♪ ♪ [Diane Kochilas] Athens: unique, exciting, and changing.

Today, I'm on a mission to learn about my new neighborhood downtown, and I've asked a knowledgeable friend to show me around.

[Nikos Vatopoulos] This is a great opportunity to see how the neighborhood looked 120 years ago.

[Diane Kochilas] To thank him, I've cooked a meal that's traditional with a twist, like the city itself, a comforting spice-roasted chicken with toasted orzo.

The whole Eastern Mediterranean is in this dish.

A Greek spin on the classic Caesar salad.

Usually, Caesar salad is made with grated Parmesan, but I wanted to keep it as Greek as possible.

[Nikos Vatopoulos] As Greek as possible, right.

[Diane Kochilas] And for dessert, a quick and easy crispy phyllo sundae.

There is a lot going on here.

Join me as I rediscover the city I call home.

(upbeat music) [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.

Dodoni, tradition in taste.

Celestyal Cruises.

Meltemi Greek Yogurt.

The National Hellenic Society And by the following... [Diane Kochilas] After more than three decades in the Greek capital, I moved from a quiet leafy suburb to one of the oldest and hippest parts of downtown Athens, Kerameikos.

Situated to the Northwest of the Acropolis, the area was the potters' quarter of the ancient city.

Indeed, Kerameikos is the origin of our English word, ceramics.

Everywhere one looks the story of Athens unfolds from the depths of its glorious past to the reality of the present moment.

The ancient city's wide double gates or Dipylon were located in Kerameikos.

It was from here that the sacred way, or Iera Odos started, which led to the sacred site of Eleusis, where the Eleusinian Mysteries were held every September dedicated to Demeter, goddess of agriculture.

The optimism of a new nation with Athens declared its capital in just 1830 can be seen in the remnants of the grand old mansions built by wealthy Greeks who rushed to the area upon word that the new Greek king Otto of Bavaria would establish his royal palace here.

But alas, Otto moved his palace uptown to Syntagma, where it is now the modern Greek parliament.

The largest of the old mansions, which was left unfinished, was turned into a silk factory.

Silk is Metaxi in Greek.

Silk factory, Metaxourgeio, which is how one pocket of the area is still called.

Today, Kerameikos-Metaxourgeio is seeing yet another rebirth as a hub of artistic cultural and culinary activity in the heart of Athens.

It's a real neighborhood, a mirror of the city itself, which is what I love about it.

I asked a friend, Nikos Vatopoulos, a journalist and urban historian to show me around the area to teach me all about it.

[Nikos Vatopoulos] So Diane, this is one of the corners I love in the neighborhood because you have all these different styles of architecture meeting here.

So you see 1920's, roofless building here.

[Diane] This actually caved in when I was fixing my apartment.

[Nikos] Oh really.

So quite recently?

[Diane] Imploded.

[Nikos] And I love it juxtaposing this early Neoclassical building.

[Diane] This predates that?

[Nikos] Yes, this is late 19th century and this is early 20th century.

And you see this brutalist architecture of the seventies.

[Diane] You find romanticism in this building.

[Nikos] Well, you could.

You have a broader approach to the city, yes.

All this surviving together, coexisting and this beautiful early modernist.

[Diane] I love this building.

[Nikos] Yes.

But you see all this variety.

[Diane] Yes.

[Nikos] Which is beautiful.

[Diane] It is.

I mean, I never thought about that.

How it's woven together.

[Nikos] Yes, yes.

It's an area in a transition and people coming from all over to enjoy coffee or a stroll.

[Diane] That's true, like the square right across the street.

[Nikos] Yes.

♪ ♪ [Diane] I'm learning a lot from you, Nikos.

[Nikos] Well, Diane here is the oldest building of the neighborhood, the original silk factory.

[Diane] This is the Metaxourgeio.

[Nikos] This is the Metaxourgeio, which is a neo-classical two-story house.

[Diane] It's beautiful.

[Nikos] It's a complex, actually.

It survives from an era that everything was empty here, just olive groves and vineyards.

[Diane] Here.

[Nikos] Yes.

In the mid 19th century.

[Diane] Wow.

[Nikos] Now turned into the Athens municipal art gallery.

[Diane] Yes.

A very good art gallery.

[Nikos] Very good collection of art.

So it's a part of the contemporary face of the neighborhood.

[Diane] And it's another anchor as well in the neighborhood.

[Nikos] Definitely.

[Diane] Shall we continue?

[Nikos] Okay, let's go.

[Diane] I'm waiting for my friend, Nikos to come.

I promised him lunch and I also promised him sophisticated mommy food.

So making a spiced roasted chicken with a special orzo.

The first thing I'm going to do is get the peppers cut.

