Shared by Etty Leon
Recipe Roots: Portugal and Spain > Thessaloniki, Greece > Athens

The hallmark of weekend lunches in Yvet Leon’s house in Athens are huevos haminados, eggs cooked overnight in onion skins and coffee grounds until they are brown and tender. The family isn’t religious, says her granddaughter Etty, but they gather every Saturday for a spread of dishes that have been part of their Sephardic community’s tradition since before the Inquisition. Along with the eggs, there’s smoky eggplant and feta pie that the family calls pastel de merengena, a souffle of zucchini and feta or sfogato de calavasicas, all dishes that Yvet is determined to pass down.

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Before World War II, Thessaloniki, also known as Salonica, had the largest Jewish population in Greece, numbering close to 55,000. Most of the community were Sephardic Jews, descendants of those who came following the Inquisition. Among them were Etty’s grandparents: Yvet Beza, who was born in 1935 and Maurice Leon, who was born in 1918.

Starting in 1941 with bombings and the occupation of the city, Yvet’s family moved back and forth between Thessaloniki and other places for safety, first to the village of Vyzitsa and then to the city of Lamia. Later, they left for two years to Kozani, Larissa, Athens, Ioannina, Dorres in Albania, and then, by ship, to Italy, according to records from the Jewish Museum of Greece. Finally, a steamer took them across the Mediterranean to Alexandria in Egypt where they lived for eight months until Greece was liberated in October 1944.

Yvet (bottom-left) pictured with her brother and parents in Thessaloniki in 1950.

During the war, Maurice also left Thessaloniki. In 1939, he joined the Greek army and was stationed in Albania for six months before Greece was defeated. He made his way back to Thessaloniki, where things were calm for a time. But, on July 11, 1942, Jewish men in the city were ordered to the Platia Eleftherias, a central square. The men were put through grueling exercises in hot summer temperatures as a spectacle for the Germans occupiers. Maurice, who was among the men in the square, managed to escape down a side street.

His family decided to flee Thessaloniki, leaving individually or in small groups, so as to not draw attention. It took Maurice three attempts, ultimately making his way through Athens to the island of Skopelos where his family hid with the help of their family friend Yiorgos Mitzeliotis and his family. “…The entire village knew that these people were Jews, but nobody betrayed them,” Yvet shared in a testimony with Yad Vashem. The family remained in hiding on the island until liberation.

Of the Jews who were not able to escape Thessaloniki, more than 45,000 were deported to Auschwitz. After the war, fewer than 2,000 returned, including Yvet and Maurice, who would later marry and move to Athens for business in the early 1960s.

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Growing up in the capital, Etty and her cousins would stay at her grandmother’s home every Friday night. Together, they would cook the family recipes, which come both from Yvet’s mother and from Maurice’s. In the kitchen, Yvet would give the children tricks to know when a recipe was ready or looked right, which Etty still remembers.

Today at nearly 90-years-old Yvet is still the one in charge of making them for the entire family in Athens. Even during COVID lockdowns, they would gather when they could for Saturday lunches outside, keeping the tradition strong.

Huevos Haminados (Overnight Eggs)

These creamy eggs that are tinged brown from cooking overnight are a hallmark of Sephardic cooking. They stem from huevos asados, or roasted eggs, which were cooked in sand and ash, according to Gil Marks in the “Encyclopedia of Jewish Food.” Likely after the 13th century, adds Marks, the eggs started to be cooked in pots of the Sephardic Shabbat stew hamin. Prepared this way, the eggs could no longer be served at a dairy meal due to kosher law. So, as early as the 15th century, cooks started to mimic the brown eggs in hamin by simmering them in water with onion skins. Families in Greece, like Etty’s, are known to add coffee or tea leaves to the mix for more flavor and color.

Makes: 12 eggs
Total time: 15 minutes + overnight cooking

Ingredients
12 eggs (unpeeled)
2 yellow onions, unpeeled and quartered
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon Greek or Turkish ground coffee
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees fahrenheit.

