top image food
mageiritsa.jpg

The first meal after the resurrection is usually ‘Mageiritsa’. It's not an everyday food. It is an eclectic and special food and is prepared with care only for the special occasion of the Easter dinner. It is one of the few traditional foods in the cycle of the year that carries that spring aroma.

Traditional soup with vegetables, dill, lamb or goat offal and rice served as a light meal at the first dinner after Lent. The Lambrian Dinner is the Dinner of Love, in a warm home-made, festive atmosphere, with the whole family at a table with other Easter classics such as sweet cheese pies, red eggs, the Easter bunny, and with the lanterns with the holy light of the Resurrection giving hope and optimism.
 "Christ Resurrected", "Truly Resurrected", "Many happy years" are the wishes shared from the night of the Resurrection, after the Priest comes out of the Good Gate with the light from the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. In a pandemonium, people flock to their local churches before midnight to collect the holy light, fireworks are set off and Judas is burnt over a great bonfire. It’s a unique sight that you have the pleasure of experiencing only once a year in our villages.
Every year is better and better. Every year the faithful from many parts of Crete and Greece, gather in the village to celebrate Easter with friends and relatives. Each place has its own special way to celebrate in order to give us days of joy and optimism, to taste nature and its fruits, its aromas and flavors. This is Cretan cuisine of Cretan food tradition at its best.


 Christ is Risen and many happy years!

Ingredients:
1 whole lamb (with lungs, heart, etc.)
500g intestines of lambs
1 lamb head
2 large dried onions
100ml olive oil
50ml white wine
1 bunch of onions
1 bunch of dill
100g Carolina Rice
Salt & pepper

Egg lemon sauce:
2 eggs
Juice of two lemons

Method:
Initially we have to wash the intestines very well, cut them and squeeze the whole intestine not to leave any residues inside. Pass a straw through each intestine and allow running water to flush them out and clean them from within. Wash everything very well together and strain. Leave the intestines for 20 minutes in a bowl of vinegar and lemon, together with the lemon skins. Tie the intestines and soak them for 3 minutes. Remove from the water and finely chop.
Separate the liver and the head. Cut the liver into small pieces and remove the cheeks, brains and whatever else you can from the head (you could get your butcher to do this). Salt and pour some warm water. Bake for about 40 minutes and add the rice. When ready, remove the pan from the heat and make the egg lemon sauce.
Separate the egg whites from the yolks. In a bowl beat the egg whites well. Pour in the yolks and continue to beat, slowly adding the lemon juice. Continue to beat and gradually add the juices from the food so that the eggs don’t scramble and so the egg mix gets the same temperature as the food and then add the egg mix very slowly to the food and mix well to combine.
Season with pepper.

Good luck!!!

12

 

3

 

4

5

 

69

10

11

12

 

13

14

15