The KitchenIndex

Cooked, not drizzled.

In Greece both of these are ingredients before they are garnishes. Honey goes on hot, over fried dough and into sesame; olive oil goes in at the start, in quantities that do the cooking rather than finish it. These are the dishes they were made for, written the way they are cooked.

From the hive

Where honey is the dish and not the garnish — poured hot over fried dough, worked into sesame, set against salt and roots.

Loukoumades: Greek Honey DoughnutsA loose yeasted batter, deep-fried to golden spheres and dressed hot with warmed honey, cinnamon and walnuts. The Greek doughnut, fried to order.Pasteli: Greek Honey and Sesame BarsToasted sesame seeds bound in honey boiled to its setting point, pressed flat and cut into bars. Two ingredients, and one stage that decides the set.Greek Yoghurt with Honey and Walnuts (Giaourti me Meli)Strained yoghurt, runny thyme honey poured to a ribbon, walnuts toasted first: the three decisions behind Greece's simplest dessert, done properly.Hot Honey: What It Is and How to Make ItHot honey is runny honey infused with chilli, used as a condiment. What sets the heat, how to infuse it below 40 °C, and how long a jar keeps.Honey Roasted Carrots, and Honey Glazed: Two WaysCarrots in a honey and butter glaze, two ways: roasted with the glaze added late, or pan-glazed to a syrup. Timing for both, and what stops it cloying.Honey Roasted ParsnipsParsnips roasted hard in hot fat, then glazed with honey only in the last ten minutes, so the sugars gloss the edges instead of burning onto the tin.

From the grove

Where olive oil is the cooking medium and not a finishing thread — the tin, the pot and the bowl, in the quantities Greek kitchens actually use.

Greek Lemon Potatoes: Patates LemonatesThick potato wedges roasted in olive oil, lemon and rigani until the pan liquid goes and the edges catch — the Greek side dish, cooked twice in one tin.Briam: Greek Roasted Vegetables in Olive OilThe Greek vegetable bake: courgette, potato, onion and pepper cut to finish together, cooked slow in olive oil until they collapse and the pan goes dry.Fasolakia: Greek Green Beans in Olive OilGreen beans stewed slow with tomato, potato and a great deal of olive oil, cooked far past bright green on purpose — the Greek summer pot, done properly.Skordalia: The Greek Garlic Sauce, Two WaysGarlic pounded to a paste and let down with olive oil over potato or soaked bread — the Greek garlic sauce, and how to stop it turning to glue.Dakos: The Cretan Barley Rusk SaladA hard barley rusk softened by grated tomato and olive oil, under sour Cretan mizithra and rigani. Two of its three ingredients are protected names.Greek Salad Dressing: Olive Oil, Vinegar & RiganiThe classic Greek salad dressing: extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar and dried rigani — ratios, the in-bowl tradition, and the ladolemono variant.

Where the two meet

The dishes that need both — an olive-oil dough under a honey syrup.

Melomakarona: Greek Honey and Olive Oil BiscuitsGreece's Christmas biscuit: an olive oil dough scented with orange, baked dry, then dropped hot into cold honey syrup. Both harvests in one recipe.

More are in the writing; the Harvest Letter carries the season's additions.

The Harvest Letter

Two letters a year. Nothing between.

One at the summer extraction, one at the autumn pressing: first call on the first jars and first bottles we fill, and the harvest report in real numbers.

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