♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This week on Milk Street, we're inspired by a trip to Crete with Marianna Leivaditaki, who taught us how to make a dead-simple version of souvlaki at home.

Plus we make two more Marianna favorites: a yogurt olive oil flatbread.

And then an amazing dessert: broken phyllo cake with orange and bay.

So please stay tuned as we explore a taste of Crete.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

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- We are in the village of Drakona in the mountains of Crete.

I'm really excited to be back here.

I'm a chef in another country, having had traveled a lot, but what I like to think or believe is that my building blocks and what I'm made for as a chef, you know, are these blocks that were created here on this island through experience I've had with food and people.

What we're going to do today is we're going to make quite a popular Greek street food dish, which is a souvlaki.

And I think everyone in this country consumes a large amount of souvlaki.

So it's shredded pork in a pita.

- Yup.

- Here in Chania it's with yogurt, and tomato, and onion and chips.

- Mm-hmm.

- Closed up, street food, delicious, amazing.

- You are very particular about your souvlaki.

And I'm confident, from what you've told me, that I could go to any number of souvlaki shops in Crete and not get what you make.

(laughs) - Souvlaki is a street food, it's something that should happen quickly, you know.

- Right.

- Not that should take an hour to be eaten.

- Right.

- When I was really young, my mom would go shopping for the restaurant in town.

And when we finished our shopping, went to the markets, got everything we needed, car was full, she's like, "Shall we go and have a souvlaki?"

And in her head it was that-- "We'll have a souvlaki, you take half an hour, we go home, you know, and continue what we need to do."

Well, I was very particular then, and where I used to ask for a plate, you don't usually get a plate.

- This is something you carry like a sandwich.

- Yes, exactly.

- Okay.

- So I would open my pita flat on the plate, and then I would have all the meat, and onion, and tomato, and chips separate.

- For your recipe for souvlaki, you kind of just jump to the finish line.

- So we've got lovely pork, and, you know, here you will use shoulders and slow cook it, you know, on a spit.

And this will take hours and hours.

This is a version that uses a leaner cut, uses a tenderloin.

And then inspired by my travels and my cooking experience, so it's really marinated in spices that are warm like paprika, and chili, and fenugreek, which I absolutely adore.

And just give it this slight twist that make it unique, different, but still delicious.

- Every cuisine in the world has, it seems, a flatbread.

What's the role of flatbread in Cretan cuisine?

- Flatbreads are used for souvlaki.

I decided to add some semolina... - Okay.

- ...for texture.

And I've decided to add some yogurt because we make so much yogurt here.

And because, in my opinion, it just creates a softer texture bread.

- Right.

- Tzatziki-- it's a very typical Greek dip.

It's made with Greek-style yogurt, and cucumber, and garlic and lots of olive oil and some vinegar.

And it's really easy.

You can have it with meat, you can have it with fish, you can make a big batch and put it in your fridge.

♪ ♪ So, I just grill the tenderloin, and then slice it.

We have all the components ready.

We have really nice hot yogurt flatbreads.

We have our pork filet.

We have our tomato salad.

And we have our tzatziki with the wild cucumber today.

And last touch is a little bit of extra virgin olive oil over the pork.

This is my version of a Greek souvlaki.

It's, it's spicy, it's smoky, it's punchy, it's fresh, it's got a nice salad, it's really healthy.

It's got lovely homemade yogurt flatbreads.

I can't wait to eat it.

So... kalí óreksi!

♪ ♪ - So it turns out you can do souvlaki at home.

We're starting with two pound-and-a-quarter pork tenderloins.

So let's talk a little bit about how we're going to season this.

Now some of these seasonings are indigenous to Crete and some are inspired by other places like Turkey.

So we have oregano and thyme, salt and pepper, of course, smoked paprika, which adds a little bit of grilled flavor to it.

You can use Aleppo pepper, or you can use cayenne pepper.

But the key ingredient here is fenugreek, which is used in Indian cooking, also Turkish cooking.

It has two very distinctive flavors.

One is sweet, some people say it's like maple syrup, I think it smells like butterscotch pudding.

It also has a sort of resinous bitterness to it, more like cumin.

So it's got both of those things going on, it's very distinctive.

