♪ ♪ [Diane Kochilas] Athens is a city of charms, both old and new, something that applies to every aspect of life here, including of course, food.

One of the most endearing facets of Athenian cooking is its legacy of Sunday or bourgeois cuisine.

The food we remember from our parents and grandparents.

Today we'll get schooled in Sunday urban comforts with a dish called Athinaiki Mayioneza, Athenian poached fish with homemade mayonnaise.

I love this dish.

It brings back a lot of family memories of Sunday meals.

And in the kitchen I'll make Artichokes a la Polita.

It literally means artichokes made by the women of the city.

And meatloaf wrapped in grape leaves.

This recipe brings back so many childhood memories.

Classic urbane Greek dishes.

Join me on My Greek Table as I explore the sophisticated, refined flavors of another generation and taste my way down memory lane.

♪ (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] Athens: exciting, pulsating, and full of energy, ♪ ♪ is also a city of old world charms, subtle but quietly existing side by side with the bustle of this modern European capital.

You can spot hints in its architecture, wandering down a few of the city's perfectly preserved old streets.

You can spot its traditionalist soul in some of the old businesses that have been passed down through generations, to this day still in the same family.

Sweet shops like Mitropolitikon near Syntagma, or Toula in Pangrati.

A few old tavernas such as Oikonomou in the neighborhood of Petralona, hail from another era too, and happily serve up the most classic Greek cuisine, dishes like Lahanodolmades, beef braised with eggplant, and Okra Yiahni.

Then there is the historical soul of old urbane Athens.

Some might say the city's bourgeois DNA, preserved in one of its most revered cultural institutions, the Gennadius Library.

The Gennadius holds a treasure trove of books and prints that show us a city at its start in the modern era.

Flipping through them brings us full circle, from the foundations of Athens, built on its antiquities, to Athens today, a truly modern city with the deepest of roots.

But when it comes to food, the segue from simple fare to sophisticated urban cooking would not have happened if it weren't for the work of Nikos Tselementes, a chef whose cookbook, first published in the 1920's and reprinted many times since, taught generations of Greek women to prepare sophisticated food that incorporated European techniques, and literally changed the face of Greek home cooking.

Befitting of the capital of a young nation, suddenly there was a bourgeois cuisine to match its aspirations.

♪ ♪ I'm making one of the most beloved dishes in all of Greek cooking, Artichokes a la Polita.

I like to think of this dish as the Tiffany Diamond of Greek cuisine.

It's one of the great vegetarian dishes of Greek cooking, but it's also very simple, very elegant and very delicious.

So let's get started.

I'm putting gloves on because the artichokes will darken my hands.

There are lots of different artichoke varieties in Greece.

The wild ones are among the most beloved.

And what we want to do is remove the leaves.

The leaves make a wonderful meze.

One thing you want to keep in mind with artichokes, they will oxidize really quickly.

They'll turn brown.

So you want to drop them immediately into acidulated water.

We want to cut the interior leaves off.

And then you take a teaspoon and you basically clean out the choke, the fuzzy interior of the artichoke.

And what you end up with is the heart, and it's shaped like an inverted champagne glass.

So this is going right into lemon water or acidulated water.

So what goes into this dish, besides the artichokes, are carrot, potato, scallion, a little bit of onion, and some fennel.

I originally learned to make this dish from one of the best cooks I've ever met, who was my husband's grandmother.

The next thing I want to prep is the fennel.

[chopping] And we want to get some scallions also cut.

[chopping] The potatoes, we want to cut into about half inch pieces.

The carrot, the fennel, the onion, the scallion will go in first.

Next, the fennel.

Let me just give that a bit of a swirl.

[sizzling] Artichokes a la Polita actually literally means artichokes made by the women of the city and the women of the city, Polis, were the women of Constantinople, present day Istanbul.

And this dish came into Greece with that wave of Greeks a hundred years ago.

