Pound for pound, day in and day out, I think all Greeks are secret almost-vegetarians. Sure, they eat lamb on special occasions, especially Orthodox Christian holidays, and plenty of pork the rest of the time. But I can’t think of a culture that grows more vegetables in its backyards and turns them into such delicious dinners, with meat or no meat at all.
I’m relatively new to briam (pronounced bree-AHM), though I’ve known about the Greek vegetable fetish for decades, since first setting foot in Patras late at night after the long ferry ride from Brindisi. For that very first Greek meal, at maybe 11 p.m., I ended up with the predictable pastitsio. “Like lasagne,” the eatery’s proprietor said after realizing I spoke no Greek and, showing more than telling, lifting the lid from every pot on his stove. The printed menu was entirely in Greek. It was indeed… Greek to me. There is typically ground meat in pastitsio, though unlike lasagna, the dish forms its pasta layers not with wide strips but with elbow macaroni.
Over the days and weeks that followed, I ate every vegetable I’d tried in my life and a few I hadn’t, each tasting better than any vegetables I’d ever tasted before. I fell in love especially with gemista, which translates (as literally as Greeks bother to be) as “stuffed things.”
You name it, if it sits still long enough, a Greek will stuff it. Little tavernas on side streets and back alleys kept gemista and other vegetables on counters at room temperature. Besides my zero language skills, I now understand why it took workers behind the counter so long to understand my clueless request that the food be heated. Greeks prefer their vegetables room temperature. One recipe for briam even leaves an extra 10-15 minutes for the vegetables to cool.
Briam gives every indication of being yet another rustic dish that can be made with any vegetable or piece of vegetable you’ve got lying around. “For cleaning out the fridge,” we say in the States – though in Greece none of these things are kept in the fridge. You can make briam in a skillet placed in the oven, either alternating the vegetables like tilting dominos or in separate layers. Yes, like lasagna. The first Greek food guy I ever met was right about that, all those decades ago.
BRIAM
As you’ll see quickly, all the ratios involved in this dish can be adjusted to whatever you’ve got on hand. Nothing will make this dish taste anything but wonderful. What you need are fresh vegetables (see NOTE below) and no shortage of extra-virgin olive oil. I even set the loaded skillet on the grill with the lid down for smoke, cooking Greek briam alongside Lebanese eggplant for the dip called baba ganoush. It was a fine day for vegetables.
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small can diced tomatoes with juice
1 tablespoon dried oregano
3 red-skinned potatoes, thinly sliced
2 large zucchini, thinly sliced into coins
2 large yellow squash, thinly sliced into coins
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Pour about half the olive oil into a cast-iron skillet and top that will almost all the diced tomatoes. Sprinkle with the oregano. Using any method you like, layer the potatoes with the zucchini and yellow squash, sprinkling with the minced garlic and seasoning with salt and pepper now and again. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil, shaking the skillet gently so the oil will drip down through the vegetables. Garnish with the remaining diced tomatoes. Cover the skillet with foil and roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, then remove the foil and return to the oven for another 30 minutes. For additional browning, you can set the skillet under a super-hit broiler. Serves 8-10.
NOTE: A Greek cook might protest the canned diced tomatoes, and sure, you can feel free to dice your very own fresh ones. On the other hand, in the States, it’s usually not worth the effort, since most “fresh” tomatoes produced by agribusiness are so flavorless. You might save your dicing for when you’re in Europe.
