The goat with wild fennel and spring asparagus is a traditional Cretan recipe taken from my grandmother’s notebooks.
The phone rang and my “magical” friend started speaking quickly, nervously between Cretan and Athenian dialect…
George sent wild asparagus and fennel from the plateau, quickly arranged, take a handful of goat and come cook it somewhere magical!!!
I also have a super Cretan recipe from Lassithi from the far east of Crete…
I have arranged everything…
You just bring the goat and two dried onions!
We will meet at the Byzantine church of Agios Petros in Kalyvia…
The excursion…
And I, who throw my hat in the air for things like this, rushed off to the Varvakeio market to find a goat that had grazed in the countryside and quenched its thirst with sea water…
My friend Angelis, the butcher at the market, found what I was looking for somewhere in eastern Crete, meeting all my specifications…
The next day, I arrived at a truly magical place, proud that I had found the young Cretan goat that had just arrived from the mountains of Crete!
It probably looked a lot like the summer lemon goat that my shepherd friend had treated me to in southern Euboea…
A truly unique place!
A stunning little Byzantine chapel, St. Peter’s, standing in the middle of nowhere — just outside the smoking chimneys of Kalyvia, nestled among vineyards and olive groves, with three magnificent oak trees generously offering their cool shade.
The stage was already set and waiting for us: tables, chairs, even stemmed wine glasses had been brought out and placed beneath the great oak.
My companion, a master of the “three-ingredient cuisine,” immediately began his preparations…
The cooking started, and little by little our circle grew larger, joined by friends from tastelocalgreece who arrived with politika gemista (stuffed vegetables in the Constantinopolitan style), exquisite Cretan dakos, and many, many bottles of wine!
The stemmed glasses began to fill, and soon an old little transistor radio was brought out to accompany the gathering.
The cook, back and forth, watching his pot, tasting and clinking with the company, sailing in a sea of happiness…
And I, hugging my little daughter, in the heavens, who had followed the father…
The recipe with three basic ingredients!
Goat, fennel and wild asparagus!
Onion, salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil from the Toplou monastery don’t count, it’s something like friendly participation!
The materials
one and a half kilos of goat meat cut into small pieces
1 large dried onion
2 cups extra virgin olive oil from Sitia
1 glass of dry white wine
A bunch of wild asparagus
1/2 bunch of fennel
juice of one lemon and its zest
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
one or two potatoes to thicken and bind the food (optional)
Preparation
In a wide saucepan, sauté the goat over high heat.A
Add the coarsely chopped onion and leave until soft.
Deglaze with the wine.
Add a little water to cover the goat, season with salt and pepper and simmer for about two hours.
Boil the asparagus for two to three minutes and put it in ice water.
After an hour and a half, I add the fennel without the stalks and the potato, if I want, in small pieces. I continue boiling for another half hour.
Just before the end, I carefully add the asparagus, the lemon juice and the zest.
Mix carefully by shaking the saucepan!
I usually serve it with fried potatoes, but it also works well on its own if you add potatoes.
We drink dry white wine, but the Weiss I tried went perfectly with it.
The tasting
After about two hours the food was ready, the asparagus came and tied, the pot was put on the table and the divine aroma of Cretan cooking overflowed into the air!
The one that has been supporting the family’s nutrition for so many years.
The kid with fennel and asparagus upset us!
Everyone was longing with the plates stretched out, in a row as if from a school cafeteria, for a spoonful of the taste of the pot…
And suddenly there was absolute silence…
Only Kazantzidis and some underground groans broke the tranquility of the Byzantine landscape!!!
Well, I don’t remember ever having enjoyed such a kid of meat. With fennel and asparagus wrapped in such fine aromas that it melts in your mouth…
Don’t forget the magic and the taste are hidden exclusively in three ingredients!
Try it too and you will remember me…
We thank Panagiotis for his cooking with the three ingredients, Anna Christodoulaki for the recipe and our friend Giorgos Makrakis from the Lassithi plateau who sent us the unique, wild raw material!!!
Always like this!
Let’s meet and cook with three ingredients in magical and unexplored Greece…
Text and photos by GiorgioGrigor
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Watch the video we made for you. Get a more complete view of this wonderful monument, still unknown to many.