(chopping) You just want to get the ribs out if you can, because they're a little bit tough.

(chopping) We're gonna do a coarse chop.

And I just want to get the garlic chopped as well.

I'm gonna get going on the chicken and the first thing I'm going to do is just get some olive oil in the pan and over my chicken.

Get some gloves on just so that I'm not touching the raw chicken with my bare hands.

And they kind of go with the outfit too, so.

(laughs) Little salt, little cumin.

We want to kind of massage the cumin and the salt into the chicken.

A little bit of black pepper.

(peppercorns cracking) We almost always use red onion simply because that's what's mostly available.

And some green pepper.

Garlic.

Our tomato goes in next.

And something we love to use in the Greek kitchen with anything tomato based, but especially with chicken, a little bit of cinnamon.

Next, a little bit of white wine... and a little bit of Greek Brandy for some underlying sweetness.

I'm just gonna add a little water to this.

The vegetables will also leech out their own liquid, but I just want to help that along a little bit and keep the chicken nice and moist when it goes into the oven.

And last, but not least, a couple of rosemary sprigs.

(snipping) This is ready for the oven.

I'm gonna roast it at 450 for about 15 or 20 minutes to get some color and then reduce that to 375 and continue baking it for about another hour or so.

I'll baste it now and then just to keep it moist.

Orzo and chicken are a natural combination in the Greek kitchen.

The first thing we're gonna do is toast our Greek pistachios and some pine nuts.

We do that in a dry skillet and we just want to get a little bit of color on the pine nuts.

You want to keep the nuts moving because there's this kind of pivotal split second, where they turn and burn.

So you just want to know what's going on in the skillet.

The pine nuts are nice and toasted, I'm gonna get this off the stove now.

I'm just gonna heat some olive oil... and get the onions and carrots going.

(sizzling) We just want them to soften up a little bit.

What's really unusual about this recipe is that we cook the orzo almost like a risotto.

So we're gonna get half of it in the pan and then incrementally add some liquid to it.

Next thing in, my garlic right here, chopped.

And here's the fun part.

Half the orzo goes in, and this is gonna turn this beautiful amber, kind of brown color, this beautiful golden color.

And while that's cooking and I'm stirring it, I've got salted water right here boiling.

I'm gonna add the rest of the orzo to that and just keep a stir going on this.

You can see it's starting to turn a little bit brown and it also gets crunchy.

So it's a wonderful combination of these contrasting textures that work really well together.

I also want to toast a little bit of the saffron in here.

And this is called Krokos Kozanis, from an area in Northern Greece called Kozani.

The orzo is just starting to toast.

You want to keep that moving because it'll burn easily and I'm gonna start to add my vegetable stock.

You want to do it with a ladle so that you can control the quantity.

And we're basically cooking this like a risotto in increments until the orzo is soft.

And the orzo that's in the pot looks like it's ready to come off the stove.

Let's see.

Definitely.

So I'm gonna just drain this.

The boiled orzo is tender.

The toasted orzo is a little bit more al dente and crunchier and has a very different flavor.

Next, the toasted pistachios and pine nuts, and our raisins.

And these are Greek raisins from the area in the Northern part of the Peloponnese called Corinth.

And one last thing goes in here, which is a little bit of mint.

Just cleaning off the leaves, we don't want the stems.

You can just cut these into very, very thin strips.

This is going right into the orzo.

I'm just gonna stir that up.

The whole Eastern Mediterranean is in this dish.

Saffron is really prominent.

The mint just added this kind of sparkle.

I can even smell the nuttiness in the toasted pistachios and pine nuts.

And yes, I'm being true to what I promised my friend, Nikos, sophisticated mommy food.

♪ ♪ [Nikos] So Diane, this is a unique street I love, this is Marathon Street.

It's quite unique because it's a row of old buildings preserved in a, you see, and this is a great opportunity to see how the neighborhood looked 120 years ago.

Small houses, one or two stories, all with beautiful courtyards.

But you can imagine the Mediterranean vegetation, stray cats or a few dogs.

I think the result is quite inviting and quite charming, I would say.

The bright colors.

[Diane] And also the details.

Look at the plaster work up there.

[Nikos] Yes, but primarily I love the scale, the human scale of the neighborhood here.

And it's quite rare to find six or seven houses in a row preserved from that era.

♪ ♪ [Diane] This is one of the most beautiful quarters in my neighborhood.

[Nikos] It's a really impressive building.

I think it stands out for its grandiose facade.

It belonged to a rich Jewish family.

You can see the stars- [Diane] Oh, you can see the stars of David.

[Nikos] Right.

So this is a rich merchant house, but you can also see smaller houses right next to it.

