Gastronomic Holidays - The famous Cretan Diet
This tasty week takes place on 10th to 17th May 2011 

We aim to make this experience at the Mistral, a festival of flavours and tastes with emphasis on the healthiest diet of the world, the famous Cretan diet.

Try both cooking and eating from the best there is. Discover the secrets of the famous Cretan authentic cuisine.

Not just Greek Moussaka but the true experience of a simple and healthy Cretan cuisine, which is not just a way to eat but a way to live.

This special interest spring week includes five days activities and also two days free to relax and catch the sun rays.

Guests will have the opportunity to see a bit of the unspoilt side of Crete and learn to cook the famous Cretan Kakavia Fish soup and several more Cretan recipes.

It will be both a cultural experience and a culinary one. If you are a food lover, this is the time to travel with us.

Food, wine and a setting worth travelling for.

The itinerary:

One day cooking and eating with Mama Katerina, Traditional recipes of Crete, accompanied by the best Cretan wines.

One day visiting the open farmers market and then preparing simple lunch, using only fresh ingredients.

One day cooking, and of course, tasting seafood, trying an ancient recipy which still survives today.

A day dedicated to wines and cheeses could not be missing from this experience.

A day trip orange picking, bird watching with lunch at the historic village of Therissos, tasting the Cretan mountain cuisine. Goat meat, cheeses and wine.

So many of my guests say to me that we should call our holidays gastronomic. The food we eat and the whole experience (that we get) with information about what we eat and how it is prepared impresses so many of my guests.

They come back over and over again for more of the same experience. This has helped me realise how important food enjoyment is in our holidays. But why is Cretan cuisine more importand than others?

Here are some facts that might help answering that question: All scientific studies agree that Cretan people are amongst the longest living in the world and definitely the ones with the least cardiovascular diseases.

The Cretan cuisine is found to be the reason for this.

Prices include all 4 trips. 6 dinners at the Mistral as well as all tuition, recipes and 2 lunches at the Mistral.

Lunches out and Sunday night dinner are not included.

from our past cooking sessions

This huge black grouper is going in the pot

Stamnagathi as salad

the famous stuffed cuttle fish

The aftertaste of a Gastronomic Week in April 2008 

By Karen Ogden

Having just returned from the gastronomic week, my mouth is still watering from the tastes and flavours we experienced throughout the week. I am a complete convert, the Cretan cuisine has reached my soul and now the offerings from my local supermarket will never be the same.

Making our way up into the mountains, walking over heather, thyme and fennel, the smells of the herbs being released and the fresh air were the only appetisers we needed.  Finally at our destination, we sat high in the mountains, completely away from the business and stress of our own daily lives, eating local food amongst the most welcoming and generous people I have ever met.

The trip to Sfinari never fails to impress and during this week, when business is quiet, the fresh fish, caught especially for us by Nikos, was prepared with care, whilst we looked on and learned how to handle and cook all the delicious dishes we were later to eat.  We took our time, trying different wines to see how they complimented the food.  I have never been fussy about wines further than white with fish and red with meat, however, this session really taught me how the taste of the wine can compliment the food and, amazingly, how the taste can change so much, depending on what you are eating.  An absolutely brilliant day, we left completely full and in need of a long, long walk along the beautiful shore line before making the journey home, admiring the amazing turquoise blue bay views, from high up in the hills, on our way.

Famous for his ‘light lunches', Vassilis made each and every day a different culinary experience and his mother, Mamma Katerina,, was only too happy to show us all the herbs, greens and vegetables she uses in the superb meals she cooks.  We went into fields picking greens and fennel for pies, to orange groves collecting oranges for our breakfast juice, a flavour that will never be surpassed back home.  We saw olive trees and followed the process that converts this food of the gods into the sacred oil, the life blood of any true Cretan. There was so much to experience, taste, smell, cook and learn about, there were not enough hours in the week to cover it all. There is a definite date in my diary to return asap!!

On our travels through all this gastronomy, we were also privileged to see spring flowers, rare birds and animals, stunning views and beautiful hidden away villages, a completely different way of life, that you would certainly never find travelling on your own.  The whole week was perfect and an experience you really should not miss if you are keen to get to the heart of the Cretan way of life.  The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, they say.  Well, this is certainly true in Crete, a taste of a life not to be missed.

Kali Orexi

Thanks to everyone at the Mistral for a brilliant week !!

