Shrimp "saganaki" - Garides saganaki

More than a month of no blogging! That turns into a bad habit! This time I have a really good excuse though, I was on vacation. I went to my beloved Thessaloniki for 3 weeks, which sounds almost too good to be true. And as always it meant enormous amounts of food being consumed, completely disregarding any humanly possible limits! Well, since we moved to Holland whenever we find good food, we take good care of it :) Surprisingly this time no extra weight gained which probably proves once again that Greek food is awesome for another reason apart from great taste! Love it!

Anyway, I returned a week before my man and was too lazy to cook just for myself, which resulted in eating out every day. On the other hand, on Sunday, when Stratis came back I though it would be nice to cook for a change, if nothing else to make the transition from Greece to Holland easier for him. So I woke up in the morning planning to cook something really really Greek and really really summerish. That's when I came up with the idea of Shrimp "saganaki".

Saganaki is actually a type of small pan with two little handles. However, nowadays the word refers mainly to the type of food cooked in it. For example Feta saganaki is Feta cheese melted in a pan. Shrimp saganaki on the other hand is a delicious dish made with shrimps, feta and either tomato or white wine sauce. Both are truly amazing, but this time I went for the tomato one and it was properly appreciated. For the recipe I used small shrimps but you could use the same proportion of large shrimp as well. In this case you should not peel them in advance.

INGREDIENTS:

300 gr small shrimps, peeled

100 gr Greek feta cheese, in bite-size pieces

50 gr Ladotyri cheese, grated (you could use Parmesano-type cheese instead)

4 large ripe tomatoes, grated

1 onion, sliced

1 green bell pepper, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tbsp dried oregano

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. In a pan heat the oil and saute the onions, green peppers and garlic until they are soft.

2. Add the grated tomatoes and parsley, season with salt, pepper and oregano andcook until the sauce thickens.

3. Put the shrimps and feta pieces into an ovenproof saganaki pan or a little ceramic pot.

4. Pour the tomato sauce over the shrimp and feta mix and sprinkle with Ladotyri.

5. Place the pan in the oven and bake at 200°C until the Ladotyri makes a crust on top. Serve immediately and enjoy along with some freshly baked bread and ouzo!