[Greek inspired guitar music] DIANE KOCHILAS: Grains are the feel-good food of the Greek and Mediterranean diets, providing excellent nutrition, versatility in the kitchen, and soul-warming comfort.

Wheat and barley have been known to Greece forever, as important in the ancient diet as on our modern Greek table.

Rice was known to the ancient Greeks but became a frequent staple only after the 1950s, when Greek farmers began to cultivate it in the river deltas outside Thessaloniki.

[Upbeat guitar music] The whole truth about whole grains is that consuming them helps us live longer.

From wheat to barley to rice and more, grains have been part of the longevity diet for a very long time in Greece.

I'm Diane Kochilas.

Join me on My Greek Table as I cook up some delicious comfort grain dishes starting with an ancient Greek barley rusk salad called Dakos, from a wonderful ritualistic whole wheat kernel recipe called Kolyva, to a delicious Aegean island stuffed onion dish with brown rice and herbs.

♪♪ ANNOUNCER: My Greek Table with Diane Kochilas is made possible in part by... The Fillo Factory.

Grecian Delight Kronos, A family committed to better eating.

The National Hellenic Society.

And by the following... [Lyrical Greek inspired guitar music] DIANE: In Greece, grains have been cherished since antiquity.

Their frequent depictions on ancient Greek vases, on coins and more attest to their place of honor and importance.

Demeter, goddess of agriculture, was often depicted holding a shaft of wheat.

Grains are comforting for both physical and emotional reasons.

Consuming them gives us an immediate sense of warmth and nourishment, making us feel cared for in every way.

The complex carbs in whole grains increase our serotonin production, they're nature's feel good or good mood food.

Whole grains also deliver slow burning energy, rich fibers, vitamins and minerals, contributing to lower risks of chronic disease and increased longevity.

In the Greek diet, grains appear in just about every aspect of the table, from breakfast, lunch and dinner, to snacks, sides and main courses, from breads to pilafs to stuffed dishes of every sort, to salads, soups and even dessert.

Combined and cooked every which way and providing essential nourishment, on the Greek table the story of comfort is written in every grain.

I'm making something that has been called the world's best salad.

It's a Dakos salad.

This is a Dakos, a barley rusk.

And it's basically a Greek salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, Greek olives, capers, feta cheese, all mixed together and then piled beautifully on top of this beautiful barley rusk, which is one of the oldest bread products in all of Greece.

Let's get started.

I'm going to start with my tomato.

I'm just going to cut this into chunks.

[Chopping] This is a salad that is very, very popular all over Greece.

It's originally a recipe from Crete.

Crete is very well known for uh its barley rusks.

They're made all over the island.

Barley is grown on the island.

It used to be a really important crop.

The rusks are a really interesting chapter in Greek cooking.

They're basically twice-baked bread.

They're called Paximadia.

The ancient Greek word for them is Dipyros, which literally means twice baked like a biscuit.

I like to use different sorts of tomatoes in here.

So I have a combination of classic tomatoes and also, teardrops in different colors.

It just looks very pretty when they're all mixed together.

Another nice thing about these rusk salads, think of a panzanella.

It's just kind of the Greek version of a bread salad, except the bread is a preserved bread, which is essentially what this is.

So the cucumber goes in next.

[Chopping] I like to cut the peel into strips, so that there's a little bit of cucumber exposed.

It just looks, you know, it looks pretty.

You don't have to do this, you can peel the whole thing.

A lot of the nutrients obviously are in the skin.

And then these just get cut into chunks.

[Chopping] One more.

[Chopping] This also gets tossed in with the tomato.

This makes a great lunch.

It's really easy.

It's a very traditional salad with all the ingredients that, I think represent the best of Greece.

Next in the onion.

And I almost always use red onion for this dish because that's A: the most prevalent onion in Greece and also it has the most pungent flavor.

Uh pitted kalamata olives.

I'm going to keep them whole.

Capers go in next.

Capers are an important food in Greece as well.

They're very nutritious.

They're packed with vitamin C. A little bit of salt and this is a Greek sea salt.

Dried Greek oregano and about half the feta.

The rest I'll reserve for garnish.

And what else do you think has to go in here?

Obviously, really good extra virgin Greek olive oil.

So this is essentially the basic composition of ingredients, for a Dakos salad.

You want to make sure you have good tomatoes.

That's really important.

So try to make this in season with the flavors of longevity in mind.

Things that are in season tend to be more nutritionally dense and tend to be um better for the planet in many ways because they're not traveling halfway around the world to your dinner table.

Let me get to the rusk next.

The rusks are Paximadia or Dakos.

