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Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Going to Greece

September 23, 2012 by Mary Frances 12 Comments

Greek sweatshirt artWith autumn officially here, even though I love the season, here’s a way to hang on to summer for just a little bit longer.

I think it’s fun to plan a dinner around a specific theme. Not like the crazy tablescape lady on Food Network. I just learned that she is our Governor’s live-in partner! Yikes! She’s probably a nice woman but really, she’s a bit much.

We had some new friends over for dinner last Saturday. Well not really new. Anne and I did business with one another some 20 years ago! She had a creative placement agency. In those days, my company did a lot of package design for a fragrance company called Tsumara. We often needed textile designers to design the background patterns on these packages. Anne supplied me great ones on a freelance basis.

I ran into her recently at a New York Times /AMEX Business Summit. I gave her a LOVE card and she checked out the blog and recognized Ethel and Ethel’s garlic from an earlier post! We discovered our weekend houses are very close to one another. Isn’t that great?

So for our dinner together, I wanted to take them to Greece. We made a grilled Greek chicken recipe that my husband and I used to make all the time after our visits to Santorini. You take a whole chicken and stuff under the skin: slices of tomatoes, covered with dried oregano, sliced onions and thin slices of feta cheese. Grill it with a lemon-based sauce and voila, you’re in Greece. They do this all over Santorini on the street outside of small restaurants and everything is so fresh and good. Serve it with a simple Greek tomato and cucumber salad and you are set. Try it – it’s delicious!!

And grab a little bit of summer one last time.

SANTORINI GRILLED CHICKEN
– serves 4

1 whole chicken – about 3.75 lbs
1 large tomato – sliced 1/8” thick
Dried oregano
Feta cheese, sliced 1/8” thick
1 small onion – sliced 1/8” thick
salt
pepper
1/2 lemon
Lemon/garlic basting sauce

Wash and thoroughly dry the chicken. Trim off any excess fat. Refresh it with a half of a lemon, squeezing the juice out all over, inside and out. Pat the chicken dry again. Cut the tomato in 4 or 5 slices. Sprinkle each slice liberally with dried Greek oregano. Carefully, use your fingers to separate the skin from the meat on both sides of the breastbone and on both sides of the backbone. Into each quarter slide one tomato slice, oregano side down, one onion slice and one good slice of feta. If you need to cut a tomato slice or onion slice in half, to fit it all in, do so. If you accidentally tear the skin, use a small skewer to sew up the tear. Salt and pepper the chicken all over to your liking.

Grill the chicken at about 350 degrees, basting with the sauce 3-4 times throughout the cooking time. It should take about 45 minutes.

You could also do this in your oven. Preheat the oven to 550 degrees. Place the chicken in for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and roast for 45 – 50 minutes, basting three times with the lemon garlic sauce during this time, every 15 minutes. Check to see if it’s done with an instant read thermometer. It should register at 155 degrees.

LEMON/GARLIC BASTING SAUCE
1.5 tbs. unsalted butter
2 tbs olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbs. finely minced onion
6 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 tbs. Dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp. light brown sugar
1 tbs. Worcestershire sauce
20 grinds of black pepper
¾ tsp. Sriracha sauce
3 tbs. water

In a small saucepan, melt the butter in olive oil over low heat. Add garlic and onion, cover and sweat for 15 – 20 minutes. Check often, stir and do not let it brown, but you want it to be meltingly soft. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the water, stirring well. Raise heat to medium-high and whisk in water. Stir until mixture boils and then remove from heat. This can be made a couple of hours before you’re going to use it. Keep it at room temperature.
Greek salad overhead

GREEK SALAD
– serves 4

2 – 3 large tomatoes, preferably heirloom, cut in large chunks
½ of a large red onion, cut in ½” chunks
1.5 hothouse cucumbers, peeled, halved lengthwise & cut in 1/2” chunks
1/2 cup Kalamata black olives, pitted, cut in half
Greek feta cheese, crumbled in large pieces
Extra virgin olive oil
Red wine vinegar
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Chopped fresh oregano leaves

Place tomatoes, red onion, cucumbers, olives and feta cheese in a large bowl. Drizzle with the best olive oil you have and a few splashes of red wine vinegar. Sprinkle with a little salt (the feta will be salty so not too much), fresh pepper and 2/3 of your chopped oregano leaves. Toss lightly to combine. Garnish the top with more oregano leaves.
Greek dinner plate with Santorini grilled chicken, Greek salad, corn, and red wine.Greek dinner plate with Santorini grilled chicken, Greek salad, and corn.

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Filed Under: Dinner, Poultry, Salads, Travel Tagged With: cucumbers, feta cheese, Greek roasted chicken, Greek salad, grilled chicken, kalamata olives, lemon basting sauce, oregano, red onion, Santorini, tomatoes

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Comments

  1. Anne Maxfield (@alocavore) says

    September 24, 2012 at 5:06 PM

    Grilled chicken has to be one of my favorite things about the summer! This was delicious and definitely worth a try! Great company and a lovely setting just added to the wonderful dinner!
    I totally agree about the tablescape lady. Drinks concocted to go with napkins are just way too matchy-matchy!

    Reply
    • Mary Frances says

      September 26, 2012 at 11:11 AM

      Thank you Anne! Doesn’t that lady drive you nuts?!

      Reply
  2. bebetsy says

    September 27, 2012 at 6:42 PM

    The entire meal looks delicious!! thanks for sharing

    Reply
    • Mary Frances says

      September 28, 2012 at 10:03 AM

      Thanks Betsy, it was!!

      Reply
  3. cookinginsens says

    October 29, 2012 at 12:19 PM

    That’s incredible that you stuff the tomatoes under the skin! I’ve got to try that!

    Reply
    • Mary Frances says

      May 22, 2013 at 10:42 PM

      Yep!! Go for it – it’s delicious!!

      Reply
  4. Luana says

    August 3, 2013 at 3:36 AM

    This must be delicious!!! love Greek recipes!
    Luana recently posted…Don’t push the river, it flows by itself….My Profile

    Reply
    • Mary Frances says

      August 3, 2013 at 7:11 PM

      It is!! I’m actually making this again tonight!

      Reply
  5. Grace says

    January 6, 2014 at 6:58 AM

    Delicious…

    Reply
  6. Mary Frances says

    January 6, 2014 at 11:59 AM

    Yes, it truly is. Thanks for visiting!!

    Reply
  7. Vic Rosenberg says

    July 15, 2020 at 8:42 PM

    Hi Mary,
    Hope you’re doing well? Enjoying your recipes! Remembering our trip to Santorini, Mykonos and Athens. Thanks for the memories…

    Reply
    • Mary says

      July 18, 2020 at 10:56 PM

      :)) Yes Greece is SO nice – hope we can all go back soon!!

      Hope you are well Vic – thanks for writing.

      Reply

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