs, even have a couple of obscure regional recipes for greens pies with a drizzling of honey.

In the first episode, you get a taste of some traditional recipes with local cook Eirini Zouganelli, including a wonderful onion pie, kremmydopita. What is your own favourite pita/pie recipe? Might it be your Ikarian greens pie? 

The pittarakia of Ikaria, as they are called, are indeed my favorite because they taste of Ikarian earth, filled with the aromas of the place I love most in the world. Wild fennel is almost always a part of the flavour profile and when I and others make these pies on the island we use more than 20 greens and herbs, lots of onions, leeks and usually something orange like carrots or hard squash.

Sitting down for lunch after making kremmydopita with Eirini Zouganelli. Source: My Greek Table

Feta appears in a lot of episodes of My Greek Table - which isn't a surprise, given what a key ingredient it is. Traditionally, as you mention in the show, Greek feta was made with goat or sheep milk. Are there wide regional variations?

Feta is a Protected Designation of Origin Greek cheese and it’s always made with sheep’s milk or a combo of sheep’s and goats milk, up to 30% by law of the latter. There are distinctions for sure, but more by producer than by region, so one couldn’t say, for example, that feta from Roumeli has X specific characteristics, etc. Every producer usually makes a range of fetas. Texture can range from soft and creamy to firm, and flavors from sharp to mild. There is a difference between barrel aged and tin aged, but the latter is definitely more prevalent, mostly for practical reasons, as it’s more ergonomic to fit tins into a container. Barrel aged is generally considered superior. There aren’t unfortunately that many barrel makers left.

Another recipe from the series, Kochilas' Ioanian polenta with feta Source: My Greek Table

And do you have a favourite style of Greek feta for cooking?

I tend toward the milder ones, but I like most feta a lot! 

 

Visit Diane Kochilas's website to findout more about her tours, classes, recipes, books and more. You can also follow her travels and cooking on Instagram.