♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This week on Milk Street, we travel to the Greek island of Ikaria.

We take some recipes inspired by Diane Kochilas and we start with a braised pork with honey and rosemary, then a whole-roasted cauliflower, and we finish up with a tomato rice with oregano and feta.

So please stay tuned as we cook the food of Ikaria, Greece.

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- Diane Kochilas knows a lot about the Greek island of Ikaria because her grandparents were from there, she spent summers there as a kid, and she still has a home there, which is also a cooking school.

So we sent one of our editors, Albert Stumm, there for a week to spend some time with Diane.

But first he stopped by a church festival at night, but he also ran into a chef, Popi Karnavas, she has a great restaurant.

And at that restaurant the next day, he had a fabulous dish, it's a very simple dish of pork, which was braised with local honey.

It was absolutely delicious, had a sweet-savory combination.

So we finally ended up at Diana Kochilas' place, and they made that dish.

Her version has some leeks, white wine, honey, of course, that dark Ikarian honey, a little orange zest and herbs as well.

She made two other dishes with him, a roasted whole cauliflower with some feta-- about halfway through roasting, you had the feta.

It melts and makes a nice creamy topping.

And finally, tomatorizo, which is tomato rice-- grated tomatoes, not sliced, ouzo, feta, and some fresh oregano to finish.

So let's get started with the first dish, the tapas dish which we turned into a main course, Ikarian braised pork.

♪ ♪ This is, of course, from Ikaria, little island off Greece, thanks to Diane Kochilas.

But this is a mezze plate right?

And a lot of cultures have mezze plates.

In Spain, we did a similar recipe with pork tenderloin with spices.

You cook in a skillet... - Yeah.

- And so this is also served the same way, but this has a very different flavor profile.

It's a good lesson, I think, in cooking.

It has citrus in orange, it has sweetness in honey, obviously has umami, you know, the meatiness with the pork, has all those things together with some onion, etcetera.

So savory, sweet, and citrus all together.

Uh, and that's why we love this dish.

- Absolutely.

And when we were recreating this dish at Milk Street, we only had to make some minor adjustments-- a little bit in the technique that we're keeping very largely to the way she makes this, and we also swapped out a few ingredients that were hard to find.

So we are using pork.

We're using a boneless pork shoulder or a pork butt.

If you could only get it on the bone, just cut it off the bone.

That's all you have to do, And we are cutting it into two-inch pieces.

This is larger than you might think it is.

You want two inches all around, so it's a cubic two-inches, and it's larger than you would think.

It's bite size for a stew.

But another change in our recipe is we made enough for this to be served as a main course, not just the mezze plate like in Greece.

The other thing is considering the sauce has that incredible sweet and savory element like you were talking about, we also want to balance the flavor of the sauce with the flavor of the pork.

And if the pieces are too small, all you're going to taste is sauce.

And we've already seasoned this with salt and pepper.

So we're ready to brown the pork.

And as you know, the very first step is to get your pan very hot.

(oil sizzling) We have a quarter-cup of oil in here.

That's because we're going to be doing more than one batch.

So we're going to add a third.

(pork sizzling) (laughs) You tell me when you think it's a third.

- When it doesn't crowd the bottom of the pan two more pieces.

- There we go.

And that's the point, what you just said.

You don't want to crowd the pan because then the meat will steam.

Too much liquid will come out and it won't brown.

So to get a nice dark browning, you want to let this sit about seven minutes without disturbing it, and then we'll flip it over and give it another five minutes on the other side.

So it's been seven minutes, and we're going to flip it over.

Look at the browning, it's just beautiful.

These are big pieces of pork.

So getting both sides done is good.

We're going to let that sit five minutes and then remove it and do round two.

Batch two is ready.

Take this out and we have a lot of beautiful pork juice and pork fat in the pan along with that oil we added to begin with, and we're going to brown our onions in this.

- Okay.

- Would you take this and add the remainder of the third pork, that we're not browning, to that and that will be ready to go when we need it.

So the pot and the oil in here, and all that delicious pork fat is very hot.

We're going to turn this down just a little bit to medium, and then we will start cooking the onions.

We have a sliced red onion.

