Who says that we can only be in one place at a time? Feeling the need to find a comfort zone in a foreign country, student Ilaria Corti, from Italy, talks about origins and traditions with other international students. All of this over a nice meal from their home country. This time, she tastes Greek food with her two flatmate Marilena.

I’ve never been to Greece but I’ve always guessed that the atmosphere you can breath in the country is really similar to the spirit of sirtaki music. During my orientation week here at RU, I was impressed by the synchrony of greek students dancing syrtaki together. It was something that everybody could do, a beautiful expression of their cultural heritage.

My flatmate Marilena comes from a small island close to Athens, Aegina. Her family visited a week ago and of course they brought some food she was missing a lot. The first day we met after her family left, she kindly offered me different types of amazing homemade greek food: I must say that I would miss it too.

The mediterranean taste hit me immediately, fresh cheese wraps, goat milk pasta, tomatoes, olive oil, oregano and also a cake with honey and a cinnamon touch, that was an unexpectedly similar to the dutch taste. Apart from the cake, with this kind of arabic sweetness, Greek cuisine has a fresh and soar character. Yogurt and feta are really common, especially made from sheep and goat milk, and can be used in almost anything.

For our dinner, we made the well-known tzatziki sauce, greek salad and, reminding the islander roots of Marilena, pasta with peppers, feta and shrimps.

Everything was so delicious, thanks to Marilena for this amazing greek taste!

Kali Orexi! Buon appetito!

[kader-xl]

Tzatziki sauce:

Ingredients
500 g Greek yogurt
1/2 cucumber
Garlic
Oregano
Extra virgin olive oil

Take a big bowl and pour the yogurt inside. Wash and grate thinly half of a cucumber with the peel and dry it with some kitchen paper. Mince 1 garlic clove and mix it with the cucumber and into the yogurt. Add 2 tablespoons of oil, some oregano and some salt and stir till you obtain a homogeneous cream. Tzatziki is usually eaten spread on pita, but you can substitute that with a similar type of bread.

Greek salad:

2 Tomatoes
1 Cucumber
Feta
Onions
Extra virgin olive oil

Chop two tomatoes and one cucumber in slices, mix and put them on a big plate. In our recipe we did not use raw sliced onions because we are not big fans, but the original recipe requires them. Add cubes of feta on top, some olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano.

Pasta with peppers, feta and shrimps (4 people)

400 grams tagliatelle-like pasta
1 red and 1 yellow pepper
1 onion and 2 cloves of garlic
250 grams of shrimps (frozen or fresh)
Plain tomato sauce
Feta
White firm wine

To prepare the sauce, put some oil in a pot and fry the chopped onion slightly, with the two minced cloves and peppers cut in little pieces.

For the pasta, start to put some water in a pan to boil it.
When the peppers are almost soft add some tomato sauce in order to cover the peppers. The sauce should not be thick, but smooth and quite watery, so if needed add some water. Throw in the pasta for about 10 minutes. When the peppers are well cooked add the shrimps, half a glass of white wine and wait until they are also ready and the alcohol is evaporated. Spread some oregano and salt. When cooked, put the pasta in the sauce and mix with some cubes of feta.[/kader-xl]