Η συνταγή και στα ελληνικά στο τέλος της ανάρτησης!

Growing up as a kid, I was lucky enough to have cousins who were close to my age near me. We all lived in the same area and we used to meet almost every weekend. During summers we were visiting my Aunt’s cottage in the coast line of Attica. She had a house with a big garden and for all of us, who lived in apartments in downtown Athens, that was a blessing.

I had four cousins, two boys and two girls. The boys were older than me, but with the girls I had only a couple of years difference. I remember back in the 70’s and while we were at my Aunt’s cottage house, we were playing Charlie’s Angels. My older cousin was blond so naturally she was Jill Munroe, the other was brunette and she was imitating Kelly Garrett and I was very thin with short hair and I was Sabrina Dunkan. It was so much fun back then, no computers, no play stations, no Xboxes, nothing of a sort, just pure action games, where fantasy had the first and most important role.

We were running up and down the garden for hours trying to uncover imaginary evils and bad guys. We were hiding and following and tried to serve justice to the world. Oh we had such a great time back then!

All our visits to my aunts and theirs to our home ended up with a very big and full of different dishes lunch or dinner. It is amazing how food is so much connected with my childhood memories. For us children, it was a good chance to sit down, relax from playing and recover some of our energy that was lost during our games.

There were all sorts of food in these tables back then, meat, pies, potatoes, rice, appetizers and sweets at the end. One dish that was never absent from my aunt Vasiliki’s table was Spetsofae. She loved it and she always cooked it for us.

So, when a friend of my father’s brought us these beautiful home-made sausages, I immediately remembered these feasts and decided to make spetsofae.

This dish can vary from not hot at all, to very hot and spicy depending on your stomach’s tolerance. Also, in its original version the sausage is first fried and in the same oil/fat we sauté the rest of the vegetables and continue the cooking. Since I am notorious for my sensitive stomach, I went on with the child friendly version. Also, I didn’t fry the sausage-too many calories and very heavy for the stomach- I just sautéed the sausage and the veggies, but if you make it, feel free to spice it up as much as you want and do it the traditional way.

So, let’s go and make it!

 

Spetsofae

Ingredients

4 tbsp olive oil

2 sausages from pork or beef about 30 cm. / 12 in.  long each

1 onion, sliced

2 garlics, minced

2 peppers one orange and one yellow, sliced (you can use any color of pepper you like. You can use chili peppers as well)

2 leeks, sliced

1 tomato, sliced

1/2 cup sweet red wine, I used Mavrodafni a red sweet wine from Peloponnese area and particularly from Patras

1 cup tomato juice

Salt, pepper or chili pepper according to your liking for a spicier dish

1 tsp sugar

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp oregano

½ tsp basil

2 bay leaves

 

Instructions

Place a large skillet on medium/high heat and pour the olive oil.

Add the onion slices, the pepper slices, the tomato slices and the leek and sauté until they start to soften.

Add the garlic and the sausage after you have cut it in slices.

Sauté until the sausage turns from red to brown.

Pour the wine and let boil until half of the wine is evaporated.

Throw the tomato juice and all the spices and herbs.

Reduce fire to medium/low and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.

Remove from fire and serve.