The Odd Fork

This chocolate tart is like no other! The marriage of chocolate and beer may seem strange, but it is absolutely successful when the right kind of beer is used. The Odd Fork used for this a Corfu beer with the poetic name "Ionian Epos" (epos means saga in Greek) ! A Belgian Ale type beer, made by the Corfu Microbrewery especially for winter time!

For the pastry:

- 125 gr butter, cut in small cubes

- 60 gr icing sugar

- vanilla

- salt

- 150 gr all purpose flour

Mix flour, salt and icing sugar into a bowl and add vanilla and butter. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic, adding some cold water if necessary. Shape dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic foil and let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour. Roll the dough out into a circle and place onto a tart pan. Pinch all over the surface with a fork and place in the freezer until firm, about 30 minutes. Frozen dough is less prone to shrinking while baking. 

Bake crust for 20 minutes, in a preheated oven, air setting, at 375F/190C for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove it from the oven and let it cool completely.

For the filling:

- 60 gr brown sugar

- 75 gr walnuts, finely ground

- 60 gr butter

- 80 ml Ionian Epos beer

Just boil for a few minutes all the above ingredients until mixture is smooth and thick, like a thicker butterscotch sauce. When cool, place it evenly over the baked tart crust and keep in the fridge to set.

For the chocolate - beer topping:

- 100 gr dark chocolate finely chopped

- 80 ml Ionian Epos beer

In a saucepan, heat chocolate and beer stirring constantly until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth and unified. Remove form heat and when cool, spread it evenly on tart, all over above the beer - walnut filling. Keep it in the fridge for 4 - 5 hours or overnight, and tart is ready to serve!

Tips: You can use any beer of choice, as long as it has a mild, sweet taste. A stout or Imperial stout could also work great in this dessert! The chocolate - beer topping has a subtle beer aftertaste, ideal for all beer lovers and chocoholics at the same time!

The Odd Fork loves all kinds of soups, especially these nice velouté soups with their creamy, smooth, almost velvet texture... absolutely yummy! Winter means hot soup, period!

So the Odd Fork created -of course- a strange one; The traditional French onion soup in its velouté version flavored with... Greek mountain tea! Greek mountain dried tea has a delicate flower note and even if it is usually used as a warming winter drink in Greece, it worked wonders with the soup due to its fantastic aroma!

To serve two, the Odd Fork used:

- half a kilo of onions, cut into thin slices
- 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil
- salt, pepper (a mix of black, mild red and a little hot red pepper)
- a little of dried thyme (optional)
- 300 ml meat stock
- a small bunch of dried mountain tea
- Greek Graviera cheese and Nouboulo (a.k.a. Corfiot prosciutto, which is smoked pork fillet) for serving

To make the soup, start by adding olive oil and onions into a large pot, cover the pot and over low heat (the Odd's Fork kitchen stove had a maximum heat limit of 10, so the heat was on 3) sauté for 30 - 40 minutes, until onions caramelize. In the middle of this time period add salt, pepper mix and thyme (if thyme is not available it's OK, the mountain's tea aroma will be stronger) and be careful to stir with a wooden spoon from time to time.
When onions are tender and light brown add meat stock in the pot, turn heat to medium and boil for another 15 minutes -always with the pot covered with its lid. Remove pot from the stove and add mountain tea. Let it steep (pot covered) for about 20 minutes, then remove mountain tea from the soup and purée it in the blender until smooth and nice.

Serve the warm soup immediately with Graviera cheese slices and grilled Nouboulo pieces, as the Odd Fork did. The Odd Fork also baked fresh bread and paired its soup with dry, homemade Corfiot wine. What an excellent meal that was!

The Odd Fork is not much of a big meat lover. However, today it decided to pinch meat.

An aromatic pork roll with roasted cauliflower which can be eaten on Sundays or even on Christmas time, as it is a special meal indeed!

It is of course obvious that a good piece of pork meat (pork tenderloin is ideal), is the base for this meal. The pork piece should also be thin so that it can be easily rolled, so use a mortar to flatten meat as possible. When ready, season both sides of pork with salt and pepper. Lay some mustard on the upper side of the pork and lay the stuffing evenly over it.
For the stuffing, just add a small green pepper, some fresh chopped parsley, a clove of garlic and some caper into your blender and blend to get a thick, smooth paste. Also add some olive oil, dried oregano, cumin and some orange zest and blend again until smooth. Just before rolling pork with its stuffing, sprinkle all over the top a small, grated carrot. It will give nice color and taste as well.

