Greek Fried Feta Cheese & Honey Sauce

Greek feta cheese is often made from sheep's milk, but sometimes it is made in combination with some goat's milk. It is stored in brine, but there are also prepackaged containers of about 7ounces to about 10 ounces, also with the brine included. Greek honey, if you have access to it, "often" has a bit of a thyme flavor to it. If you like buying things online, you'll definitely find Greek honey there, at varying prices, from modest to expensive. 

It seems the basic idea for this dish originated on the Greek island of Crete, the largest of the Greek islands and one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean. The fried cheese will have a slightly crispy, crunchy crust.

 

Ingredients (about 4 servings as appetizers):

 

7 to 9 ounces Greek feta 

3 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup honey

pinch of dried oregano leaves

1/2 teaspoon orange juice

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

 

On a plate or in a shallow bowl, mix the pepper into the flour. Leave the cheese slightly damp and put it into the flour to coat the cheese; shake off any loose excess. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a skillet, then fry the cheese for about 2 minutes per side until lightly browned (you don't want it too dark or burned) and a slightly crisp "shell" develops. Add the honey to a microwave safe cup or bowl, add the pinch of dried oregano leaves, 1/2 teaspoon orange juice and 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice; microwave for 20 seconds. Serve the just fried feta with the warm honey sauce drizzled over it. 

 

 

The whole slice of fried feta ...

 

WORD HISTORY:

Acrobat-This word is related to several words, with the first part related to "acme," a word borrowed by English from Greek, to "acne," a word borrowed from Latin, which had it from Greek. The second part is distantly related to "come," a word from the Germanic roots of English. The first part of "acrobat" goes back to Indo European "ak," which had the notion, "be pointed, be sharp." This gave transliterated Ancient Greek "akros," meaning "at the top point" (noun: "akron," "the highest point, the peak"). The second part goes back to Indo European "gwa" and its extended form "gwem," which meant "to walk, to go." The Indo European "gw" was rendered in Greek as 'b,' thus giving Greek the verb "bainein," also meaning "to walk, to tread, to step, to go." These parts gave Greek "akrobátis" (also transliterated as "akrovátis"?), which meant "rope walker, one who walks on tiptoes;" thus also, "tightrope walker." "Apparently" borrowed directly from Greek by French as "acrobate." English borrowed the word from French in the first half of the 1800s (circa 1830?). 

Greek Farmer's Salad: Horiatiki

This is a common salad with some regional variations in Greece, among which are: some add capers and some use red wine vinegar to dress the salad instead of lemon; often too, the olives are not always pitted and in some areas they peel the cucumber. I've had Greek salads in the U.S. and in Germany, and they had red or yellow bell peppers  and the cheese was crumbled over the salad.

Ingredients (about 6 good servings):

4 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 cucumber, I partially peeled the cucumber, making it sort of "striped," chopped
1 medium red onion, sliced into rings, then quarter the rings
1 medium green bell pepper, cut into about 1 inch strips
15 to 20 Kalamata olives, I used pitted olives
about 2 to 3 inch long by 2 inch wide by 1/2 inch thick slices of Feta cheese, per serving
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves (pretty easily found in markets or supermarkets)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano per serving
1 to 2 tablespoons drained capers
salt to taste, but remember the cheese, olives and capers have salt, so you may not need ANY salt
6 to 8 lemon wedges

Into a large bowl put the chopped tomato, the chopped cucumber, the red onion, the green pepper strips and the olives. Add the olive oil, the lemon juice the fresh oregano leaves, the capers and the salt (if using), mix together well. Place a small "block" of cheese on top of each serving and nestle a couple of lemon wedges into the side of each serving too. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano over each serving. 

WORD HISTORY:
Brine-This word for salty water used for pickling; and thus, preserving some foods, has an unknown ancient history, although there have been attempts to connect it with forms in Indo European, but I'm not terribly convinced by these connections. Further, while "brine" has forms in Dutch (brijn) and Flemish (brijne),^ there seem to be no other connections in the Germanic languages. It is an old word, as Old English (Anglo-Saxon) had "bryne," but whether the word was taken along with the Anglo-Saxons from the Continent to Briton, or whether it was acquired after they established themselves in what became England is unclear. With the Germanic dialects that became Dutch/Flemish right across from Anglo-Saxon England, did one provide the word to the other? If so, there is still the question of where it came from originally. The spelling "brine" has been in English for hundreds of years. Of course too, the idea of sea water being salty gave the word the slang meaning for water from the sea.

^ Modern linguists classify Flemish as a dialect of Dutch, but in the past, Flemish was usually seen as a separate language, likely because Belgium and the Netherlands became separate countries, and before that, there was a "general" religious divide during the Reformation times, where Dutch was associated more with Protestantism and Flemish was associated with Catholicism. English, Dutch and Flemish are all close cousins.