(sizzling) Would you add a half a teaspoon of salt, please?

That was a generous half-teaspoon.

- I'm glad you did.

- Because I'm a generous cook when it comes to salt.

(laughter) - Me too, I love cooking onions with salt.

Okay, this is going to cook with the salt covered so that they soften and that takes about three minutes.

Okay, let's check these onions-- ooh, beautiful.

Ah... that's another favorite smell, right?

- That moment when you take the top off?

- Yes, with the onions.

So these have gotten very soft, about three minutes' time, you can see they're just starting to brown a little bit, and now we'll add a cup of white wine.

And we'll stir that well.

All the brown bits are coming up, which is beautiful, and we'll let this simmer until the wine is pretty much reduced.

And that'll be about five minutes.

- Okay, - So this is the wine reduced with the onions.

I thought I loved the smell of onions, but the smell of wine and onions is even better.

- Even better?

- We have the intense flavor of the wine, and now we're going to start building the flavor.

These are our aromatics.

We have fennel seeds, fresh rosemary, and dried oregano.

The dried oregano is important here.

We're going to be using fresh a little bit later for garnish.

But too much fresh oregano can actually turn a little bit bitter.

We also have a few bay leaves that we're throwing in.

So this is going to build that savory element in the sauce, which we're starting to make now.

Now for the sweet element of the sauce, the Ikarians use a special honey that's made there and it's very dark, deeply flavored honey.

So the best thing we found to substitute for that is buckwheat honey, which also has a very distinctive, unique flavor.

And we are going to add a quarter cup of the buckwheat honey here, we'll be adding a little more later.

- Well, buckwheat honey would be overpowering, like, in a dessert or something, because it's really strong.

- Yes.

And paired with this pork, this honey makes a really incredible, rich glaze.

- Or we could just stop the recipe now and put this on bread.

- (laughing) You could!

- Be a great app.

- Remove the bay leaves and there you go.

- There you go.

- So this is ready now-- this is the base of our sauce, and we're ready to add the pork back in, if you wouldn't mind.

- Okay.

You ready?

- Ready.

Beautiful.

We'll just give that a good stir and we'll add a three-quarters cup of water.

Now, this is our method of braising where we're using very low liquid.

The liquid is not even going to come close to covering the meat.

We have the honey in there and the little bit of wine that was reduced.

And now we're going to add just three-quarters cup of water.

Thank you.

Great.

Stir that to coat the pork completely.

Then we will cover this and cook it in a 325 degree oven for about two to two-and-a-half hours.

- So she cooked it in a skillet right on top of the stove.

But we just transferred this to the oven because it's easier.

- It is easier.

We don't have a lot of liquid in here, so doing it on the stove top you risk that liquid evaporating a little too quickly, and then... - So you have to keep adding more.

- Yep, and stirring and burning.

In the oven, it's fuss free.

I'll see you in a couple hours.

♪ ♪ Okay, this just came out of the oven, two-and-a-half hours.

This is where the excitement... - You're very...

I can tell, you're very proud of yourself, now.

- I love this dish.

- That does... - Oh!

- Mmm... - Right?

That sauce has already been reducing a little bit, more of the pork fat has been coming out in it, which is a wonderful thing, We're going to remove the pork.

at this point.

we're still building flavor.

We're not quite done with that.

If you see the bay leaves, take those out as well.

Do you see how this is literally falling apart as I pull it out of the pot-- that's what you want.

- These kinds of recipes remind me of baking.

You put something in the oven and then you walk away... - (laughs) - You come back, you know, and all of a sudden it's transformed.

- Voila!

- The oven did all the work, right?

- Right.

Remember those two-inch pieces in the beginning that seemed so big?

Well, now there's something more manageable.

And they're still big and meaty so the sauce is going to balance beautifully with them.

- Well, if you had small pieces and put it in the oven for two-and-a-half hours, they would dissolve into the sauce, right?

- Yes, exactly.

One last step.

Pork can differ in how much fat it has in it.

Some pork shoulders are fattier than others.

If you have a lot of fat in here, you can tilt the pot and the fat naturally floats to the surface.

And if you have what seems an excess amount, just skim it off.

This one actually is beautiful, there's good sauce with that.