I'm gonna get the onions in here next.

Garlic.

The potatoes.

Scallions go in next.

A little bit of salt.

Lemon juice is what brings this all together.

And I've got fresh lemon juice here, but before I add it, I have a little trick.

We want the pan juices to be thick.

A little secret for doing that is just very lightly add a little pinch of flour, gently sprinkled over the vegetables.

And by doing that, before we add any liquid to this, the flour cooks together with the vegetables.

When we add our lemon juice, pan juices will be nice and thick.

The artichokes go in next.

There's a little method to this madness.

We actually plant them because the whole beauty of this dish is its presentation.

Even in the pan.

One other little trick.

Artichokes always need a pinch of sugar.

They're very acidic.

Just a hint.

A little bit of black pepper.

The lemon juice, this is just fresh strained lemon juice.

And a touch of water.

Just a little bit.

[drizzling] This is gonna cook now for about a half hour over medium to low heat.

This is ready.

Ah.

And a beautiful sight it is.

A little bit of fresh chopped dill goes right over the top.

A little bit of extra virgin Greek olive oil.

And I'm ready to serve this.

We want to get, keep that artichoke upright.

And some of this beautiful vegetable medley around it.

I'm ready to indulge in this masterpiece.

The artichokes are tender, but still firm.

Mm.

This is classic beauty.

We get that natural acidity from the artichokes, the sweetness of the carrots and the onions, the freshness of the fennel and the earthiness of the potatoes, and all of that is made even more delicious by that drizzle of extra virgin Greek olive oil at the end.

This is really the Tiffany Diamond of Greek recipes.

This calls for the Tiffany Diamond of Greek wines, Santorini Assyrtiko, produced in the oldest vineyard in the world, from vines that have the oldest DNA, in very unique growing conditions, volcanic ash.

Mm.

It is so minerally, and dry, and full bodied at the same time.

If you love white Burgundy or dry Rieslings, you'll love this wine.

It's a perfect match for this wonderful artichoke dish.

Yamas.

In my search for the traditionalist heart of Athens, I reached out to my friend Margarita Pournara, a prominent journalist, whose mother, now in her late eighties, is one such urbane home cook.

I'm on my way to visit her and her mother in their family home in Pangrati, a neighborhood of Athens.

I'm in the kitchen with Mrs. Irini Pournara, and she's going to share with us a recipe called Athinaiki Mayioneza, or Athinaiki Salata, which is poached fish with homemade mayonnaise.

And it's one of the absolute traditional dishes of another generation on Sundays and special occasions.

So [Speaking in Greek], let's get started.

So the first thing we're gonna do is cut the vegetables.

[Irini speaking in Greek] [Diane] The whole celery bunch here.

[Speaking in Greek] [Diane] Okay.

[Diane] Okay.

We're making the vegetable stock, and that's what we're gonna boil this beautiful grouper in.

While the vegetables are cooking, kyría Irini is gonna make the mayonnaise.

And that is a sauce, a preparation that really showed off the skill of a home cook of her generation.

[cracking] The mayonnaise always starts with an egg yolk.

Then we add extra virgin Greek olive oil, mustard powder, water, lemon juice, salt, and red wine vinegar.

Each ingredient has to be added very slowly, always while whisking, to make sure the mixture does not curdle.

She's just gonna thicken it with flour.

[soft scraping] Tasting it.

Mm.

[Speaking in Greek] The vegetables have been boiling for about 30, 35 minutes.

They're all ready.

We're gonna take them out now and get the fish into this liquid.

[Speaking in Greek] [Diane] All of these vegetables are actually part of the dish.

They're served as a boiled salad.

In her day, not everybody had a phone.

Actually phones were very rare, so you knew, people would visit each other on specific days of the week, and she knew that on Tuesdays, so and so would visit.

On Wednesdays, she would go to somebody else's home, and there was always something to eat.