So put those together.

Stir them up.

Okay, so we have our spice herb mix.

Now we have the two pork tenderloins, we've cut each of them in half crosswise, so we'll just coat one side then the other.

So now we're gonna let the pork sit for about 15 minutes.

♪ ♪ So while the pork rests for about 15 minutes, we'll start with the cucumbers for the tzatziki salad and then also onions for the tomato salad.

We like using box graters.

So we have obviously a strainer in here in a bowl because we're gonna salt the cucumbers and let them sit and get some of the excess water out.

Okay.

So a half a teaspoon of salt.

These are English cucumbers, which are not as bitter as American cucumbers.

They also have a thinner skin, let them sit, and some of that water is going to come out.

So when you mix it with the yogurt, obviously, you don't want to dilute the yogurt.

Meanwhile we'll start on the onions.

This is half an onion, which has been sliced.

And we'll add a quarter teaspoon of pepper and a quarter teaspoon of salt to this.

And two tablespoons of lemon juice.

This is just a simple thing you can always do at home and it's going to take the edge off the onions so they're not harsh.

They still have a lot of flavor.

And you don't have to let this sit very long, maybe 15 minutes.

So the onions are gonna sit, the cucumbers are gonna sit, and now we'll get on and start cooking the tenderloin.

♪ ♪ So we're gonna use a couple of tablespoons of oil loosely measured.

And want to get that up to a sort of a medium-high level to sauté the pork.

Now, we're not gonna fully cook the pork in the skillet on the stovetop.

We're gonna do sort of a light browning, three or four minutes, and then shove it in a pretty hot oven, 450 oven, to finish cooking.

What you don't want to do is burn the spices and the herbs on the outside And that's why we're not gonna take this to a really deep sear.

(sizzling) It's been just a minute and a half, two minutes.

That's a nice sear but it's not overly seared.

So it's been just about four minutes total.

Looks good.

So now this is gonna go on a 450 oven.

So we're not going to burn the outside, but we'll get the inside up to temperature.

You only need pork cooked to about 140.

You don't want to go to 150 or 60.

And then we're gonna let it rest before we slice into it.

So these obviously came out of the oven about ten minutes in a 450 oven.

One personal note when you take a skillet out of an oven, you want to leave it on the counter or on a stovetop with a kitchen towel or oven mitt on it, just so somebody else comes by and doesn't grab it.

So we'll take these out and let them sit.

You want to let them sit at least ten minutes or so.

If you cut right into it now, a lot of the juices will just come flowing out onto the board.

So we'll let that sit.

And now we'll finish up the two salads.

So we had the cucumber grated.

I'm just gonna now squeeze out that water, of which there is a lot.

So now all of that cucumber is getting reduced to a small ball.

So there we are.

Put that aside.

Now we have three other ingredients.

We're gonna add-- olive oil, of course, grated garlic cloves, a little red wine vinegar.

And we'll mix this up.

So the tzatziki is done.

We'll just set that aside and now we're going to deal with the tomato onion salad.

Again, the onions have been sitting in a little bit of lemon juice, which means that harsh bite's gone.

We have olive oil, of course, some oregano.

And I'm just gonna mix that up.

And then the tomatoes which were cored and sliced.

I'm just gonna use my hand, actually.

There we go.

So the two salads are done and we'll just let the pork rest another few minutes until the juices really come back into the protein so when we slice it, the juices stay in the meat.

♪ ♪ So the pork is rested, which means it's ready to be sliced.

So we'll do about a quarter-inch-thick slices.

So you can see, I'll just pick this up.

So you can see the pork is still really juicy inside.

That's because we took it out when it was about 135.

It'll go up to 140, 142 a little as it's resting.

That way it's nice and juicy and it's also safe, of course.

We have our yogurt olive oil flatbreads, put a little bit of pork on that.

We'll have the tomato onion salad.

And the tzatziki cucumber yogurt.

And there we have souvlaki made at home without a spit.

So, thanks to Marianna Leivaditaki, we can now make souvlaki at home.

It's absolutely delicious and it's absolutely simple.

♪ ♪ - Today I'm going to be showing you yogurt and olive oil flatbreads.

