Cypriot cuisine
The best-known spices and herbs include pepper, parsley, rocket (arugula), celery, fresh coriander (cilantro), thyme, and oregano.
For example, the Cypriot version of pastitsio (locally known as macaronia tou fournou or makarna fırında) contains very little tomato and generous amounts of mint.
[citation needed] The same is true of keftedes or köfte (meatballs), which are sometimes laced with mint to provide a contrast with the meat.
Gyros (also known as döner) have grilled meat slices instead of chunks, and the taste differs from that of souvlaki due to the salad and dressings added.
It is often steamed with tomato and onion; a few strands of vermicelli pasta are often added to provide a texture, fragrance, colour and flavour contrast.
Small amounts reheated in water or broth provide a nourishing and tasty meal, especially with added cubes of aged halloumi.
Pulses are eaten instead, sometimes cooked in tomato sauce, but more usually simply prepared and dressed with olive oil and lemon.
Popular seafood dishes include calamari, octopus, cuttlefish, red mullet, sea bass, and gilt-head bream.
Octopus, due to its peculiar taste and texture, is made into a stiffado, a stew with red wine, carrots, tomatoes, and onions.
It is sometimes prepared with spinach, but without adding garden peas, which are a popular accompaniment for cuttlefish in Turkey (specially in west and south coast), some parts of Greece, and Italy.
Calamari, octopus, and cuttlefish commonly feature in meze, a spread of small dishes served as an extensive set of entrées.
The most traditional fish is salt cod, which up until very recently was baked in the outdoor beehive ovens with potatoes and tomatoes in season.
Cauliflower is also made into moungra, a sour pickle covered with a marinade of vinegar, yeast, and mustard seeds.
Makarónia tou foúrnou (Greek: μακαρόνια του φούρνου, Turkish: magarina fırında, English: oven macaroni) recipes vary, but usually the meat sauce in the middle is made of pork, beef or lamb, tomatoes are only sometimes used, and it is flavoured with mint, parsley or cinnamon.
Stronger than lountza and made from the leg, is chiromeri, which is similar to any smoked, air-dried ham from Southern Europe, although the wine flavour makes it characteristically Cypriot.
In non-mountain areas, the same meat used for chiromeri is cut into strips along the muscle compartments and dried in the sun as basta.
The shoulder of a freshly slaughtered animal is cut into chunks about the size of an almond along with a smaller quantity of chopped back fat, which are marinated in wine and brined, stuffed into intestines, and smoked as sausages (loukaniko).
Loukaniko and also chunks of fried salted pork meat and fat can be stored in earthenware jars submerged in the lard for a long time, even in the heat of the island.
Mezedes is a large selection of dishes with small helpings of varied foods, brought to the table as a progression of tastes and textures.
The meal begins with black and green olives, tahini, skordalia (potato and garlic dip), humus, taramosalata (fish roe dip), and tzatziki / çaçık (ttalattouri in Cypriot), all served with chunks of fresh bread and a bowl of mixed salad.
Bunches of greens, some raw, some dressed with lemon juice and salt, are a basic feature of the meze table.
[1] Loukoumades (fried doughballs in syrup), loukoum, ravani (sweet semolina citrus cake), tulumba and baklava are well-known local desserts.
[2] Cypriots also make many traditional spoon sweets that are usually made of turunch/bergamot, figs, tiny aubergines, fresh fleshy walnuts, watermelon or pumpkins processed akin to jam but without the over-cooking.
[3] Also popular is mahalepi,[4] a kind of blancmange made from corn flour usually flavoured with rose water or mahlep.
A similar looking sweet is soujouk or shoushouko, although it is made very differently from loukoumia, being produced from boiled grape juice.
Halloumi is a semi-hard white-brined cheese with elastic texture, made in a rectangular shape from a mixture of goat and sheep milk; it may be sliced and eaten fresh, grilled, or fried.
Anari is a crumbly fresh whey cheese, similar to ricotta, made from goat or sheep milk.