And whenever there was a special occasion, this would definitely be one of the dishes, together with things like Pastitsio [Speaking in Greek].

[Irini] Moussaka.

[Diane] Moussaka.

[Speaking in Greek] [Diane] Giant beans in the oven.

[Speaking in Greek] [Diane] One of her favorites for that sort of occasion was a meatloaf.

So this goes in, carefully.

[Diane] Back to the heat.

And the fish now has to poach for about 15 or 20 minutes.

It's been poaching for about 20 minutes or so.

And we're gonna clean the flesh.

Grouper is one of the kingly fishes.

You can also do this with whole fresh cod and with Kokinopsaro, which I don't know how to say in English.

The point is to keep the flesh in sort of big-ish pieces.

You don't want it to be totally shredded.

You want, there needs to be a little substance to this.

So a little bit of caper in the fish mixture.

[Speaking in Greek] [Diane] Just mixing this gently, she said, together.

She's now going to reconstruct the fish to make the final presentation of this classic dish.

Once the whole fish is reassembled, we use the boiled vegetables as garnish and top it all off with that homemade mayonnaise.

I love this dish.

It brings back a lot of family memories of Sunday meals.

How do you see the current state of food in the city now, both at home and in restaurants?

[Margarita Pournara] We have a lot of restaurants.

We have, you know, a fantastic gastronomic scene in Athens.

But at the same time, we Greeks, we're very close to our families.

Usually on Sundays we eat together.

So every time I miss home cooking, I come here to see my mom.

And she has prepared a lot of things, like two or three different dishes.

Gaining two or three kilos every time we meet.

[laughs] So that's a family problem in Greece.

[Diane] Gaining weight when you see your parents.

Our parents are fattening.

[Margarita] Yeah, yeah.

If we talk about culinary tradition in Greece, you know, everybody knows Athens, about ancient glory, cradle of democracy.

[Diane] That's true.

[Margarita] But then in Middle Ages, the city had experienced a sort of decline.

And it re-emerged as an important city in 19th century, as a capital of a newly founded Greek state.

We had a lot of people from the regions of Greece coming to Athens to look for a better future.

When they cooked, it was about their own regional recipes.

It took like a century to have cuisine bourgeois in Athens.

And that came with this guy, Tselementes.

I have his book here.

It is 1950 edition.

He went to Vienna to study cooking.

And when he came back, he wrote the first edition of this book, which introduced Athenian ladies to the cuisine bourgeois.

This is how they discovered the bouillabaisse.

This is how they discovered- [Diane] Mayonnaise.

[Margarita] Mayonnaise.

Bechamel.

[Diane] Bechamel.

[Margarita] They didn't know what it was before that.

[Diane] And Tselementes was the culinary bible for several generations.

[Margarita] This is the Holy Bible for several generations.

He was a modernizer of Greek cuisine because there is a number of dishes, which are very well known, like pastitsio, like moussaka.

And he transformed these dishes by giving a French touch.

[Diane] Uh huh.

And this is the book that your mother and her generation- [Margarita] Exactly.

[Diane] -grew up with and learned, as young women, to cook from.

Here's a Greek recipe that everyone can pronounce, Roló.

That's Greek for meatloaf.

This is a very unusual meatloaf wrapped in grape leaves and chock full of vegetables.

And it's one of the classics of what we like to call Yiayia cuisine.

That's Greek for grandma.

So let's get started.

The first thing I'm gonna do is get some vegetables ready.

Carrot and zucchini both go into this meatloaf.

[scraping] The reason we add carrot, zucchini, and a few other vegetables to the meatloaf isn't only for flavor and for extra nutrition, but it's also to add moisture.

This recipe brings back so many childhood memories because my mom used to make for us on Sundays.

It was a ritual almost.

It was an incredible step by step process that included not wasting even the cord she used to tie it.

I want to get my vegetables sautéed, so a little bit of olive oil.

[sizzling] The onion goes in next.

