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Tortilla with Crispy Quinoa, Kale and Fresh Yogurt Dip with Basil
One of my favourite things is when I enjoy a meal with good friends.
So I found myself with beloved friends in the lovely garden of “Bella Vespa”.
A great restaurant located in Glyfada, where we enjoyed the delicious creations of the talented chef Dimitris Hatzidimitriou.
I highly recommend you to taste the flavours that became my favourite.
The unique salad with quinoa, the amazing salmon burger and his pizza with the tasteful pastry.
After this great dinner I wanted to know how this talented chef is cooking such delicious and special meals and I asked him to give me an interview for my blog.
He was delighted by the idea and he shared with me.. and with you, the secrets of his success.
But also he shares with us a unique recipe for a Tortilla with Crispy Quinoa and Kale along with a fresh yoghurt dip with basil.
A recipe that we are going to cook more than once for sure!
Dimitri how did you decide to become a chef?
In my family we are all passionate with cooking. From kiddo I was into the kitchen. I remember my self with my grandmother cooking cakes and tasting the raw pastry.
My sister is also passionate with cooking. And even that she completed her law studies, one night she told us “Bye, I’m moving to France to study pastry”.
This was a big boost for me, and while my studies are on finance, I also decided to change course and started my cooking studies.
The first time I entered a professional kitchen I felt this magical excitement I had never felt while I was studying economics.
So for me it was inevitable to choose cooking, because I just followed my heart. It was love at first sight.
Where does your inspiration comes from when you’re in the kitchen?
It comes from the flavours I have developed in my childhood from the family cooking.
Flavours that I marry and create the category that interests me. Healthy – Sport, Mediterranean result.
Is there a chef that inspires you more and why?
Raymond Blanc. My dream is to work on his side. From TV Gennaro Contaldo is my favourite because he has passion for what he does and seems to cook with his heart.
What are your favourite cooking ingredients to use and why?
I would say the super food category. Ingredients that are not yet known to the people because I find it more challenging.
Tell me a difficult situation you found yourself at work?
When two guys from my team “hung” me..
If you could chose your guests, who would you choose and what would you cook for them?
I’d choose kids. A dream that I have from my childhood is to be able to help children in need. I would cook for them something from intimate ingredients, such as lentils, but in a gourmet version.
In the kitchen you need good cooperation. Do you consider yourself as a team player?
Professional cooking is a very competitive sector. I want to be a leader and to have a team. Not a boss, boss is always alone. So yes, I am a team player.
When do you feel happier at work?
When the feed back from the service is that “they lick and the dish”. Generally I am happy when people enjoy what I cook for them. The energy goes into the food …and I cook with love.
Where do you imagine yourself in two years from now?
Difficult question … I want to have a studio with the necessary, clean like a white canvas. And a showcase filled with ingredients to experiment and create.
Do you like to share your knowledge?
It’s the first thing I do when someone comes into the kitchen. I’ am telling him “notebook, pen and write down all the recipes” and of course I present him the technique. Because recipes have nothing to do with the ingredients but it’s all about the technique. Different people can cook with the same ingredients, the same recipe and yet they get a different result, they have a different flavour, because all the secret is the technique.
What is your favourite drink this season?
Oh! Hazelnut milk, with peas protein, honey, tayberry, cinnamon and banana. It’s awesome !! Tayberry give a wonderful red colour.
Would you like to share with my readers a recipe?
For Sure!!
So all the following, with lots of love by Dimitris Hatzidimitriou for the readers of my blog and the Food Inspiration !!
Tortilla with Crispy Quinoa, Kale and Fresh Yogurt Dip with Basil
Ingredients for 6 crisp quinoa burgers:
250 gr. white quinoa
2 eggs
1 fresh onion (chopped)
30 gr. parmesan cheese
10 gr. ginger
70 gr. barley grated
10 gr. dried porcini
¼ bunch of Parsley
1/6 bunch of chives
1sp.s olive oil
1sp.s coconut oil
3 mushrooms sampinion
How to:
Do powder in blender the dried porcini. Then boil it with the quinoa for 10 minutes (in plenty of water, like boiling pasta). Drain it and wait for it to come into room temperature.
When it is cold, add the rest of the recipe ingredients and mix gently. When the ingredients are mixed all together, create the burgers with the quinoa mix.
Cook the burgers in hight temperature with the coconut oil. When they get a dark gold colour remove them from the fire and bake them in a preheated oven at 160 °C for 7 minutes. In a separate pan with baking paper, bake in the oven the 3 mushrooms cut into thin slices along with the kale cut into strips at the same temperature for 10 minutes.
As you are cooking the quinoa burgers and the mushrooms, prepare a quick yoghurt dip.
Yogurt dip with Basil
Ingredients
150 gr. full fat organic yogurt
8 basil leaves (chopped)
2 sp.s olive oil
½ st.s sweet paprika
2 salt pips
3 lime scrap
Bake your tortillas in a frying pan without a grease. Spread them with the yogurt dip, then add the mushrooms, the crisp quinoa and finally the kale.
Share with your family, simple but real food and full of love.
Put into your diet superfoods and meals filled with antioxidants, proteins, good fats and free radicals. Shield your immune system against viruses that surround you with a balanced, healthy diet .. !!!!
A small introduction to the great nutritional value of quinoa
Known as the queen of superfood, with high nutritional value and gluten-free content. The Golden Food – the seed of the Earth as it is called by the Latin Americans.
It looks like cereal, but it is not categorised in it. The seed of the Quinoa plant has more proteins than wheat, omega 3 fat, potassium, iron, amino acids and many other beneficial elements. The United Nations has classified Quinoa as superfood for its high protein content (13%). Unlike rice or wheat quinoa is low in lysine, has a balanced content of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete diet.
It is a digestible and antioxidant food and studies shown that it helps in the blood supply of the brain, concentration, heart and migraines. It is ideal for those who are intolerant to gluten and belongs to the category of macrobiotic foods.
