Ancient Greek Food Recipes: It is an impossible task to ask any chef today to prepare the exact same dishes which were prepared by the Greeks in the ancient times. The reason being that, neither do we have the particular kind of utensils in which the ancient Greeks used to cook nor do we have exact same spices which went while preparing such delicacies.
Ancient Greek Food Recipes / Dishes
Additionally, we do not have any written records which would help us understand the method of preparing such dishes. It is purely because of this curiosity that various archaeologists, botanists, chefs, philologists have become extremely interested in studying the art of Greek cooking starting right from as early as the pre-historic and Greek period.
Ancient Bean Soup also called Fasolada
Ingredients- 2 cup white beans, 1.5-liter water, 200grams lard, 3 onions finely chopped, liter beef broth,2 garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon honey, teaspoon coriander, 1 bunch parsley, 2 bay leaf and salt and pepper to taste.
Recipe– soak the beans in water overnight and then boil them in little water for about 5 minutes. Take the pressure cooker away from the heat and cover for about an hour. In the beef broth, add the beans and the bay leaf and boil for about 2 hours.
Saute the onions in the lard and add parsley, coriander, salt, and pepper. Add this to the beans. Add the honey and allow it to boil slowly for a few more minutes. Add the garlic cloves which have been passed through a garlic press and mixed with the oil.
Ancient cooked tuna
Ingredients- 8 tablespoons olive oil,8 leeks cut in a circular manner,8 celery sticks finely chopped, 1 teaspoon full of rosemary and thyme each, salt and pepper to taste, medium sized cucumber cut circularly, 2 cups of water as well as dry white wine and lastly, 6 pieces of tuna.
Recipe- Oil was heated in a large saucepan and saute the leeks and celery till it becomes soft. Add the herbs, the cucumber, and water along with the wine. Mix it well. Put the slices of tuna on the vegetables. Cover the pan and bring to boil for about 30-45 minutes depending upon the thickness of the tuna. Serve along with rice and green tossed salad.
Ancient Greek Fish with coriander
Ingredients -two spoons of coriander seeds, 1 teaspoon salt, two steaks cod and vinegar prepared from white wine.
Recipe- Preheat the oven to 190 C. Put the coriander seeds in a baking pan and bake them for about ten minutes. Allow it to cool for few minutes. Mash them together with salt. Drain the fish steaks and remove all the tiny bones.
Sift them with the coriander mixture and add them to the baking pan. Before doing so, apply some oil to its base. Cover the pan and then place it in the oven. Bake the fish for about 25minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle some vinegar and serve hot.
Greek fruit salad Froutosalata
Ingredients -one melon, two peaches, two pears, 1 bunch of grapes, 2 glasses of Moscato wine, cup peeled and chopped almonds, golden grapes and honey each.
Recipe- At first the melon is cut in half and the flesh is removed and cut into small pieces. This melon is then mixed with the rest of cut fruits, almonds, and grapes and then the melon skin is filled is also added to this mixture. Warm the wine and honey on low heat and mix it. Pour this mixture over the fruits. An hour before serving, the fruits should be put in the refrigerator. Serve cold.
This list of ancient Greek delicacies is endless and certainly not an exhaustive one. But one thing is for sure that the ancient Greeks certainly experimented with their food and always tried new Ancient Greek Food Recipes and even if they didn’t try new recipes, they certainly made constant changes in all the delicacies that they prepared in order to make the dish even better.