And some red pepper.

Salt.

Garlic goes in next.

And this is pretty much done.

I'm gonna let the vegetables cool a little bit before I add them to the meat mixture.

And while that is happening, I'm going to cut the crusts off the bread.

We want to use stale bread.

And in the meatloaf, it makes it nice and fluffy.

What we say in Greek, "afrato".

[rough cutting] I'm using two different types of ground meat in this meatloaf, ground beef and ground lamb.

You can go with beef.

You can go with beef and pork, if you like.

You can even add a little ground chicken to this.

Ready to add the bread.

And what we want to do here is just dampen it a little bit.

Just kind of crumble it.

The vegetables go in next.

Tomato.

I'm using chopped canned tomato.

A little bit more salt.

And some black pepper.

Greek oregano.

Gonna mix this together, and the egg is gonna go in here next.

There's a lot of moisture in this meatloaf, and that's one of the beauties of this dish.

It's really, really tender.

Now we're ready to wrap it in the grape leaves.

♪ ♪ And what we want to do is lay the grape leaves on the parchment, making sure that the vein side is on the inside, because when it's all wrapped, we want the smooth side to show.

So we're basically making the bed on which we're gonna shape the meatloaf.

We're gonna take the meat mixture now.

We just want to shape it into a loaf.

So you just want to make sure the meat mixture is nice and compact.

We want to get a couple of leaves over the top.

Now I'm gonna wrap it.

This is just wrapping around.

And doing it on the parchment will make it a little bit easier to lift into the baking pan.

Swaddled like a baby.

Just a little bit of olive oil over the surface.

A touch of white wine, just to keep this moist.

I'm gonna bake this at 350 for about an hour.

And about halfway through, remove the aluminum foil so that the grape leaves get a little bit of a char on them.

The Roló is ready to come out of the oven.

Yeah, look at that.

This is Yiayia food, but a little bit more sophisticated.

This is really moist and tender.

I am totally ready to taste this.

Mm.

I'm getting that beautiful flavor of both the lamb and the beef.

Very, very subtle.

The vegetables are coming through nice and clear too, especially the carrot and the tomato.

The zucchini has kind of melted into the meat mixture and the grape leaves have given this meatloaf a whole new dimension.

This calls for a nice red wine.

And I've chosen a lesser known Greek red variety called Liatiko, from the island of Crete.

Mm.

Reminds me a little bit of a northern Italian Barbera or a Sicilian Frappato.

So if you like those sorts of reds, I think you'll like the Liatiko.

And it goes beautifully with the red protein in here, but also with the vegetables, and that herbal quality, and the grape leaves.

So cheers to all the yiayias in the world who make delicious Roló.

Enjoy.

[Margarita] Diane.

[Speaking in Greek] [Diane] Thank you.

I'm glad to be here.

[Speaking in Greek] [Diane] Your mom made most of it.

[Margarita] No, no.

You prepared it together.

We need to eat it all together.

So let me give you a portion.

[Diane] I have not enjoyed this dish in years.

That brings back a lot of memories.

[Diane] Bon appétit.

It's really delicious.

I love the mustard in the mayonnaise.

[Margarita] Mm.

[Diane] It's a taste of memories.

The fish is really mild.

I like that it's kind of perked up with the sharpness of the mayo and the capers.

[Margarita] When I eat it it's like I'm 5 years old again.

[Diane chuckles] [Diane] When I found you through Gastronomos, do you recall what the thinking was behind that article, Preserving Grandmothers' Cooking?

[Margarita] I think that to talk about the older generation, I think, is very important because this is how you preserve a sort of culinary tradition.

You maintain it, to pay respect to them.

[Diane] Yamas, thank you so much.

[Margarita] Yamas.

[Irini Speaking in Greek].

[Diane] May all our traditions be preserved.

[Margarita] Okay.

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

[Announcer] 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.

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... ♪ ♪