FIVE ESSENTIAL CRETAN INGREDIENTS

Mizithra

Fresh goat’s curd cheese. There’s a drier, cured version, but I’m talking about soft, creamy, slightly grainy, lightly acidic mizithra. It’s used in salads and to top barley rusk dakos (a bit like bruschetta) and makes amazing pies.

Cretan thyme honey

I use this a lot at Morito. Inhale and it feels like I’m in the mountains at home. Its flavour is herbaceous.

Malotira

Wild mountain herbal tea made from fluffy sideritis plants. It’s used as a therapeutic drink, but, in winter, everyone drinks it. It’s delicious, particularly sweetened with thyme honey. I also season pork or lamb with it.

Tsakistes olives

Meaning ‘bashed’. People pick bitter, unripe olives, then gently break the flesh with stones and cure them in salted lemony water. They’re used in cooking and make the best wild fennel and cuttlefish stew.

Grapes

Vine leaves are picked to make dolma and the grapes for a sweet, aromatic jelly, as well as a Cretan wine called marouvas. It has a very specific flavour with hints of dry Spanish sherry.