Put that back!

- (laughs) What were you taking it out for?

Jeez!

- Okay, okay!

- You're absolutely right, I'm going to leave it.

We don't need to skim that, that's beautiful.

So now the last step is to add a little bit of orange juice.

We're saving the zest for a little bit later.

And we have a little more of that buckwheat honey, another quarter cup.

There we go.

We'll stir this in, and this needs to reduce for ten minutes.

Let it simmer down till it gets really thick and glaze-like.

Okay, our sauce has been simmering - You're admiring your handiwork.

- (laughing) I am.

- As you should be, I would too.

- Well, just wait'll you taste it!

This is what you want to see.

As you pull the spatula across, there's a pause before the path closes up.

- The Red Sea.

- Yes.

- We've got our sweet and savory elements built in there, but we're going to continue to build even more flavor.

We're going to turn this off.

Our favorite Milk Street method here is to add the fresh flavors on top of the already cooked flavor.

We have fresh rosemary, and the orange zest from the orange that we juiced.

Fresh oregano to counter with the dried oregano we added earlier, And just a little bit of cider vinegar because that little bit of acid at the very end just sort of brightens all the flavors.

And now we're ready to put the pork back in.

So we're going to add the pork just until it heats through.

And then we will be eating this Great, that's beautiful.

So we're just going to gently toss it.

It's breaking up a little bit more, you get the golden tones.

- Boy, that... - Oh, right?

Okay, your favorite part.

- (chuckles) I just cooked dinner Saturday, and why didn't I make this?

- Well, there you go.

- This would have been a better option.

- Well, what did you make?

- I made something that was quite good, but it was... - I would imagine.

- I don't know if it's as good as this.

All right ,I'll tilt and you spoon?

All right, go.

It's an incredibly intense sauce.

Everything we added, we reduced down a little bit, which just increased the flavor.

So you've got this build up of these amazingly intense flavors.

You're going to admire a bit more before you eat?

- I am.

- I get to eat, you can admire.

- Oh, man.

I just love the smell-- the orange... - Look, it just came apart with a fork.

- Fork tender, as it's called.

- Mmm... wow!

This Saturday I'm making this.

- There weren't a lot of ingredients.

You wouldn't think you'd get as intense a flavor.

- Well, I have to say... the key of all of this is the balance of sweet, savory, and sour.

There is sweetness, but in a lot of Greek cooking, there's sweetness there, but it's not overpowering.

You think it would be cloying, but it's not.

- Right.

- Because there's quite a lot of honey went in.

- Right.

- Mmm.

So this is a braised pork with honey, orange, and rosemary, and that really says it all.

Honey, rosemary, and orange.

Those three things go together with pork.

It's a great combination.

It's what we love at Milk Street.

We find recipes like this that have big flavors that go together really well, and these big flavors go together really well.

That's why we love the recipe.

(laughter) Great job.

- Thanks.

♪ ♪ - So let's make roasted whole cauliflower with feta.

Thesis our adaptation of Diane Kochilas' recipe from her book My Greek Table.

I love this recipe because it's super easy, almost completely makes itself.

We're going to use one whole head of cauliflower, and we're going to make essentially a vinaigrette in different proportions to coat it with.

So I have in here my honey and mustard.

To that I'm going to add olive oil.

Balsamic vinegar.

And my salt and pepper.

And last, I'm going to grate two cloves of garlic with a wand grater.

Going to give this a whisk till it's nice and emulsified.

Now, this comes together really quickly because both garlic and mustard and honey are really good emulsifiers.

So it's really quick, and it holds its form.

There's our mixture.

I'm going to take out a quarter cup, reserve it for later.

With the remaining mixture, I'm just going to dab it all around the cauliflower.

You want to make sure you get into all the crevices so everything is seasoned well.

So there it is.

All my mixture is on the cauliflower.

There will be some drips, don't worry about it.

That's what the foil is for.

So I'm going to put this into the oven to roast at 450 degrees for 40 to 55 minutes.

So my cauliflower is roasted, golden brown, and beautiful.

I've let it rest just for a few minutes, so it cools down enough for me to handle.

Next.

I'm going to add a little extra mustard to make it tacky on top.

