Award-winning food writer and cook Georgina Hayden has shared three lesser-known yet “gorgeous” Greek and Cypriot dishes to try this summer – and they do not require fancy ingredients.
One of her favourites is called tava and she says it is “such an easy dish” to make.
“I love it,” the 43-year-old says. “It’s basically slow-cooked lamb mixed with rice and/or potatoes, lots of tomatoes, onions and cumin.
“You really don’t have to do anything – you don’t pre-fry anything, you don’t pre-cook anything. It’s all completely raw, you literally just mix it all in a big tray and you put it in the oven.
“You could put it in at 10 or 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning and that is your all-in-one Sunday dish… it’s a gorgeous dish.”
Another is yiahni, a style of cooking where vegetables are slowly cooked in olive oil and tomatoes, and occasionally with meat, and she says this is a “wonderful way of celebrating vegetables”.
She says cooking vegetables for a long time, sometimes up to an hour, makes them “sweet and tender and delicious”.
“It was something we ate in abundance and we’d always have it as a big pot on the table, with fresh bread, a bowl of olives and olive oil on the side, and I love that style of cooking,” she says.
The third is called afelia, which is slow-cooked chunks of pork with red wine and crushed coriander seeds, but she says this is “very rare”.
She continues: “You wouldn’t find it anywhere other than a Cypriot person’s house or a Cypriot restaurant, and it’s something I haven’t seen doing the rounds yet.
“But it’s super tender, melt-in-the-mouth, and really aromatic. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous dish.”
Growing up above her grandparents’ Greek-Cypriot taverna, Hayden developed a love of cooking and storytelling through the recipes passed down to her.
The mother-of-two started her career working at various food magazines and then went on to join Jamie Oliver’s food team where she worked for more than a decade.
“I very much grew up in this food environment and our life revolved around the restaurant,” she says.
“I always joke that my life is pretty much, My Big Fat Greek Wedding – I married an English boy and grew up in a restaurant and was geeky and wore big glasses – but that’s where I get my passion from.”
Although she is “biased”, Hayden, who lives in London, says she loves Cypriot and Greek food and another favourite dish is avgolemono – a “nourishing” type of chicken soup.
Through her work and her travels across the world, she is “constantly writing and developing and having fun with food” and creating new recipes.
This led Hayden, who writes for publications such as The Telegraph, Delicious Magazine and Observer Food Monthly, to release her latest cookbook called MEDesque.
Hayden has worked with chefs from all over the world
Described as a celebration of the very best of Mediterranean food done Hayden’s way, the recipes are easy yet delicious and inspired by flavours from the coastlines of Italy, Spain, the Baltics and beyond.
“My first few books were super traditional… but for the last two, from Greekish (2024) and MEDesque now, having fun with them has been liberating,” she says.
“We’re all so busy, whether you’ve got kids or not, or you work or you’re a carer, we want one-pan dishes or we want things a bit quicker.
“It’s so much fun being able to get those recipes and mess them up a bit.”
Hayden adds: “I’m never a prescriptive cook. I think it’s all about having things in your arsenal and knowing what you can use when, and I think that’s a really powerful tool.”
From working on a fishing boat in Malta and learning to make pastry in Morocco or fresh almond milk in Sicily, she has had many memorable food experiences.
She says she met some olive farmers in Crete and described them as “two of the healthiest people I’ve ever met my life” – and the couple both incorporate olive oil into their diet in an unusual way.
Hayden’s latest cookbook is called MEDesque
“They pour olive oil in their coffee in the morning,” she says.
“He wasn’t saying it for comedic effect, he meant it and said, ‘Yeah, I have olive oil in my coffee every day’, and I just thought, ‘Wow’.
“I mean, this guy must have been his 50s and he was the absolute vision of health, and I just thought, ‘Gosh, there’s so much to learn’.”
Hayden says the Mediterranean diet is often referred to as “the best in the world” and, with “fad diets and social media”, she feels it is important to keep learning and to keep trying different foods.
As for other dishes olive oil is used in, but not commonly, she says it is delicious poured over vanilla ice cream with a pinch of salt or baked into cakes as it “keeps the sponge moist”.
There’s even an Amalfi lemon, almond and elderflower wedding cake recipe in MEDesque which includes extra-virgin olive oil.
“I’m always team olive oil,” Hayden says.
Hayden, who has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, along with Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch and BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen, has various trips planned this year and wants to continue learning about food.
One of her favourites in MEDesque is the one-pan lasagne, which she says is great for a beginner, but she explains that “95% of the ingredients in the book are very everyday”, so everyone can make the dishes.
Speaking about what she hopes people will learn from the cookbook, she says: “It’s just making the recipes their own.
“As a food writer, if I can write a book which becomes a staple part of someone’s kitchen, I mean, that’s the absolute dream.”
MEDesque by Georgina Hayden is published in hardback by Bloomsbury Publishing, priced £26. Photography by Laura Edwards. Available now
Dining and Cooking