Greek Recipe: Hortorizo

[minoanmiss]

Hey cooks, you know how sometimes you get stuck on a recipe and work to perfect it? That's what I've been doing with this recipe recently. I don't have it quite perfect yet -- burned the bottom this time, but the rest was fine. Here's Diane Kochilas' recipe, and my comments in first comment.

Hortorizo

2/3 cup extra virgin Greek olive oil
1 large onion finely chopped
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
1 1/3 cups Greek rice preferably the ~SCarolina~T variety
1 1/2 pounds mixed sweet such as spinach, Swiss chard, chervil, and sweet
sorrel, trimmed, chopped, washed, and drained thoroughly
3 cups water or 1 cup each of water, dry white wine, and vegetable stock
1 bunch dill stems trimmed, leaves chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper. to taste
Juice of 1/2 a fresh lemon or more, to taste
Instructions
Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a wide, deep pot over medium heat. Cook the onion until soft and very lightly browned, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and stir to soften for about a minute.
Add the rice and stir to coat in the oil. [Let it toast for a couple of minutes till some of it turns opaque]
Add the greens mixture to the pot in increments if necessary, stirring to combine with the rice-onion mixture. When all the greens have been added and are wilted, pour in 3 cups water or a combination of water, white wine and vegetable stock. Cover the pot, reduce heat to low, and let the hortorizo simmer for about 40 minutes, until everything is soft. Stir in the dill. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Serve alone, with a generous drizzle of remaining or additional olive oil and a little extra lemon juice, or serve with one of the following accompaniments

-Shaved feta, pink peppercorns and lemon wedges
- Dusting of hot paprika & Greek yogurt
- Sunnyside up egg
Share it if you like it!

Comments

My modifications

[minoanmiss]

1) I'm not sure what 2/3 cup of olive oil is for. The 1/4 cup at the start plus 2 tbsp drizzled at the end is quite sufficient.

2) I've been using 6 scallions instead of the onion, and putting them in thinly sliced with the rice during the toasting step. And I left out the dill because I don't love dill.

3) I've been using salad mixes for my greens. Due to their tenderness the cooking time is reduced to about 30 minutes. I may do this with a bunch of mature greens next time.

4) It doesn't need precisely all the water because the greens exude water.

5) any medium grain rice works well. Long grain kind of bloated and collapsed, though.

6) Don't skimp on the greens or it looks really sad, a pile of rice with occasional green ribbons.

7) Definitely add the greens in batches, stir the rice into them, and allow them to wilt before the next addition

8) When I get this finally right I'm going to eat it. all the time. It's really delicious (if you like greens and rice, that is)

Re: My modifications

[corvidology]

The oil is because it's, well, olive oil. :D Essentially, it's there to spread the 'food value' in that the fat makes these basic foods more filling in the way of peasant food everywhere and it helps to break down those greens which if your using salad greens doesn't matter of course. I actually can't imagine what it would taste like without the extra olive oil rich mouth feel.

Also, I've never seen it made with less than the juice of an entire large lemon. Lemony greens, a signature thing. I love Greek potatoes because of all that lemon but I digress...

The thing I love about your modifications is food is ultimately about sustaining you and the ones you love so it should always be altered to personal taste. ♥

Re: My modifications

[minoanmiss]

No, no, I know what the olive oil is there for (this dish is explicitly All ABout The Olive Oil Baby), but I don't know what 2/3 cup of it is there for when one uses 1/4 cup to saute stuff and maybe 2 tbsp to drizzle over at the end.

Re: My modifications

[corvidology]

Oh, sorry for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. *headdesk*

I hadn't actually looked closely enough at the recipe to see that it didn't tell you what to do with the rest of the oil and read it as you'd decided to cut it back which you didn't actually say.