And this is going to allow me to put on my feta and parsley mixture.

And on goes the feta and parsley mixture.

I'm going to press this on with my fingers, carefully.

So my feta mixture is on nicely, and this is going to go back in the oven, 450 degrees, for five to eight minutes, so the feta melts.

And our roasted whole cauliflower is done.

I've transferred it onto a cutting board, I'm going to cut it into four wedges.

And to serve, I'm going to use the reserved oil-mustard mixture.

Drizzle a little of that, just over the top, and finish with a squeeze of lemon.

I like lemon.

And there it is, our roasted whole cauliflower with feta.

Thank you, Diane Kochilas, for this wonderful dish.

Mm.

There's mustard in there, and honey.

The roasted caramelized cauliflower, that little salty punch of feta, and then all that herb of parsley.

Absolutely perfect.

Practically does itself.

I love it.

♪ ♪ - This recipe, of course, comes from Diane Kochilas from Ikaria, which is a really great way of dealing with rice with some grated tomatoes and some feta cheese, Some ouzo, of course, which is nice.

You know, if you look around the world, you can tell a lot about a culture by how they cook rice.

You could have jeweled rice from Persia and Iran.

You could have how they do it in India, you could have just basic white rice in China.

You can have rice and beans, all different ways of doing it.

So this tells us a lot about Greek cooking.

So with that in mind, let's get cooking.

- This is a delicious vegetarian dish.

If you've made risotto at home, you're going to recognize this.

So to get it started, we have some cherry tomatoes.

Cherry tomatoes are a great call because no matter what time of year it is, they're going to be pretty sweet and delicious.

And we have some chopped red onion here, and this has been going for just, you know, about five minutes, a little bit of salt to bring out the juices, and now we are going to add some tomato paste to really just amp up that tomato-y flavor.

And this is just going to cook for about a minute.

- You know the one thing we don't have in this recipe?

- What?

- We're not sitting on a terrace in Ikaria.

- (sighs) Can you do something about that?

- Having some ouzo and looking over the sea, you know.

I mean, that's-- this would go much better if we were.

- It really would.

We have some grated garlic here.

It's really nice to do this with a fine, like, rasp grater, because the garlic just melts into the sauce.

You don't get those big chunks of garlic.

You get that nice flavor.

And just 30 seconds on that, get it nice and fragrant.

Mm, smells so good already.

Now we're going to add a cup of arborio rice.

And it is important that you don't use, like, a long grain rice.

You want something like arborio-- short grain and nice and starchy.

It's going to give us the creaminess that we're looking for.

I don't know about you, Chris, but a lot of times when I've made recipes like this, it's been in a saucepan, and by doing it in like a 12-inch skillet like this and having all that heat, it goes so much quicker.

I always think of dishes like this of taking at least a half an hour, but this, once you get the rice going, those grains only need to cook for about ten minutes.

- Well, when we went to Milan to do risotto, saffron risotto, they do it in a skillet in ten or 15 minutes.

So maybe they've been talking, I don't know.

- I guess so.

All right, you can see that the grains of rice are starting to get a little bit translucent, and we're developing some more flavor as that tomato and onion cook down even more.

So now I'm going to add some ouzo.

Are you familiar with ouzo?

You must be, because you were just talking about... - Am I familiar with ouzo?

Yes.

- (laughing): Sipping it-- sipping it in the... - (laughing): I'm very familiar... - ...Greek isles.

- ...with ouzo.

- So for those who aren't, it's fennel-flavored liqueur.

You can certainly substitute white wine and a little fennel seed if you don't want to invest in a bottle of ouzo.

But I really do highly recommend it.

I'm going to turn up the heat just a little bit.

We just want to cook off that kind of raw alcohol flavor.

All right, Chris, now most of the ouzo has evaporated.

And I should say, if your pan is like screaming hot, you might want to turn off the heat when you add that ouzo, so just to make sure you don't get a flare up.

And now I'm just going to add three cups of hot water.

And then a teaspoon and a half of salt.

And I have to admit, when I first made this, I was like is this really going to be flavorful without broth?

Because I always think about, you know, using warm broth with a dish like this.

