Ingredients

• 1 kilo lamb or kid
• 1 kilo stamnagathi greens
• 1/2 glass olive oil
• salt, pepper

Optionally, for the egg-lemon:

• 2 eggs
• 2 lemons

Preparation

The stamnagathi greens, which are particularly widespread in Crete, are among the most beneficial greens for our health. We clean them and wash them thoroughly, and then boil them for 10 minutes in hot water and strain them. We keep 1 glass of the stamnagathi broth for the cooking.

Execution

We wash the meat and cut it into medium-sized pieces. After adding salt and pepper, we cook it on both sides with only the olive oil for 10 minutes. Then we add 2 glasses of water and cook the meat for 1 hour. After that, we add the stamnagathi greens and the 1 glass of water from the stamnagathi broth we kept earlier, and cook the food for another 15 minutes, and we are ready!

We can optionally make the recipe with egg-lemon. In this case, we prepare the egg-lemon while our food is cooked as follows:
We first stir the white parts of the eggs, and then add the egg yolks. We stir them thoroughly all together, and pour in the lemon juice. Then, as soon as our food is cooked and is hot right out of the oven, we pour the egg-lemon slowly in it, using a ladle full of broth from our food in order to keep the egg-lemon well mixed up, stirring carefully at the same time.

Ingredients

• 1/2 kilo flour
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 glass of water
• 1/2 kilo soft “mizithra” cheese
• Cretan raki, salt, honey

Preparation

We put the flour in a bowl and pour in the olive oil, water, some salt and some Cretan raki. We knead until it becomes a moderately hardy dough. We divide the dough into apricot-sized “balls”. We shape each ball of dough into a round shape, we open it very slightly in the middle, fill it with 1 tablespoon of soft mizithra cheese, and rewrap it. Then, we gently mold the dough and the mizithra together, from the center to the periphery, giving it the shape of a medium-sized dish. Proper and careful molding is very important, as the pie must be very thin.

Execution

We fry the pies one at a time in a hot, non-stick pan, using very little (or none at all) olive oil, turning them over constantly so they will not burn, until they are cooked. Once ready, we serve the pies warm, after adding some honey on top of each of them.

Ingredients

• 1/2 kilo large snails
• 1 glass olive oil
• salt, pepper, vinegar, rosemary

Preparation

We put the snails in a basin with water and leave them in until their heads come out (this takes about 30 to 40 minutes), and at the end we separate the ones that have stuck to each other. Then we put water to a pot up to the waist, and heat it. Once the water starts boiling, we pour the snails inside and let them boil for ten minutes. After that, we throw away the water and clean the snails thoroughly. We throw away all the snails who have not stuck their heads out, wash them very well with cold water, and boil them again for another 30 minutes, dropping a little salt and vinegar inside, after the water starts to boil.

Execution

We strain and salt the snails. We put the olive oil in a frying pan to warm, and pour the snails in with their nozzle facing down for 2-3 minutes. We put some salt, pepper, rosemary and vinegar (their proportions vary depending on how “spicy” we want to make our dish) and let them cook for a while on a mild fire, stirring them occasionally, and we are ready! The snails are served in a deep platter.