Discover a quick guide on making Saganaki, a delicious Greek cheese dish, with a gluten-free option and a flaming presentation!
Deliciously Crispy Cheese Appetizer with a Fiery Finish
This week, a cooking show from Medusa’s Kitchen demonstrates how to prepare Saganaki at home, highlighting the essential ingredients and techniques needed for this delicious dish. Saganaki, a traditional Greek appetizer, is known for its crispy exterior and gooey cheese interior, making it a delightful addition to any meal or gathering. The show provides valuable insights on which type of cheese is best suited for this dish, ensuring that home cooks can achieve the perfect flavor and texture.
In addition to the classic recipe, the show also offers gluten-free alternatives for those with dietary restrictions, making Saganaki accessible to a wider audience. Safety is a crucial aspect of preparing this dish, particularly when it comes to the flambéing process. The presentation includes tips on how to light the cheese safely, ensuring an enjoyable cooking experience without compromising safety in the kitchen.
Elevate Your Appetizer Game: Ignite the Cheesy Delight of Saganaki!
Welcome back, everybody. We’re going to make uh one of the signature dishes at Medusa, Saganaki. And uh we’re also going to make a gluten-free one that we used to make there as well, the red pepper goat cheese. So, I want to get that one started before I start working on the uh there’s two ways you can do it. you.
Know, if you’re at home and you don’t have these iron cast iron skillets, then you can use a s. So, I’m going to show you two ways. So, you don’t have to have this cast iron skillet. What I did here was I cut up the red peppers, tossed them with a little olive oil and some of my seasoning, and I roasted them in a hot.
Oven for about 25 minutes. And then I just let them sit out to cool. Now for the goat cheese, we use a French log of goat cheese. And if you use a thin knife, it works really well. A thin bladed knife, not a thick bladed knife. And we put our goat cheese on.
Here. And the reason why this was so popular cuz it wasn’t uh it was gluten-free and it gave our customers another option to have the flaming cheese at the table that didn’t have flour on it. Now you can use any kind of goat cheese you want and use uh goat cheese.
That has flavorings in it such as pepper or basil or it has the black ash on the outside. Doesn’t matter. Whatever cheese you like, a soft goat cheese that you’re, you know, feta will work. If you want, you could use a good gorgenola. Cam bear is a great cheese for this. So, I hit the top with a little bit of olive oil. I sprinkle some.
Of my seasoning on top. And I’m going to get this into a 500°ree oven. And that’s going to take about 7 minutes, which I got a timer for. And get that started. Now, for the classic saganaki, I have caseri cheese.
Here. And you can use calf gra, which is a Greek eating semi soft cheese. And sometimes when I’ve had uh trouble getting the caceri cheese, I’ve used mild aiago. So this is just plain allpurpose flour. I’m going to get my uh sauté pan here with a little bit of pomus olive.
Oil on a fairly high heat so I can start cooking these once I’m done getting them breaded. You put a flower coating on it first, a cohesive. You need something for the egg, which I’ve got three eggs here, with a little bit of water, about an ounce. Make sure that’s drips off good. And you want to press this flour into the cheese cuz you want to create a.
coating. You use one hand for this so you don’t have to get two hands all messed up. And like I said, you push this flour in. And if you, like I said, if you can’t find the caceri cheese, mild aiago really works well. They come in wedges like this. You would just cut that wedge.
In half. You don’t want to get this cheese too thick because it’s really good when you have a crunchy crust on it. And that’s it. You don’t want to do this too far ahead of time. You want to do them when you’re ready to cook. Take a little bit of flour. Sprinkle it into your.
Oil. And you want that to sizzle up right away. Now, this is how we used to uh prep them for the restaurant. We would put the crust on them and then we put them on a sheet pan. We refrigerate them and then when.
We got an order, we would put it on the the sizzle platter and stick it in the oven, which we always had at 550 for about 7 to 8 minutes. And then we’d put it on the wood platter and we’d send it out with the server to the table. Now, when you’re doing this, you have to be careful cuz you got hot oil here. So, you want to work with two.
Pieces. Lay that cheese down gently so it doesn’t splash on you. But what you’re looking for is that nice golden crust. That’s what’s going to give you some texture in this fried cheese. It’s almost like Greekstyle fried mozzarella. They said that this sagaki was invented in Greek Town in Chicago. And I don’t know how true that.
Is, but uh we served at Medusa for 16 years. Now, at this point, we’d stick this in the oven. Now, if you’re making this at home and you don’t have those fancy platters, you can do it in the sauté pan just like we did the red. We want to make sure.
That we get this crispy. And uh you want to have a metal can or a glass measuring cup to pour this hot oil off because uh we don’t want all this oil. What we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be making a lemon sauce with brandy and lemon and we don’t want all this fat in there. We just need this.
