AL ROKER reporting:
This morning on
TODAY'S KITCHEN
, our hot chef is showing us how to make some Greek spreads. Chef and restaurant owner
Michael Psilakis
has been -- always eaten traditional
Greek foods
and he serves them in his establishment. So -- well, now he's sharing his recipes in his new cookbook, "How to
Roast
a
Lamb.
" Michael, good to see you.
Mr. MICHAEL PSILAKIS (Author, "How to Roast a Lamb"):
Nice to be here.
ROKER:
So -- now you grew up eating these kind of foods.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Mm-hmm.
ROKER:
What makes this so special?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
I think
Greek food
is -- its beauty is its simplicity, really.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
They're very recognizable ingredients, things that you can get pretty much at any local store. And it's really healthy and it tastes good.
ROKER:
All right. So we're starting off now with a roasted pepper and feta spread?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
We're going to make a few spreads.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So we're going to -- we're going to demonstrate two of them, and then I'm going to show what different types of uses we can have for them.
ROKER:
Great.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So just to give you an indication of how easy this type of stuff is is we have some roasted peppers here.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
We're just throwing it all into a
Cuisinart
. A
little
bit of
feta cheese
.
ROKER:
Uh-huh.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Some garlic, some spicy peperoncini peppers.
ROKER:
Oh, nice, we're getting a
little
bite.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
And then we have a bunch of fresh herbs, there's some dill and then some parsley and then some scallion. And then for aromatics, we have oregano, some
lemon zest
, a
little
cumin and coriander.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So all of that just gets shuffled in there. We're going to give it a couple of pulses. And once it comes together...
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
...it's basically ready.
ROKER:
So you don't want to -- you don't want to pulse it too much, and you want some texture in there.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Yes. So here what we're going to do is basically plate it. And what I've done here, just to give it a
little
bit of texture...
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
...is put it on a nice wooden plate. We have some grilled pita.
ROKER:
Oh, nice.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
You just kind of scoop it right in there.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm. Mm, that's delicious.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
It's wonderful
, isn't it?
ROKER:
That is very nice. Now what are we grilling here?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
OK. So we have some grilled onions.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
The grilled onions, we're going to basically -- actually, you know what, we made a mistake, we should have put them into our puree here.
ROKER:
Oh! OK. Well, just imagine that, would you?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
We're going to throw it right in here. We're going to -- thank you. So much better, so much better.
ROKER:
Oh, that's much better.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So much better.
ROKER:
OK.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So we're going to take these off.
ROKER:
Move those along with that. Next.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
And we're going on to the tsatziki
sauce
.
ROKER:
Ah, tsatziki!
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Tsatziki
sauce
.
ROKER:
I like the tsatziki.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Classic
, classic yogurt
sauce
.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Basically, all we're going to do is take our yogurt and we're going to add cucumber, dill, some shallot...
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
...some garlic that we have all chopped up...
ROKER:
Right.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
...a
little
bit of vinegar and some
lemon juice
.
ROKER:
OK.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So we're just going to pour that all together.
ROKER:
Now is there anything you do special with the cucumber?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
We just chopped it up.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm. OK.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
We took the seeds out. We used an English seedless cucumber. Thank you.
ROKER:
No problem.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So that all goes in. We're going to add that garlic.
ROKER:
Vinegar? And a couple of squeezes of
lemon
?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Right. And then you're just going to stir that all up.
ROKER:
Any
salt and pepper
in this?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Of course.
ROKER:
Ah. Oh, yeah.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So
little
bit of
black pepper
.
ROKER:
And this is a basic
sauce
that's used in a lot of Greek cooking, isn't it?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
This is pretty much everywhere. It's typically used for grilled types of meats, either chicken or lamb.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
You will find it in souvlaki or in gyro as a
street
food.
ROKER:
Gyro! I like the gyro.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
I know you do.
ROKER:
OK.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
I know you do.
ROKER:
Now what -- now what are we going to do with this?
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So if we come back here...
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
...I'll show you that we basically just kind of arranged it in a couple of different ways so that you can see the versatility of what we've done.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
So here again is the......that we demonstrated.
ROKER:
Right.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
I'm serving it with just some pickled vegetables that you can pick up at a store.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
We also -- hi.
NORAH O'DONNELL reporting:
Did somebody say tsatziki
sauce
?
ROKER:
Yes, tsatziki
sauce
.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Tsatziki
sauce
.
O'DONNELL:
I love it.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Yes.
O'DONNELL:
Mm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
We have our tsatziki here.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
I figured we could either serve it with pita or maybe even some nachos if you wanted to use it as a dip.
ROKER:
Oh. And then what's this right here?
O'DONNELL:
I would like...
Mr. PSILAKIS:
This is kind of like a Greek baga.
ROKER:
Oh, I think you wanted a
little
.
O'DONNELL:
Yeah.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
You want to go right in? Right into the garlic?
O'DONNELL:
Oh, my goodness. Mm, mm!
ROKER:
There you go.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Isn't good, isn't it?
O'DONNELL:
Good.
ROKER:
Mm. And then I like this over here.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
Well, I went a
little
playful on this side. This is what you can do with the same ingredients and kind of use American standards. So this is a hamburger that we make at
Anthos
, one of our flagship restaurants here in
New York
.
ROKER:
Mm-hmm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
It's a lamb burger and we put the......on top. It's a perfect
sauce
for a hamburger.
O'DONNELL:
Mm.
Mr. PSILAKIS:
And then at
Gus Gabriel
, we make our own
hot dogs
. And here we're using both the......and the tsatziki
sauce
with the traditional
Chicago dog
toppings. And to be a
little
bit playful, if you wanted to make a vegetarian real light super low-cal dish, this is nachos.
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