But we've developed such a nice flavor base with the tomato and onion, the garlic, the ouzo, that you really don't need it.

The water works just fine, so.

- Well, we've said this many times, but water lets the other flavors come through, whereas chicken or beef broth kind of muddies everything and you can't taste the sort of primary flavors like the tomato, the onion-- and the ouzo, I would add.

- Very important.

- Let the ouzo shine, that's-- that's the method here.

- So I'm just going to bring this up to a simmer and then stirring occasionally, eight to ten minutes, we'll be all done.

All right, Chris.

So you can see that liquid has thickened up and most of it's been absorbed into the rice.

For visual cue-- of course, you want to taste it first of all, to make sure that the rice is al dente.

But also, I like to go like this, and it leaves like a little bit of a trail so you can see it's sort of the right level of soupiness.

- And you don't look exhausted.

- No, I'm not.

- Not like you spent 40 minutes making risotto.

- Not at all.

This is a quick and easy version, I think.

One thing to note, Chris, you know, evaporation is going to differ depending on how high you've cranked up the heat and your pan and everything else.

So even though we added those three cups of water, it's always good to have some extra.

You might need to add a little bit more at the end, just to get the rice done the way that you want.

And now I'm turning off the heat.

We're going to add a little bit of lemon juice for acidity.

Some fresh oregano, which is really nice.

And then we're ready to serve it up.

Want to hand me a bowl?

A little bit more.

Now, for a finishing touch, we're going to add some feta.

And if you can find sheep's milk feta, Chris, it is more flavorful, it's really delicious.

And they do have it in most grocery stores now.

- As opposed to dog's milk feta?

- (chuckling): That's a good point.

That's a very good point.

- We put the dog's in... - So cow's milk feta is really common.

And for a long time, that was mostly what you saw in the States.

But now sheep's milk is pretty widely available.

Regardless, you don't want to be getting the pre-crumbled feta, Chris.

You want to look for those nice blocks, they're going to have more flavor.

- I'm going to be rude and just serve myself and then let you decide how much feta you want.

- Just leaving me to fend for myself once again.

Plus I like to crumble it a little more.

We going to use any olive oil on this, too, or not?

- Oh, that's a great idea, yeah.

- I'll let you do yours.

- Fair.

- I'll return the favor.

Here, would you like some on yours?

- Why thank you so much.

Yeah, it's nice to finish a little drizzle of olive oil.

- Looks great.

Mm.

This has tremendous tomato flavor and these are just supermarket tomatoes, right?

So... - It's true.

It really tastes like summer.

It really does make a difference, that little bit of tomato paste.

Those are sort of the cheats, right?

You use the cherry tomatoes, Unless, of course, it's summer and you have some beautiful garden tomatoes.

And then that little bit of tomato paste really amps up the flavor.

- This is so good.

You know, Ikaria, the island where Diane's grandparents grew up, she told me that back in the '60s, political exiles were sent to Ikaria to live, that's how remote it was.

- Yeah.

- It was like going to Elba, you know, back in the 19th century.

So, it's still a place where people forage, and a lot of these things, like oregano, they would just get from the side of the road.

So the markets don't have a lot of great stuff in them, because everyone out there's getting their own stuff, right.

- If you know what's good.

- Yeah.

So here at Milk Street, we've had rice dishes really all over the world.

This one has to be probably top shelf, right, because it has the oregano, it has the feta, a little olive oil at the end, the ouzo, the tomato.

Has lots of different flavors.

It's bright and takes 15 or 20 minutes to make.

So if you want this recipe, tomato rice with feta, and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street, please go to MilkStreetTV.com.

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♪ ♪ - Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to be the first to welcome you to Tel Aviv... - Welcome to Oaxaca's airport.

- Welcome to Beirut.

♪ ♪ (man speaking Hebrew) (speaking world language) - Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris.

- We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

♪ ♪ - Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

♪ ♪ - So this is the Eduardo García blender.

- This is the no electricity.

♪ ♪ - Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

♪ ♪ I notice when you cook sometimes, you add a little bit of something, and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

♪ ♪ - Can start building bridges, and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

♪ ♪ - This is a generational thing.

It's, it's something that you inherit.

♪ ♪ - Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for?

What did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Salute.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