In order to eat them you have to rehydrate them.

How to do that?

Either dampen it with a little liquid or place it on a plate and have all of this beautiful vegetable mix on top of it.

Leave it for a bit and it will soak it up and get soft.

I'm going to do it with a little bit of liquid.

Usually it's water, but I like to add a touch of my own.

So this is fresh orange juice.

It adds a nice flavor to it.

The Dakos is cut in two.

It's actually dried this way.

And I'm going to use the flat end for this salad.

It's just a little bit easier.

And I really just want to dip it a little bit, in the orange juice.

Not for too long.

Just to dampen it a bit.

Then I'm going to place it on the plate and basically build my Dakos salad.

[Uptempo Greek guitar music] If it cascades off of it, that's fine.

It actually looks really pretty that way.

There are a lot of different variations of this.

One of my favorite things to do in the summer, is to make a watermelon and feta salad over the rusks.

It's really good.

There's always a little room for extra oregano and of course a little more crumbled Greek feta.

Time to taste.

[Crunching] I'm going to get a little bit of rusk if I can.

Mmmm.

This is Greece on a plate.

It's an ancient product, which are the Paximadia.

It's a modern food, which are the tomatoes, which are fairly new to Greece, maybe the last 200 years or so.

It's the feta cheese, which is the national cheese of Greece, a sheep and goat's milk cheese.

The oregano, which is the scent, the perfume of the Greek earth.

All of that in a great salad that anyone can make anywhere in the world.

[Upbeat Greek guitar music] Following our ancient ancestors, flour is milled in-house at Pnyka, a historic bakery in the Pangrati neighborhood of Athens.

[Rustle of grains spilling] Advantages of grinding wheat like this allow nutrients and flavor to be retained, unlike in most commercial flours.

They also have more control over the type of grind, coarse or fine, to accommodate a variety of baking needs.

I'm making a very ancient Greek dish here called Kolyva, and it's actually something that we eat at funerals and memorial services.

It's made with whole boiled wheat, and it's one of the most interesting and symbolic foods in the entire Greek kitchen.

So let's get started.

It's a very simple dish to make.

Once you soak and boil the wheat and then strain it, you get this beautiful soft consistency.

It's a little bit like faro, and you can use faro as a substitute for the whole wheat if you'd like.

I'm going to add all of the ingredients you see here.

These are the typical ingredients in Kolyva.

A bunch of different fruits and nuts, some pomegranate, some orange zest and some lemon zest, and a little bit of mint and spices.

So let's get started.

I'm just going to zest my orange first, right into the bowl here.

This is a dish that is made all over the eastern Mediterranean and even into the Balkans.

It's always associated with some sort of memorial service or funeral.

Lemon zest next, but in other parts of the eastern Mediterranean, they also eat it just as, as a snack.

It's kind of a superfood.

And the next thing to go in here is pomegranate.

In Greece, very symbolic.

We use it symbolically during the holidays, especially on Christmas and at New Year's.

And also in some places around the country, there was this very old tradition, of smashing a pomegranate into the home of a newlywed couple.

And all the seeds that spill out were symbolic of fertility and prosperity.

[Cutting] My method for doing this is just holding it in the palm of my hand, obviously cut side down and tapping on it until the arils fall out.

Those are these beautiful ruby red pomegranate seeds.

[Tapping] Kolyva is also something that is made in monasteries on saints days.

And what's very interesting about the way that it's done in monasteries, it's a very similar approach to say the Buddhist sand paintings.

They make these incredibly ornate um images of the saints being honored, being commemorated, and then proceed to serve it.

The other half.

So it's kind of an exercise in the ephemeral nature of life.

The next thing to go in here are the walnuts.

The word Kolyva is actually ancient and it refers to a small coin.

But it also refers to these very small um round wheat pies and that word was carried over across the centuries and millennia, so that we still use it today.

And I really just want a coarse chop on this.

[Chopping] [Scraping] The raisins go in next and we could use uh dark raisins or golden raisins.

It doesn't matter.

I like to use dark because of the color contrast.

The blanched almonds or almond slivers, whatever you like.

Next, the toasted sesame seeds.

Some people also add browned flour to this for a little bit of a crunchy texture and that's used on the top to decorate it.

And then our spices, cinnamon powder... And a little bit of clove, not too much because it's very strong.

And I'm going to mix this so you can see what it looks like before I get the honey in here.

And oftentimes in villages when this is made for a memorial service or a funeral, there's often one or two women who are specialists at making this or they're renowned for making the most delicious or the best Kolyva.

And they're called upon by their friends and family to do it for these occasions.