Roll the meat with the stuffing firmly and tie with baking string or poke meat with toothpicks to keep the roll from unraveling. Rub the outside of the roll with olive oil and place it in a roasting tray. Bake in a preheated oven, air setting, at 350C for for 35-40 minutes or until meat is tender and the color is golden brown.

The Odd Fork would normally make a nice, green salad to eat with its roasted pork but the "Odd" in its name asked for something else: Roasted, aromatic cauliflower!
Wash cauliflower thoroughly and and cut off the stems. Marinate them in a mixture of olive oil, lemon and orange juice, mashed garlic, paprika and a little of orange zest for half to 1 hour. Bake them with the pork roll (it takes less time than pork to bake, so add it in the roasting tray in the middle of baking).

Serve pork with roasted cauliflower hot and drink together a nice, white wine!

Winter is on its way, so the Odd Fork starts to crave warm, comfort food. Homemade healthy food with seasonal vegetables, herbs and spices and sometimes, fish or meat.

In the Odd's Fork kitchen, winter asks for cabbage! It is easy to find, cheap to buy and very nutritious. It is delicious eaten raw in salads but it works also very well in stews. Pork and cabbage stew is very popular in Greece, so the Odd Fork thought why not use fish instead of meat?

To serve two, it used:

- 2 sole fish fillets (thawed, if using frozen)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- an onion, finely chopped
- a small cabbage (size of a small mellon)
- a wine glass of white, dry wine
- a shot of Greek Rakomelo (optional)
- salt, black pepper, some mild red and hot red pepper, some turmeric (all powder)
- half tsp ground fennel seeds (crushed with a mortar and pestle)
- 2 small dried bay leaves
- half a bunch of fresh dill
- lemon, to taste

Remove each cabbage leaf with a knife, wash leaves thoroughly and chop them, as if making a salad. Place a pot over medium to high heat. Add olive oil and sauté the onion for 2-3 minutes. Add cabbage, stirring with a wooden spatula for a couple of minutes. Add all the dried spices and herbs, stir well and deglaze with the white wine and the Rakomelo.
Rakomelo is a popular winter Greek spirit, literally meaning "Raki with honey" (Raki is like vodka, only produced from grapes) and the Odd Fork thought that it could give a little "something" to its recipe.

Add about half a glass of water in the pot -just to cover the ingredients, cover the pot with its lid and boil over medium heat until cabbage is tender. About 5 minutes before the end of cooking, add chopped fresh dill and fish fillets, uncover the pot, increase the heat and boil until fish becomes white and juices evaporate. Be careful not to stir, just shake the pot if necessary.

Serve immediately hot with fresh lemon juice and drink with this meal a nice, dry, white wine.

Lentils can be so versatile. They are ideal all year round since they make excellent salads in the summer days, but they work great in all kind of soups and stews as well, so what better than a nice, hot lentil stew to warm you up in winter time!

The combination of red lentils, buckwheat and fresh spinach together with fresh dill and the exotic touch of spices like turmeric, coriander and cumin made this dish taste both like Indian vegan curry and Greek spanakorizo (rice with spinach). For the Odd Fork, that meant success! 

Ingredients:

- 1 cup lentils (red, or any of choice)
- 1 cup buckwheat
- olive oil
- 3 spring onions finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/3 tsp fennel seeds
- 1/3 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/3 tsp coriander seeds
- salt, pepper
- a star anise
- 300 gr fresh spinach, cleaned and chopped
- a bunch of fresh dill finely chopped
- fresh lemon juice for serving

Wash buckwheat very well and soak in water overnight. Add about a tbsp of olive oil in a pot and sauté spring onions, then add turmeric, fennel seeds, cumin and coriander seeds and sauté for 1 - 2 minutes. Add water in the pot and when it comes to a boil add star anise, lentils and buckwheat drained and simmer with the pot covered for about an hour, until lentils and buckwheat are tender.
Add salt, pepper, spinach and dill and boil for another 10 to 15 minutes. It should be a thick stew, which will look more like a risotto than a soup.
Serve hot with fresh lemon juice. It is a hearty, nutritious and surely very aromatic meal!