Cypriot Recipes

Try some tasty Cypriot recipes to remind you of your holiday in Cyprus. Share your own recipes so others can learn about delicious Cyprus food.

Fresh caper berries - pick them for free!

Cooking is one of my favourite hobbies and I've cooked most types of Cypriot dishes since moving to the island. I bought a great Cypriot cook book when I arrived called Kopiaste - Traditional Cook Book on Cyprus Food which not only has every recipe in Cyprus you can think of; it also offers amusing tales of how many recipes were invented.

Many Cypriot recipes are handed down over generations by word of mouth, so I think Kopiaste is an invaluable record in keeping the tradition of these recipes alive.

I have adapted many traditional recipes from Cyprus to make use of seasonal ingredients like wild caper berries which you can pick for free in the valleys where I live. One of my current favourite recipes is pork stifado cooked with cider in a pressure cooker for a melt in your mouth stew - see below for the recipe!

Cooking Cypriot Recipes

Freshly picked lemons :)

One of the best things about REAL Cyprus cooking is the use the locals make of fresh produce, including wild grasses and greens picked from the side of the road. Or simply adding fresh lemon and olive oil to green vegetables or a salad with a few herbs like mint or coriander to give an unforgettable Cypriot taste.

If you live here and love cooking like I do, then you can experiment at home and try growing your own produce to get that straight-from-the-field fresh taste. You can see my latest attempts in the picture below.

Cyprus Food Recipes - Share yours too

My veggie garden

As promised, here's one of my adapted Cypriot recipes for pork stifado. It's actually a Delia Smith based recipe which I found a little bland when I first tried it. So I got inspired by the traditional spices found in a beef stifado and added cloves and cinnamon to the dish.

I also experimented with my new WMF Perfect Plus pressure cooker to produce the perfect pork stew!

Recipe for Pork Stifado

Ingredients - Feeds 4

• 1kg pork shoulder cut into small cubes
• 8-10 small onions
• 10g butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 500ml medium sweet cider
• 75ml cider vinegar or appple vinegar
• 4 fresh thyme sprigs
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cloves
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons Greek yoghurt or creme fraiche

Directions

• Fry the meat in batches in half the butter and oil then remove to a casserole dish.
• Fry the onions in the remaining butter and oil until they are golden and caramelised.
• Add the cider, vinegar and spices and bring to a simmer.
• Pour the spicy onion liquid over the pork and cook at 170ºC for 1.5 hours or until the pork is tender. A pressure cooker takes just 15 minutes!
• Whisk in the yoghurt or creme fraiche and reduce the sauce or add cornflour if not thick enough.

And now it's your turn!

If you have any Cypriot recipes to share, I'd love to see them. You may be a foodie like me or you may have your own food blog. If you do, I'm happy to link to your blog to say thanks for sharing your recipes. Just add the URL of your blog in your recipe submission and I'll make the link live when I approve the page.

Related Pages:

Pick your own olives and turn them into olive oil!

Easy carrot cake recipe using olive oil

How to Preserve Lemons

How to Dry Figs

How to Cure Olives

Dhaktyla recipe

Afelia recipe

Octopus stifado recipe

Pickling Caper Berries and Leaves

Cooking with a Pressure Cooker

Gorgeous juicer recipes using seasonal Cyprus Fruit and Veg

How to Make a Brandy Sour