And you know, for me, it just calls to mind um, this really strong sense of community and the idea that in in places like villages, on Ikaria, and villages in other parts of Greece, people share the joys and the sorrows of life together.

So it just, it's a very human moment.

Honey goes in next and this is obviously Greek honey.

What else would it be?

You can tell just by how thick and viscous it is.

And it makes this entire dish a little bit more cohesive.

Do we really need granola when we have Kolyva?

[Clanking of spoon in bowl] The mint goes in next.

And I just remembered something um staring out my window here in Athens from my many years as a food journalist.

There was actually a chef who dared to put this on his menu.

Uh somebody named Dimitris Skarmoutsos.

He was one of the first chefs to have a tattoo sleeve.

You know, he was a little bit ahead of the curve here and he put Kolyva on the dessert menu at a Cretan restaurant he was working at and it was the talk of the town.

So, you know, this idea of taking something very, very traditional and very, very symbolic and breathing new life into it uh, is not, you know, it's not something that I did.

I didn't reinvent the wheel here.

I just looked at this in a new light as well because it is very satisfying, very filling, very nutritious.

[Chopping] And this goes right into the bowl.

It's ready to serve.

It looks beautiful, at least to me, and I hope to you as well.

So what do you think?

Would you like some of this for breakfast?

[Bright drums and violin music] I have to describe this to you.

The wheat is perfect.

It's not al dente.

It's not mushy.

It's perfectly soft.

It's exactly where it needs to be.

Very, very comforting texture.

The sesame seeds add this incredible nuttiness, especially because they've been toasted.

The walnuts and the almonds add their own unique, you know, nutty flavor to this.

I love the orange and the lemon zest because they give a little bit of astringency to it.

The raisins and the pomegranate are both very sweet.

The pomegranate pops in your mouth and the mint just brightens everything up.

But this recipe for Kolyva just drives home how deeply rooted certain foods are in this, in Greece, in this part of the world.

And this is definitely one of them.

It is part of the DNA of this country.

[Upbeat music] At Pnyka, named for the hill that was the principal meeting place of ancient Athenian democracy, so basic is bread to Greek culture that it is the centerpiece of gatherings to this day.

Modern Athenians find a diverse range of rustic loaves, Greek sourdough called psomi and zea bread made with an ancient strain of wheat similar to spelt.

They encounter third generation baker Dimitris Kotsaris, too, whose grandfather started the business.

To keep Pnyka relevant in the future, Dimitris is attending baking school.

DIMITRIS KOTSARIS: We don't only learn like uh bakery and pastry, we also learn how to manage uh finances.

DIANE: With Dimitris keeping a close watch over his grandfather's grain mill, customers are ensured continuity and an authentic experience at Pnyka for years to come.

So how many of you have scored onions in order to make Dolmades out of the actual onion skins?

That's what I'm doing here.

This is a really traditional Greek island recipe and what I want to do is score through just the middle of the onion, be careful not to go all the way through, and then carefully drop it into simmering water.

I'm going to do that with the rest of these.

I'm making a recipe from the Greek islands called, this particular version is called salantourmasi.

I know that's a hard word to pronounce.

It's from the island of Kastellorizo, one of the Dodecanese Islands in the southeastern Aegean.

There are versions of it in different islands, too.

There's one version of this recipe from the island of Lesvos, where it's called Sougania.

And there's actually another version where you use the onions whole and stuff them.

That has a meat filling from a place called Galaxidi, which is a coastal area in the central part of Greece.

[Strumming Greek inspired guitar music] So the onions are done and I know that because the layers are starting to separate and they're nice and soft.

And I'm just gonna lay them down on the paper to drain and cool.

[Music continues and ends] So this is uh one of my favorite things to do in the kitchen.

It's so simple.

It's just a really old technique for getting tomato concassé, you know, basically crushed or finely chopped or minced tomatoes with a fresh tomato on the coarse side of a hand grater.

You start on the- on the root end, not the stem end, and you just basically go down until what you end up with is a butterflied tomato skin.

So I'm going to start that here.

[Grating] And it's, you know, it's funny because this is so simple.

It's a very, it's a very old technique in a lot of different cuisines, not just in Greek cuisine.

We're so used to just throwing things into a food processor.

And magic happens.

That's what we have, a butterfly tomato skin and all that beautiful pulp right in the bowl.

And we want the juices.

You do want to use a nice ripe tomato, not too firm, not too soft.

It has to be able to hold up to this process.

This is ready.

Obviously we want to saute the onions first, and I'm going to use what else?

Extra virgin Greek olive oil to do that.