2. Place the onions into an ovenproof pot and gently place the eggs inside, making sure there are pieces of onions and peels between the eggs. Place enough water to fill the pot with water until it reaches 2 inches from the top edge of the pot. Add the salt, pepper, coffee and oil and gently stir the water.

3. Place the pot over medium high heat and bring the pot to a boil, reduce the heat to cook the eggs on an active simmer for 5 more minutes. Place a lid on the pot and transfer it into the oven.

4. Cook the eggs in the oven overnight or for at least 8 hours. To make the eggs’ color to have more detail, transfer the pot out of the oven after about 3 hours of cooking and use a spoon to gently make cracks on the eggshells. Place the lid back on the pot and continue cooking for 5 more hours or overnight.

5. Peel the eggs and serve warm.

Sfogato de Calavasicas (Zucchini and Feta Bake)

Makes: 6-8 servings
Total Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes

Ingredients
3 large zucchinis, grated (unpeeled)
3 tablespoons of olive oil plus more for greasing
¼ cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
2 eggs
8 ounces of feta cheese, crumbled
½ teaspoon salt (optional)
½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Preparation
1. Grease a 8 x 8 inch baking pan with olive oil. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a large pan over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the zucchini into the pan and cook, stirring occasionally until it softens and the water from the zucchini has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Transfer from the heat and cool to room temperature.

3. Add the crumbled feta, parsley, eggs, pepper and zucchini into a large mixing bowl. Mix well until everything is distributed evenly.

4. Place the empty baking pan into the oven to heat up for 5-10 minutes. Carefully transfer from the oven and immediately add the zucchini mixture. Spread the mixture in an even layer and bake it in the oven until it is set and golden brown on top, about 50 minutes.

5. Serve hot.

Cook’s note: Before adding the feta cheese into the recipe taste the feta to see how salty it is. Sometimes you will have a feta that is very salty and you will need to add any salt and other times the feta will be salty enough to not need salt.

Pastel de Merengena (Smoky Eggplant and Feta Pie)

Makes: 8-10 servings
Total Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Ingredients
For the filling:
4 eggplants
8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
3 teaspoons of olive oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon kosher salt

For the dough:
1 cup olive oil
1 cup water
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon granulated sugar
3 ½ cups all purpose flour

For the eggwash:
1 egg
1 teaspoon water

Preparation
1. Char each eggplant directly on the flame of a stove over medium to medium-low heat, rotating often until the eggplants are completely cooked and tender on the inside and charred on the outside. Set the eggplants aside and let them cool enough to handle.

2. Peel and remove the skins from the eggplants and slice the eggplants in half lengthwise. Remove as many seeds as you can with your hands. Place the cleaned eggplants into a large colander set over a mixing bowl. Let the eggplants drain for about 30 minutes to 1 hour.

3. Make the filling: Place the drained eggplants into a mixing bowl and add the feta cheese, olive oil, eggs and salt. Mix well until combined. Set aside.

4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

5. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan with olive oil.

6. Make the egg wash: beat 1 egg with 1 teaspoon of water in a small bowl and set aside.

7. Prepare the dough: Put the olive oil, water, salt, baking soda and sugar into a small pot over medium heat and stir. Cook until the mixture just comes to a simmer and transfer the pot off of the heat. Immediately add the flour into the mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until a soft dough comes together.

8. Assemble and bake the pie: Transfer the dough onto a floured surface and roll it into a bowl. Evenly divide the dough into two pieces. Roll out one of the pieces of dough into a rectangle that is about 11 x 15 inches or big enough to fit into the baking pan upto the upper rim edge. Place the rectangular piece of dough onto the baking pan and gently lay it onto the bottom of the pan and up to the edges. This will be the crust. Roll out the second piece of dough to a 9 x 13 inch rectangle and set aside. Pour the eggplant and feta mixture evenly on top of the piece of dough in the baking pan. Use a spatula to evenly spread out the filling. Carefully place the 9 x 13 inch piece of rolled out dough on top of the filling to match the edges of the pan and cover the pie. Use a sharp knife to make about 3 slits in the dough. Brush the top of the pie with egg wash and bake in the oven for 40-55 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

9. Cut the pie into square slices and serve hot.

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