The extra olive oil usually goes in with the water, so as the water simmers away the velvety texture thingy (technical term *g*) happens. That's why I mentioned Greek Potatoes too which uses that same technique... but then I'm sure there are a thousand different regional versions of this recipe. I know it as 'Spanakorizo.'

Re: My modifications

[cmcmck]

Maybe the spare is there to drink? :o)

Well, you know me and olive oil- blame the Italian ancestry!

It does sound good though.

Re: My modifications

[minoanmiss]

ahahahahahah!

Re: My modifications

[or_midnight]

Ohhh, this sounds delicious. I love short grain rice and learning new things to do with greens! I will 100% cook this when I get my garden rolling in the spring.

[cjsmith]

ooo, I know who's gonna want to try this. Thank you for sharing it. (putting it on list)

[minoanmiss]

You're totally welcome!

[baranduin]

Sounds fantastic. I'd keep the dill though.

[lemonsharks]

I'd add more dill; I love dill

And maybe some lima beans a la persian dill rice

[lunabee34]

OMG that sounds so so so good.

[amaebi]

I think that Chun Woo and I will love this, and that its presence will make Sheeyun Sad, because he's being low-carb and loves rice, but choices, baby.

Really *any* medium-grain rice? Including the higher-gutem (not utterly glutinous) East Asian sorts?

[minoanmiss]

I dunno -- I've used the three non-paella medium grain rices I have in the house so far. One is East Asian but I don;'t know if it's particularly glutinous. The other two are domestic.

[amaebi]

I'll give it a try with the Kokuho Rose we have on hand at Light House.

[clevermanka]

This sounds like a good way to incorporate more of a variety of leafy greens. Thank you!

What is ~SCarolina~T rice? I know of Carolina Gold but that's long grain.

[minoanmiss]

I don't know at all what that brand of Greek rice is. I've tried a couple of different medium grain rices in this and they all worked, so shrug

[lemonsharks]

Carolina is the cultivar

3 Alfa (https://www.3alfa.gr/en/) is one Greek brand; of you find a package of rice branded in Greek, the word you're looking for is "καρολίνα"

Fancier brands offering a smaller quantity of rice for a higher rice price per rice can found on America's favorite least ethical internet big box store and their grocery subsidiary, whole foods.

Your local middle eastern/levantine/persian grocery store will probably also have a selection of Greek stuff and the ability to recommend a their favorite nonGreek barbarian Carolina cultivar brand.

Alternately, calrose should be fine but I find it dusty and tend to rinse the heck out of it.

[clevermanka]

LOL Thank you, you are speaking my language, here! I spent ten minutes of my last Costco trip complaining with a woman about their tragic rice selection these days. I wound up going to the Asian market for a bag at twice the price but at least I figured it was less likely to suck.

[minoanmiss]

Oh goodness thank you!

I should go to a Greek shop I kno, amuse them by saying I'm getting into Greek food, and get some ingredients.

for you, from my archives

[med_cat]

Poems of Sentiment: II. Life
Dining
E. Robert Bulwer, Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith) (1831–1891)
From “Lucile”

O HOUR of all hours, the most blest upon earth,
Blest hour of our dinners!

The land of his birth;
The face of his first love; the bills that he owes;
The twaddle of friends, and venom of foes;
The sermon he heard when to church he last went; 5
The money he borrowed, the money he spent;
All of these things a man, I believe, may forget,

And not be the worse for forgetting; but yet
Never, never, oh, never! earth’s luckiest sinner
Hath unpunished forgotten the hour of his dinner! 10
Indigestion, that conscience of every bad stomach,
Shall relentlessly gnaw and pursue him with some ache
Or some pain; and trouble, remorseless, his best ease,
As the Furies once troubled the sleep of Orestes.

We may live without poetry, music, and art; 15
We may live without conscience, and live without earth;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized men cannot live without cooks.

He may live without books,—what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope,—what is hope but deceiving? 20
He may live without love,—what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?

Re: for you, from my archives

[minoanmiss]

cheers