[Sizzling] And I'm going to add a little bit of salt to that, just to help it along.

And I- my favorite salt to use when I cook is, of course, Greek sea salt.

I'm not really looking for much color on the onions.

I'm looking, you know, basically for them to soften up.

In all of the rice stuffed dishes uh in Greek cooking, uh there are two little secrets.

One is to use a fair number of onions in the stuffing, even if you're making stuffed onions.

The kind of copious use of onions gives this beautiful underlying sweetness to the dish.

And the other thing I like to do in all of these rice stuffed dishes is to saute the rice a little bit.

I like to coat it in the olive oil.

It just brings out the nuttiness.

[Pours rice and rice sizzles] In this recipe, I'm using brown rice today.

It's a little bit of a break from tradition.

This is typically made with white rice.

I'm doing that today because brown rice is, um you know, in talking about grains and comfort grains.

Brown rice is definitely better for us.

It's higher in fiber.

Uh it's great for our digestion.

It keeps our sugar levels, you know, more in balance.

So I try to, you know, adjust even the most traditional recipes with something a little bit healthier.

We do use a lot of rice in the Greek kitchen.

It's one of the most important grains in our cooking.

The next thing that goes in here is a little bit of cumin powder.

That's a very, very popular and common spice in the Southeastern Aegean, in the Southeastern Dodecanese Islands.

We want to partially cook the rice before it goes into the onion skins.

So of course, this needs a little bit of liquid and that's where our tomato comes in.

[More sizzling] And now the next thing to add to this is a little bit of vegetable stock or water you can use either.

You can even put a little bit of white wine in here.

I'm using vegetable stock today and just eyeballing this a little bit uh about two-thirds of a cup.

While this is simmering, I'm going to get the onions ready and separate the layers.

And I want to show you what that looks like.

It's pretty cool.

You want to do it carefully.

Be careful not to tear them.

So be gentle.

See, that's basically what we're going to roll.

That's going to be our stuffed onion.

[Uptempo guitar music] There's something very soothing about doing this, peeling away the layers of an onion.

Don't ask me why, it just feels kind of zen.

[Music continues] Okay, there we go.

And the cores, I'm going to chop up.

[Chopping] And add them to the rice cause nothing goes to waste.

[More chopping] So this is pretty much ready.

You can see all of the liquid in here has been absorbed.

The rice has a beautiful color.

And I'm just going to add my herbs: fresh mint, and some fresh parsley, finely chopped.

This has to cool down a little bit before I can start rolling it into the onion layers.

[Greek guitar music] You want to place this seam side down in the pan.

And you don't want to overstuff them because the rice will expand a little bit.

This is just beautiful to me.

It's actually one of the most unique recipes in all of Greek cooking.

[Music continues] Again, you have to take a little bit of care when you do this.

The onion skins are a little bit delicate, so you want to be careful not to tear them.

[Music continues] Down to the last onion layer.

Beautiful.

These are ready to go into the oven.

I just want to add a little bit of liquid to this.

Some of the vegetable stock.

They shouldn't be floating in liquid.

[Stock dribbles] These are ready to go into the oven.

Just want to cover them.

And I always do that with a little bit of parchment paper.

It helps keep them in place and then covering the pan.

[Foil rustling] I'm ready to bake these.

They'll go into the oven at 375 Fahrenheit for about 45 to 50 minutes.

Smells good.

Ah.

Ooh, that looks really good.

Gotta try it, gotta try one with you.

So delicate.

Okay, time to taste this.

I want to show you though what's happened to these beautiful onions.

They're a little bit caramelized on the bottom, and they're super tender.

[Scraping of knife] Mmm.

I'm speechless.

[Laughs] I am speechless.

Oh, sweet onion.

It's so delicious.

There's so much flavor in this dish.

The cumin really pops out because it's pretty much the only spice that we used, but the mint and the parsley are also in there giving this beautiful, grassy freshness to it.

The rice is perfectly cooked and those onions are so sweet.

This dish takes an every-man ingredient and turns it into a prince.

DIANE: For recipe links and information about My Greek Table , visit my website, DianeKochilas.com.

ANNOUNCER: Diane's cookbooks, "The Ikaria Way" and "Athens: Food, Stories, Love" are available to purchase online at DianeKochilas.com or call the phone number on the screen.

My Greek Table with Diane Kochilas is made possible in part by... The Fillo Factory.

Grecian Delight Kronos, A family committed to better eating.

The National Hellenic Society.

And by the following... [Guitar music] [Diane laughing] DIANE: Okay, now I need somebody to help me down.

[Laughs] Thank you.

[Laughs]