As a cooking medium to get this nice and crispy. See, I’ve got the heat on high. I’m right on it. You really don’t want anybody standing around for this cuz of how it might splash. And like I said, either have a glass measuring cup or a metal container. You hold the piece of cheese in.
There. Now, you can either do this at your stove or you can take it to the table or your kitchen counter. You just want to make sure you don’t have anything up high that’ll catch fire. So, you come to your counter, your kitchen table, you have 1 oz of brandy. You don’t pour out of the bottle.
Because you don’t want the bottle to reignite. So, you pour the brandy in, you let that go. You light the lighter outside, then you bring it in. If you try to light the lighter while that steam is going, it’s going to blow the light out. And that burned off all that alcohol quickly.
We finish it with lemon. We yell oa. You make sure you pour that brandy lemon sauce on top. And that’s saga. See? Nice crisp, lemony, great color. Served with.
Bread. I made this today. Soak up the lemon juice or eat it with your cheese. Again, you can use almost any cheese you want. I mean, if you wanted to use Swiss or mozzarella or monster, you just have to make sure you put a good thick coating on there so it.
Doesn’t ooze out on you. This caceri cheese works great cuz it’s semi hard. All right, we got about 42 seconds for the next two or three. Actually, I had some fresh farm or basil from the farm today. Great to garnish these plates with a.
Little bit of fresh green and it also makes a nice little crunchy side piece. We’re going to check see how we’re doing here. Yep, we’re about 30 seconds away. Okay. So, what we do is we call the server over, say, “Your Saga is.
Ready.” He’d show up to the kitchen. Cheese has got a little bit of a crust on it. the light before you come in. The lemon extinguishes the fire. And that’s the red pepper one. Again, you know, uh you can use feta, you can use any kind of goat.
Cheese you want. You want to swirl this around a little bit before you set it at the table. But notice how the flame is starting to blacken the edges of the red pepper and kind of glazing that cheese up. That’s what we want. Now, if you don’t have the fancy sizzle platter, you have to be a little bit more careful because this pan handle is.
Going to be hot. So, you want to leave your pot holder on it all the time. You don’t want anybody grabbing that. Oppa. Now, that’s how you would do it if you didn’t have the fancy sizzle platter at home. Then you would serve this at the table or everybody with a spoon could.
Take it off of your counter if you’re doing like a buffet kind of a thing or set it on a plate. Now the regular saganaki as you can see this Greek caseri it melts up nicely oa we let that burn off just a little bit. That’s part of the showmanship. You want to turn the lights off in the.
Kitchen when you do this. Two quarter lemons always works best for this. You see all that lovely juice and sauce. What’s nice about these sizzles platters, you can just eat right off of them and it keeps the cheese nice and warm. Delicious. I got to try the red pepper. I had this in.
Arizona in 1984. They pureeed the peppers after they had roasted them, laid the goat cheese on it, and baked it. And all I could think about was this would make a great saga. But I like the peppers whole like this instead of a sauce because it just makes it a little more earthy. How did.
You roast the peppers before you Put some in the oven. I’ll show you. Enjoy your bite. What I did was take the sticker off the red pepper first. I cut the peppers so I keep the the ribs and the seeds out. And then I just cut it in bite-sized pieces.
That are easy to manage. You don’t want a big You won’t have to use a knife for this. I put those on my little sheet pan. Drizzled. Little palm olive oil. You can use fresh thyme, rosemary. You can add so many other ingredients to this to to to spark it up. Then I mix it so all the pepper is covered with the.
Seasoning and the oil. I pop this in the oven about 20 25 minutes into a 450°ree oven and I’m roasting peppers. Those peppers are good just added to any dinner. You know, you can use green and red. You can use yellow, orange peppers, you can use zucchini. Uh fresh fennel is a really good one with.
Cheese. But you could change the cheese. Just be careful when you’re flaming. You don’t want to catch anything on fire. You want to make sure you have a fire extinguisher close by. You know, I’m in a commercial kitchen. I have an a hood. And so, you know, this will smoke up your house a little bit. So, if you want.
To do this oppa thing at the stove and then take it to your buffet or the table, that’s fine, too, cuz uh we don’t want anybody getting hurt. But that’s saganaki. I hope you try it. It’s delicious. We’ll see you next week. Zach’s getting married this week, so we’re all happy for him. Yeah. I’m.
Going to cater his wedding. Uh the store is open on Wednesday. So, uh you know, remember that we’re making tasty take-home food. Uh we’re just working finishing up on the app. We’re probably a couple months out on that. But, uh that’s really going to be something special. And we hope you love the show and we appreciate the.
Support. Peace. Have a great day.
