Kostas Karpondinis cooks Naxian delicacies and shares a recipe for traditional “xerotigana”

An aged stone-built “prosteada” — a small, elemental gathering wherever villagers sheltered their animals, stored food, and kept tools — was the lone operation connected the crippled purchased by cook and Saronia proprietor Kostas Karpondinis. This would go the location of his dream: to unfastened his ain eating abstraction successful his colony and service the champion versions of the flavors helium grew up with — dishes that grant Naxos, its traditions, and the radical who enactment tirelessly crossed the island.

Passion for Cooking

Originally from Kinidaros, Kostas Karpondinis, similar his woman — an Athenian with a heavy nostalgia for her husband’s colony — ever felt drawn to cooking and gastronomy. After 2 years of studies successful nutrient technology, a stint arsenic a cook astatine a well-known Santorini edifice where helium decided to unfastened his ain place, his long-awaited instrumentality to his homeland, 2 years of culinary studies astatine the Naxos Culinary School to summation the due foundation, countless hours successful the room experimenting, innovating, and uncovering the perfect equilibrium with authentic Naxian flavors — each fueled by passionateness and emotion for the culinary arts. The effect is simply a paper of astir 35 dishes, consciously focusing connected accepted cooked meals truthful arsenic not to vie with the colony tavern, which has made Kinidaros a apical destination for nutrient lovers successful Naxos.

Ingredients from the Family Garden

Alongside endowment and the pursuit of perfection, the purity of ingredients plays a cardinal relation astatine Saronia. “We are fortunate to navigator with our ain products and are arrogant of that. I wanted this, my 2nd home, to connection pure, cleanable flavors — similar the ones I navigator astatine location for my children,” Kostas emphasizes. Seasonal vegetables from the household plot are prominently displayed successful the kitchen: potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, onions, fennel, and chard. They besides usage integrated olive lipid from the family’s 300 olive trees successful Kinidaros for salads and stews.

Meat comes from their ain sheep, goats, rabbits, and roosters. They besides marque their ain anthotyro and xinotyro cheeses and cod eggs from their hens. “With our ain xinomizithra and tomatoes from the farm, the ‘kagianas’ becomes the signature spirit of the family,” helium says. Anyone tasting his dishes instantly feels transported to an authentic, well-prepared household table.

A Modern Interpretation of Kinidaros Tradition

When asked which flavors customers favor, Kostas replies that fricassee lamb is undoubtedly the prima of the menu.

One of Naxos’ celebrated cheeses, the adust anthotyro (here called “travagmeno”), is served grilled successful a refreshing Saronia crockery with greenish leaves, dried figs, caramelized walnuts, and pomegranate seeds. Feta, often misused elsewhere, is transformed present into the eventual appetizer with honey, paying tribute to tradition. Traditional pies with chard (“sefoukla” successful section dialect) are prepared successful immoderate villages of the island, conscionable similar the xerotigana, some of which bring guests consecutive to mountainous Kinidaros. The quality successful this peculiar saganaki lies successful the dough, the aforesaid utilized by Naxian housewives for the classical saccharine treat: xerotigana.

Making Traditional Xerotigana

Kostas invites his wife’s mother, Maria, to stock her version, serving saccharine treats made with raki, orangish juice, and ash water. Maria explains: the accepted Kinidaros dessert was made arsenic a greeting dainty earlier weddings, served astatine the extremity of the religion work arsenic an invitation for villagers to enactment for the wedding feast. Simple fried dough pieces, made without h2o but with raki, were sprinkled with honey, roasted sesame, cinnamon, oregon walnuts depending connected household wealth. It was besides a dessert for christenings and a wintertime dainty that lasted due to the fact that it contained nary eggs. Until 1968, erstwhile energy arrived, xerotigana were fried implicit unfastened fires, and until 1985, Naxos produced its ain flour from section emmer wheat.

Kostas elevates the dough with pronounced raki notes, portion chromatic and sesame item accepted flavors, transforming it into a modern dessert — a originative mille-feuille. Puff pastry is replaced with oven-baked xerotigana for a lighter texture, and the classical pick is replaced by a custard-like pick with section anthotyro.

Recipe for Kinidaros Naxos Xerotigana

Ingredients

• 1 kg beardown flour
• 1 tiny solid rootlike lipid (for a lighter dough, per Maria)
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tiny solid caller orangish juice
• 1 tiny solid lye water, preferably from caller aromatic wood, not conifer (double-filtered done a java maker)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 solid raki

For frying:

• 1 kg rootlike oil
• 1 kg olive oil

For serving:

• Honey
• Cinnamon
• Roasted sesame

Method:

1. In a bowl, premix flour with brackish and oil, conscionable capable to hitch the lipid into the flour.
2. Add orangish juice, past the lye h2o with dissolved soda and fractional the raki. Knead, gradually adding the remaining raki until the dough is silky.
3. Divide into 100 g pieces, rotation thin, chopped into rectangles, and fry successful blistery oil. Flip erstwhile they emergence to the aboveground and region aft a fewer seconds. Drain connected insubstantial towels.
4. Store successful a insubstantial container with layers separated by insubstantial towels for up to a month.
5. Before serving, drizzle with honey, sprinkle with cinnamon and sesame.

From October until the adjacent summertime season, Saronia edifice operates Friday to Sunday and connected authoritative holidays.