They're soft, they're plush, they're full of flavor and tang and I couldn't be more excited.

Let's get started.

To begin this recipe, I'm going to combine Greek yogurt, olive oil, and some warm water.

I'm gonna whisk it until it's consistent.

Okay, that's incorporated well enough.

And I'm going to move to my dry ingredients now.

I'm going to use regular flour as well as some semolina flour that's going to give it some gentle bite and texture.

I'm also using instant yeast.

This is also known as rapid rise yeast.

So make sure you get the right kind.

And, last, some salt.

Whisk my dry ingredients together.

So my dry ingredients are now incorporated and I'm going to make a well in the center to add the liquid.

So I'm going to pour all the wet ingredients straight into this well.

And, using a spatula, I'm going to mix this until it forms a shaggy dough.

So, now that this dough is to the right consistency, I'm going to knead it.

I'm gonna flour the surface lightly.

And I'm gonna knead this dough for about two minutes.

I'm gonna pull this into a nice smooth ball and I'm going to oil the bowl and put the dough in there, cover it with a kitchen towel, and let it rest for 30 to 60 minutes.

♪ ♪ So my dough is done rising.

It's beautiful.

So I'm gonna flour the counter, and then turn the dough out, and begin making balls to roll.

So I'm just going to form a log and I'm going to cut it into eight pieces using a bench scraper.

We'll form them into smooth balls, and let them rest aside, covered with a kitchen towel while we start rolling our flatbreads.

So what I've also done is cut several squares of parchment paper and they're going to serve to keep these flatbreads apart once they're rolled.

We're rolling into eight-inch rounds.

This reminds me of home.

I grew up learning to roll flatbreads as a child in the kitchen And to make sure your flatbreads cook well, you want to make sure they're very evenly rolled.

And the thing to pay attention to is the edges.

The edges need to be as even as the rest of the flatbread.

So this is rolled into a pretty decent round.

I'm going to flour my parchment here and gently transfer this... onto the parchment.

And I'm gonna cover it with another piece of parchment.

So this is how I'm going to keep all of the flatbreads rolled and ready.

So I've done my first flatbread.

I have seven more to roll out and stack and then we'll be ready to cook them.

♪ ♪ So all my flatbreads have been rolled out and now I'm going to start cooking them off.

To do that, I like to use a cast-iron skillet.

If you have a nonstick skillet, you can use that as well.

And, while that's heating, I'm going to prepare the spice mix.

This is an incredibly flavorful and potent mix.

It has za'atar, sumac, and dried oregano.

And if you can't find these spices at your local spice store, you can also look online for them.

A little salt.

Some oil.

I'm just gonna whisk that together.

So the spice oil is ready and now it's time to make sure that my pan is hot enough.

And I'm going to use some water to test.

(sizzling) Just a few drops should evaporate almost immediately.

Now you'll probably start to see in the first few seconds some bubbles starting to appear and that is perfectly normal and an excellent sign.

So we want to give these about one to two minutes on each side.

That looks great.

You want a little bit of spotting.

So it's been a couple of minutes on each side.

The browning is looking perfect.

So I'm going to pull this out.

And, to finish, I'm going to brush it with this delicious spice oil.

There's an earthiness from the sesame, and the tang of the sumac, and the lovely herbal flavors of the oregano are gonna be so great.

Okay, so I'm going to cook the rest of them, and then we'll be ready to eat.

♪ ♪ I don't know about you, but my heart is aglow right now with joy just looking at this plate of simple flatbreads.

This is our yogurt and olive oil flatbread with za'atar oil and I cannot wait to bite into this.

- We've driven up the mountain of Psiloritis in Crete to come to the shepherd's shelter, which is known as To Spiti tou Voskou.

It's an incredible place in an amazing location.

And it really celebrates gastronomy in Crete and reflects what really happens in the mountains in terms of what's eaten and how people live.

So I feel extremely grateful for being here and I'm actually allowed to use their wood-fired oven to make my favorite orange and broken phyllo cake.

It's the easiest cake in the world.

It's the tastiest cake in the world.

And I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

So instead of flour, we use phyllo that's been dried up in the oven.

And basically what you get is a very light product that you fold into your eggs and sugar and custard base.