[Diane] And the repurposing of these spaces for modern needs and modern desires.

[Nikos] Exactly.

And I can show you beautiful restoration right here.

[Diane] Ah.

[Nikos] So we see a one story family house being restored in its former glory days, let's say, with beautiful color combination.

[Diane] It's so Greek.

[Nikos] It's very Greek, very Athenian.

This house probably dates from the early 1900's.

[Diane] And this was a sort of a regular person's house.

[Nikos] Exactly.

It shows us that if you want to invest some money and some love to the city.

[Diane] Yes.

A lot of love.

[Nikos] You can have this result.

So now we see the square at its best, I think.

[Diane] I think so too.

[Nikos] It's one of the privileges of living in Athens, you know, the open spaces, the public squares, and having the ability to share some time with your friends outside.

[Diane] But also this square is, it's the life of the neighborhood.

That's what I really love about it.

Everyone uses it.

Coffee in the morning.

The kids play around here.

People walk their dogs.

[Nikos] Right.

So it's a beautiful variety of activity, vegetation, art, architecture, whatever, you name it.

[Diane] You know, walking the neighborhood with a romantic, has been the best, one of the best experiences of my life in Athens.

I have to say that.

[Nikos] Thank you, Diane.

It's a great experience for me as well.

[Diane] Nikos, welcome.

[Nikos] Thank you, Diane.

So nice to be here with you.

Thank you.

[Diane] It's nice to be able to cook for you.

[Nikos] Oh, I'm looking forward to it.

And Diane, I brought you a gift.

[Diane] Oh, wow!

[Nikos] This is my book in English, Walking in Athens.

So it's a collection of walks in the city, like the one we did before.

[Diane] This is great.

I don't want to get it dirty, so I'll keep it there.

[Nikos] Okay.

[Diane] I promised you that chicken with orzo and that's coming, but I wanted to make a salad first.

You know, I thought a little bit about our walk and all the talk about old and new and how Athens is this city that has many, many layers.

Visiting farmer's markets in my own neighborhood and elsewhere, I realized that in the last few years, I started to see something that didn't exist here when I first moved here, which is kale.

[Nikos] Kale, yes.

[Diane] It's very popular.

It's very healthy.

So I'm making a kale Caesar, a little bit of a twist on the classic.

I have the chickpeas here.

And I'm just gonna add that to the salad.

[Nikos] You know, it's like a Mediterranean garden.

[Diane] It does.

I have a good farmer's market in this neighborhood too.

[Nikos] That's good.

Yes.

[Diane] I'm making a fairly classic Caesar dressing with the anchovy, but I'm using Greek yogurt to get that creamy texture.

[Nikos] Is Greek yogurt popular in the States?

[Diane] Greek yogurt is everywhere in the States, yeah.

I have a little bit of garlic here.

I don't know if you like garlic, I love garlic.

[Nikos] I love garlic.

[Diane] Okay, so I'm gonna add all of it, make it really strong.

(motor humming) And a little bit of extra virgin Greek olive oil.

A little bit of salt because the anchovy is also quite salty.

So, a little bit of Greek yogurt.

[Nikos] Is it full fat yogurt, or?

[Diane] This is full fat yogurt, yeah.

I like the full fat yogurt.

[Nikos] Me too.

[Diane] A little bit of mustard.

[Nikos] Mustard, yeah.

[Diane] And a little bit of lemon juice.

(dribble of liquid) (motor humming) I just want to check the texture of that.

[Nikos] Okay.

[Diane] Yeah, you see, that's nice and creamy.

[Nikos] Yes.

[Diane] And I have a little bit of a surprise too.

Kind of an interesting, an interesting dessert.

Simple but good.

[Nikos] Oh really.

It's a surprise, right?

(scraping) [Diane] I have a little grated Kefalotyri here.

Usually Caesar salad is made with grated Parmesan, but I wanted to keep it as Greek as possible.

[Nikos] As Greek as possible, right.

[Diane] And some lemon zest, which is kind of my secret ingredient.

I add it to all sorts of dishes.

[Nikos] I love the idea, yes.

[Diane] And a little bit of black pepper.

(peppercorns cracking) And I'm just gonna mix this up.

The kale is still pretty firm.

It'll soften up with the yogurt, and the lemon, and the mustard.

Okay, the salad's tossed, the meal is about to be served.

I think we can have lunch now.

[Nikos] Good news, Diane.

Thank you.

♪ ♪ [Diane] Kali mas orexi.

[Nikos] Kali orexi.

Bon appetit.

[Diane] Thank you, you too.

Everyone loves a good roasted chicken, I hope this one lives up to that hope.

[Nikos] It's so delicious and juicy.

[Diane] It's with cumin and a little bit of cinnamon.