Some of the recipes include:

The famous Kakavia fish soup of the Lybian Sea.

This wonderful fish dish seems to be the evolution of an ancient Greek dish which was prepared in a special pot called "Kakavi" and this is the origin of the name Kakavia.

The most famous dish of the fishermen on the Greek Islands and traditionally extremely famous amongst the Cretans of the coast.

It is cooked traditionally on Saint Nicolas (protector of the seamen) day on 6th December.

Kakavia is known to be prepared on the boat or on little rocky islands where the fishermen rested before dragging their nets out of the sea.

They used a mixture of little fish, shellfish and eel and utilised all the fish that was too small and had too many bones to be eaten or sold. They would only eat the soup and not the fish that was too small and just melted in the soup.

It can be also prepared with large fish like black grouper, cod or scorpion fish. This is the version we will try in Crete.

Ingredients:

1 kilo of fresh big fish (black grouper, scorpion fish)

1/2 kilo of potatoes

2 onions cut in large slices

a bit of celery

1 tomato grated

1 glass of Cretan olive oil

salt , pepper

the juice of 2 large lemons

Method:

Scrape wash and gut the fish. Then cut into large thick slices.

Place the potatoes onions and celery in the pot and on top the fish. Build the ingredients in a way allowing as little as possible gaps so that little water will be needed to cover the whole ingredients.

Add salt and pepper the olive oil and cover with water (it should take about 5 glasses of water to cover), put the lid on and place it on very strong hot fire

or heat for 20 minutes. Half way through to the process add the grated tomato.

When the fish is very soft, nearly melting it is ready. Just before taking off the heat you add the lemon juice and turn it off.

Serve the soup immediately and the fish and vegetables separately.

This dish is traditionally served with Cretan rusk, not with bread because traditionally boats were out at sea for a long time and they used rusks instead of bread that would not stay fresh on a boat trip.

Lobster and Scampi with pasta (Astakomakaronada in Greek):

This is the most expensive dish you can possible have in Crete as the lobster and scampi are scarse and can

only be found fresh in certain places and mainly between January and September.

Many times they are kept live in a cage in the sea and you can go and choose the one you like to have.

It is a very rich dish with strong taste and requires skill to eat all the meat out of the shell.

Ingredients:

One or two Lobster/crayfish or scampi (kolochtypa in Greek) approximately one kilo. Make sure no legs are missing

or shell is broken and that they are handled with care.

Half a kilo of Spaghetti pasta

2 onions (finely chopped)

One pepper (finely chopped)

A couple of fresh large beef tomatoes grated

Method:

In a large pot we first simmer the chopped onions and pepper in olive oil then add the lobster to simmer a bit until it goes red and we add a good dash of white wine. Then add the grated tomatoes and about 1 litre of water and let it boil and cook for about 20 minutes. If the lobster is large we leave a bit longer. Durring the process skim regularly any foam from the surface. Then we remove the lobster out of it and add the pasta to boil. We have to measure

the amount of juice now so when the pasta cooks (after 5 to 10 minutes), allow it to cool a bit to absorbs most of the juices and sauce.

We cut lengthwise and open the whole lobster using a large knife and carefully take all the meat out of the tail, chop it finely and add it back to the pasta.

When ready we remove from the fire and serve immediately placing the shell on the pasta. Kali Oreksi!

This can be a main course or a starter.

 Stuffed Tomatoes Peppers Courgettes

Ingredients: Big Beef tomatoes

Peppers, red, green, yellow, orange

Courgettes or small marrows

Uncooked white rice

Onion - finely chopped

Salt & Pepper

Olive oil

Dill, parsley, mint - use lots of these herbs

Meat stock (optional)

Tomato juice

Breadcrumbs

Method

Cut the tops off the big tomatoes and use for lids.

Scoop out the centres and blend together to make a juice.

Do the same with the peppers, courgettes etc.,

adding the contents to the tomatoes and blending them together.

Place the vegetable shells in an oven tray.

Finely chop the onion and herbs.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, adding the rice, stock

seasoning and olive oil

Fill the vegetable shells to about 1 cm below the top with this mixture.

Replace the lids, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.

Put the remaining mixture in the bottom of the tray together with

tomato juice, water and olive oil.

Cook for 45 minutes at 220 C

For many more recipes and information on Cretan cuisine please see our food at the Mistral page