After your cake is baked, it comes out the oven, and this amazing syrup that has been spiced with cardamom, and cinnamon, and orange peel is poured all over it.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna start by making the syrup.

So what we need is water.

And we are going to use some orange peel and orange juice.

So we're going to take some peel off the orange.

And, you know, if you like it really orangey, you can add more or less.

And then we're going to cut these in a very traditional way, not having a juicer in the mountains, I am going to extract the juice.

Some bay leaf.

And some cardamom.

And I just popped the whole cardamom pods in because you're creating a tea, an aromatic tea.

So the cardamom will give its flavor.

And a cinnamon stick.

We're just going to add the sugar and get it on the heat.

Perfect.

Now we're going to continue with the cake.

So what we're going to do is we're going to get our sugar and place it in a bowl.

And then get our orange zest and mix the two together.

Just so the two ingredients mingle.

So this smells really, really lovely.

Okay.

So really nice zest, really aromatic.

So I want to get that flavor everywhere.

So we're gonna add the eggs now.

So I always like to use really good quality eggs.

It's nice when you have the ability to do that for cake.

So, you know, just source the best you can.

Great.

So mix the eggs before I add anything else.

So we're following with the yogurt.

Really nice, thick yogurt.

It's just a lovely addition to cakes.

It creates a really nice texture.

We are going to follow with the oil... And the baking powder...

Pinch of salt.

Always good to add a pinch of salt.

Great.

So we'll give this a mix.

And try and get it nice and homogenous, and smooth before we fold in the phyllo.

So that's the last, last thing we're doing.

I think our syrup is ready.

So I'm just going to turn the heat off and uncover it and let it cool.

So this looks lovely.

The last thing we're going to do here is add our dry phyllo.

So I just want to say a couple of things about the phyllo.

Firstly, it's baklava phyllo.

So you buy it in rolls and it is this extremely paper-thin pastry that is just very hard to make, really.

We buy this, and what I do, I just cut the roll into thin strips.

And then I separate it.

So I'll just show you this amount.

I separate this so I make sure nothing is stuck together.

Just give some air to this.

And I pop it on a baking tray and just dry it out without color in a low oven.

That's it.

As soon as it's dry, it will look like this.

I had to do mine earlier.

So it's really light, it's really crispy, and it just adds the best texture to the cake.

You have to do it in batches.

So we're going to add half the phyllo initially and then we'll fold in the other half.

We want to get our wet ingredients mixed really, really well with the phyllo.

So, great, everything looks well-mixed.

The cake is ready to go in the oven.

I've oiled my cake tin, as soon as we get it in, it needs about 45 minutes at 350 degrees, and then it's ready to come out, syrup to go on top, and we can eat it quite quickly.

So let's do that.

♪ ♪ Our cake is ready.

It's come out the wood oven and it's looking amazing.

It's lovely and golden over the top.

And I'm just going to give it a few pokes with my knife just to help the syrup go in and penetrate the sponge.

The syrup will not enter the cake immediately.

So don't worry too much about it.

You can do it in batches.

And if you see flooding going on, don't worry about it at all.

It takes a bit of time to absorb the liquid and the sweet syrup.

So just wait until everything is taken in.

So that's it... And we're just going to let it sit for a while and see what happens.

I don't think it's going to take long and then we can enjoy a piece.

♪ ♪ So the cake has had its resting time.

It should be in perfect condition.

So let's have a look and see what we've managed today.

So there we go.

Looking good.

So let's cut this cake and see... what it looks like.

This is my broken phyllo cake recipe with orange and bay from the south of Crete.

I really hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

So kalí óreksi!

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- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad-- for all your kitchen adventures.

♪ ♪ (man speaking Hebrew) - Je présente Chris.

- Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris.

- We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

♪ ♪ - Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

♪ ♪ - So this is the Eduardo García blender.

- This is the no electricity.

♪ ♪ - Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

♪ ♪ I notice when you cook sometimes, you add a little bit of something, and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

♪ ♪ - Can start building bridges, and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

♪ ♪ - This is a generational thing.

It's, it's something that you inherit.

♪ ♪ - Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for?

What did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Saluté.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