Today I prepare a snack that features two distinct Greek products.
The first is “formaela”, a cheese that I like very much. It is made of goat’s milk in central Greece, near Delphi. It is whitish, firm and slightly salty. You can buy it in the village of Arachova, which is a few kilometres away from Delphi.
I combine it with “pastirma”, a spicy cured meat that can knock you out of your normal senses. Like many products that came to Greece from the East, the origin of pastirma is hotly disputed between Armenia and Turkey. I treat pastirma as a ‘naturalized’ citizen in the Greek food society. This means that I do not in any way dispute its origin and past, but I treat it as a food product that I grew up with, have been tasting for many years now and is part of my ordinary Greek life.
To get maximum flavor, I slice the cheese and the cured meat in thin slices.
I add zucchini and mushrooms to tone down the strong flavours of the cheese and the cured meat.
I slice the zucchini in thin slices, chop the mushrooms, and sauté them in separate shallow pans.
I then take hexagonal metal forms and layer the meze,
starting with the zucchini,
followed by formaela and pastirma slices,
then mushrooms, and finally a layer of meat followed by a layer of cheese, that tops the meze.
I bake for 20 minutes in 200 degrees Centigrade, let it rest for 10 minutes, and serve with a cold lager.
Gastrolvios 