Eftichía Drosou Katsiana (1916)

I have gained quite some skills from my grandmother Eftichía. She has been a tailoress for most of her life; I would sit on the floor, next to her old-school sewing machine and watch her for hours. She loved to create curtains, as well as bed sheets and cushions with many different types of embroidery. Traditional Greek embroidery is being made with either cotton or silk thread. Plain white, colorful or golden designs can be found almost in every Greek house. The custom is that the grandmothers create embroidery pieces for their granddaughters in order them to have a nice collection to show to their husband by the time they get married. Although this tradition is fading, I have quite a big collection of curtains, table cloths, bed sheets, pillows and blankets, all with unique types of embroidery made from my grandmother.

Traditional Greek embroidery involves highly creative and detailed designs, inspired by the customs and of course nature. My grandmother liked embroidery with patters from nature, mainly flowers and birds. She has indeed inspired me a lot with her creativity. She has also been great with knitting, making wonderful woolen clothing and accessories that both me and my mother still have in our closets. She taught me how to knit my own woolen scarves and long woolen socks that are so practical during winter time.

Another big chapter in her life has been cooking; her specialty is making pies and traditional Greek pastry based on the very thin dough called “filo”. Making Greek traditional filo-based pastry is one of the skills I have gained from my grandmother Eftichía. “Galaktobureko” is one my favorites. It belongs to the category of syrup-filo pastry, similar to the famous world-wide baklava.

Stir in a bowl 160gr. of sugar, 80gr. of corn flour, 2 eggs and 6 egg yolks. Put in a pan 700gr. of milk, 300 gr. of crème fraiche and the seeds from a fresh vanilla branch. Bring this to boil. When boiling starts, pour the egg mixture slowly and stir constantly. This is the cream filling for the galaktobureko. For the syrup, mix 500 gr. of sugar with 80 gr. of water and bring to boil. This is the syrup to be poured (must let it be cool) over the warm galaktobureko. Now, melt 250 gr. of butter. The melted butter will be used for spreading it over each filo sheet. We need one package of filo. The pan that I use for the galaktobureko to put it in the oven is rectangular, 30x25 cm. Place one by one the filo sheets, after spreading on each of them the melted butter (use the special brush). Each filo package has about 12 filo sheets inside. Use 6 for the bottom part, then pour the cream and then cover it with the rest filo sheets. Spread butter onto the top filo sheet as well. Bake in a pre-heated oven (170°C for about 1 hour) until the filo gets a nice golden color. Once out of the oven, pour evenly the syrup. Enjoy!