Top recipes for a Greek feast

Starters:

1. Pita bread – a soft, slightly leavened flatbread popular in many Mediterranean cuisines.

2. Tzatziki – A cold Greek sauce served with grilled meats or as a dip. Tzatziki is made of strained yogurt mixed with cucumbers, garlic, salt, olive oil, sometimes lemon juice, and dill, mint, or parsley.

3. Dolmades – Dolma is a family of stuffed vegetable dishes common in the Middle East and surrounding regions.

4. Greek salad – the so-called Greek salad is known in Greece as village/country salad (horiatiki) and is essentially a tomato salad with cucumber, red onion, feta cheese, and kalamata olives, dressed with olive oil.

5. Grilled sardines with skordalia – Skordalia is a thick purée in Greek cuisine made by combining crushed garlic with a bulky base like a purée of potatoes.

6. Spanakopita – A Greek savoury pastry filled with spinach and feta.

7. Revithia – a slow-cooked, lemony chickpea soup.

8. Kolokythoanthoi – Kolokitholoulouda yemista: zucchini flowers stuffed with a rice mixture.

Mains:

9. Lamb kleftiko – a Greek dish consisting of lamb marinated with lemon juice and herbs and cooked slowly in a sealed container.

10. Moussaka – An aubergine and/or potato-based dish in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire, with many local and regional variations.

11. Greek pastitsio – It might sound like it’s exotic and complicated but actually, it’s just a glorified version of mac ‘n cheese.

12. Souvlaki – A popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer.

13. Stifado – Rabbit or hare stew with pearl onions, vinegar, red wine and cinnamon. Beef can be substituted for game, as it is in this recipe.

Desserts:

14. Baklava – A rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo filled with chopped nuts and sweetened and held together with syrup or honey.

15. Kourabiedes – Greek shortbread

16. Greek loukoumades – A pastry consisting of deep fried dough soaked in sugar syrup or honey and cinnamon and sometimes sprinkled with sesame.

17. Halva – A dense, sweet confection