[Nikos] I enjoy, also, the rose wines, also very popular.

[Diane] This is a Rosé Xinomavro.

It's from Amindeo and it's the coldest growing region in Greece.

And the Rosé wines are made into still wines, and sparkling.

[Nikos] I see.

[Diane] To me, if you like a Prosecco, you would like this.

It's a very pleasant wine.

[Nikos] It is very pleasant and full taste.

[Diane] So Nikos, when I walk, I walk in an "I have to get somewhere" kind of way.

When you walk, how do you walk?

Do you walk slowly?

Do you walk always with the intent to find something?

[Nikos] I take it easy, but I'm very focused on what I'm doing.

First of all, I need to walk.

I have a desire of walking and I like to explore and every time I'm sure I'm going to find something new.

[Diane] You have inspired me because when I go out now I have this thought always in my mind, which is to find beauty in the ordinary.

[Nikos] Well that's the secret.

That's the key, I think for every walk.

[Diane] Do you ever explore the city at night?

[Nikos] Yes.

Especially summer with these velvet nights of Athens.

And last summer I did a walk in the most common area for tourists, in Plaka.

It was quite empty at the time after summer rain and everything was so serene and magic.

And I was startled because I thought, okay, this is Plaka, but I see it in a different light now.

And really it was something that really impressed me.

And I realized that there's always a way to see things in a different light, which is amazing.

That's why we like traveling.

[Diane] Nikos, I have learned so much from you.

[Nikos] Diane, it was a great pleasure.

Thank you so much.

The food was delicious.

[Diane] I thank you.

[Diane] Yamas.

[Nikos] Yamas.

♪ ♪ [Diane] I'm making a crispy phyllo sundae today.

It's one of my absolute go-to desserts.

It's really easy.

Very Greek because everyone associates phyllo pastries with Greek sweets.

This one's a little unusual because I'm gonna fry the sheets of phyllo.

Even the technique is a little dramatic.

This is very easy to do.

(oil popping) And I actually love the music.

You want to have kitchen tongs when you fry this and you just lift the sheet out, it's pretty sturdy.

I've got a plate lined with paper towels, and I'm gonna put another one on top just to absorb some of the oil.

And this takes just a few minutes to do.

We don't want too much color, kind of just a light blonde.

The other trick to this is you don't want the oil too hot because you don't want to burn the phyllo.

It's very, very delicate.

So you want it to be just warm enough to crisp the phyllo without giving it too much color too soon.

I'm ready to plate this and you'll see how easy it is to do this.

If a little piece breaks off, not to worry.

I try to actually break a little bit off so that the phyllo fits inside the plate.

We want to get our ice cream on here and I'm just using plain vanilla.

(crunching of phyllo) Right on there.

And we want to get our toppings now.

So I've got a little bit of halva here.

I'm just gonna crumble that right over the top.

This is kind of, you know, it's a bit of a flamboyant dessert, but it's really easy.

I've got mixed walnuts and hazelnuts here.

Some nuts go over the top.

Some strawberries for color, but also for nice flavor.

A little bit of cinnamon.

And a little bit of cinnamon over these phyllo sheets too.

I'm gonna crackle those and use them.

They're really flaky and crunchy and delicious.

And finally, a little bit of honey.

Baklava, right?

Phyllo, honey, nuts, it's kind of a take on that idea, but made very, very simple.

And a little sprig of mint just for some nice color.

And this is our crispy phyllo sundae using a technique that's a little bit unusual for phyllo, but totally within the category of great Greek phyllo desserts.

Time to taste this.

I want to get a little bit of everything on here.

Mm.

There is a lot going on here.

I have an explosion of textures, the crispiness of the phyllo, the crunchiness of the nuts, the tartness of the strawberries, the chewiness of the halva and that chill, beautiful temperature of the ice cream makes this dessert a total winner.

Easy, elegant, very Greek.

Enjoy.

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

Diane's cookbook's "My Greek Table" and "Ikaria" are available to purchase online at DianeKochilas.com Or call the phone number on the screen.

[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.

Dodoni, tradition in taste.

Celestyal Cruises.

Meltemi Greek Yogurt.

The National Hellenic Society And by the following... [Diane] This is a very easy modern Greek dessert with ancient Greek ingredients.

[Nikos] It's really impressive.

[Diane] I think it looks pretty.

[Nikos] Mm.

[Diane] I have a sweet tooth.

[Nikos] And strawberries.

I love strawberries.

[Diane] This is my go-to dessert.

If you don't want to bake something, you just want to assemble something quickly.

[Nikos] It's a special art to fry the phyllo, I think it's quite delicate.

[Diane] It's easy.

[Nikos] It's easy?

[Diane] Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