Extra Sauce Recipes: A Wildly Delicious & (Mostly) Greek Night with Callie

We’re a hungry crew at Graft and as much as we love to drink delicious wines at the shop, we’re just as happy to sit down for a great meal with friends when we have a night away. We couldn’t possibly ship you on this tour of unique wines without a compass on bites you can enjoy. We enlisted our culinary general & matriarch, Callie White, to help us cook up a meal worthy of ‘Extra Sauce’. Don’t overthink it, this meal is supposed to be fun, fresh and delicious.

From Callie: “This is my favorite summer dinner! I have it in some iteration every week at home.  You could easily substitute the swordfish with chicken or lamb chops. You can also serve it with small, cut in half yukon gold potatoes and onions tossed in the basic dressing (see below) and roasted until they are golden and crispy.”

Note: For people that want to bounce around the recipe (like us) there is a bit of method to the madness here. It’s easiest to start with assembling the salad and putting it in the fridge. The salad dressing is the key to the marinade so we want to make that early in the meal and get the fish marinating. Next, prep the carrots and get them into the oven and while they are cooking you can make the tzatziki and get your mise en place for the pan con tomate. Preheat your grill. When the carrots are out of the food processor, skewer the fish and get them on the grill, they won’t take long. As soon as the fish comes off, place the oiled bread on the grill and when they are crispy and a bit charred, the swordfish should be perfectly rested.

Big Greek Salad

What you need:

1 red or green bell pepper, chopped into 1/2” pieces

1/2 seedless cucumber, peeled and chopped into 1/2“ pieces

Red onion, julienned

Feta cheese crumbled, but keep in rather large pieces so it won't disappear in the tossing 

Kalamata olives

1 head of romaine lettuce stripped to the heart and chopped into bite-sized pieces (1” strips)

Salt and pepper

½ cup of basic salad dressing (see below)

Chop everything and put it into a bowl in the fridge

Toss with the basic salad dressing right before serving

*** you will probably not need all of the dressing - put in, toss taste, add more along with S&P if needed. 

Basic Dressing (salad dressing AND fish marinade):

This “basic dressing” is far from basic. It is a staple in most of our family’s households and can be used in so many different ways. The prep is simple and it can be used on any protein / most salads. You kinda kill two birds with one stone here as the swordfish marinade is more or less the salad dressing with some extra chopped fresh herbs.

What you need:

3 or 4 garlic cloves minced

¼ cup of fresh oregano (if you decide to use dried oregano, make sure you use significantly less ~tablespoon)

1 big sprig of fresh rosemary (if you decide to use dried rosemary, make sure you use significantly less  ~tablespoon)
2 long sprigs of thyme (if you decide to use dried thyme, make sure you use significantly less ~tablespoon)

3 large lemons

Salt and Pepper

White Sugar

Good Olive Oil

Salad Dressing:

Finely chop 1/4 cup oregano

1/2 c lemon juice with a teaspoon of zest

lots of kosher salt and ground pepper +

1/2 tsp of sugar

let this mixture sit 10 minutes 

Whisk in 3/4 to 1 cup olive oil

Taste for salt and astringency add more olive oil if needed

Set ½ cup aside for dressing the big salad right before eating and take the other ½ cup for below:

Swordfish Marinade:

Take ½ cup of the finished salad dressing and add:

Finely chopped rosemary sprig

Finely chopped thyme sprigs

Swordfish Kabobs:

4 servings

Buy one big piece of swordfish if possible ~1 1/2 lbs 

Divide the hunk into two and trim away all of the blood line 

Slice the halves into large chunks (about 1”x1”x1”) don’t worry if they aren’t the perfect shape, craggy shapes get crispy on the grill. 

Put the chunks into a plastic bag and pour the reserved marinade over.

Set in fridge for half an hour / ideally an hour but not longer (while this is marinating, we made the carrots/tzatziki / salad - skip below for those and come back here when you’ve prepped the rest of the meal)

Grilling the kabobs:

Preheat your grill to high and once the fish has finished marinating, you need to skewer the fish and place on the grill (this should be one of the last things you do before eating)

Feel free to take the reserve marinade and pour it over the fish while it is grilling

Our grill gets pretty hot, but everyone’s is different - our fish was nice and blackened after being on an open grill no longer than 6 minutes (3 minutes one side, 3 minutes the other)

While the fish is resting we grilled our bread for the pan con tomate.

Callie’s Turkish Carrots:

We love carrots as much as the next person, but sometimes we want to spice (pun intended) things up a bit. You see it more and more now, but carrots and caraway seeds go together so amazingly well. A quick pulse in the food processor results in a super tender, spicy/salty/sweet accoutrement that will make everyone happy. While this is a side dish for this meal, you can make this anytime to have as a mezze with flatbread and tzatziki sauce. 

What you need:

5 or 6 large, peeled carrots

2 large / 3 small shallots medium, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons good olive oil

2 tablespoons Caraway Seeds (we love Spicewalla out of Asheville)

Small bunch of parsley

½ large lemon

Salt and Pepper

Chop the peeled carrots into 1”-1.5” pieces (see above) and place on a sheet pan with the 2 tablespoons of olive oil, lots of salt and fresh ground pepper, chopped shallots and the 2 tablespoons of caraway seed. 

Mix with your hands to ensure all is coated with olive oil and you still have little puddles. Move the shallots to the center so they will not burn.

Roast at 425 degrees until they are turning dark brown at the edges and you can easily stick a knife into them - you want to have lots of good dark brown goodies on the bottom. Should take about 25/30 minutes

Scrape all of this into a food processor with one small bunch of parsley leaves

Squeeze ½ of the large lemon into the food processor

Pulse until it looks shredded, about ⅛” pieces (see photo). If it seems dry, feel free to throw a little more olive oil in the food processor

Tzatziki sauce: Another staple in our refrigerators, this sauce is good on everything. We will often take the leftover tzatziki and make gyros at home later that week with shoestring fries and dip everything into the tzatziki, it’s a strong move. Light and refreshing, this is a staple condiment and so easy to make. What people consider traditional tzatziki varies area to area (dill or mint / lemon or vinegar etc) but this is what we like. 

What you need:

1 small container Fage full fat plain (5% milk fat) yogurt - more fat the better

2 pressed/smashed large garlic cloves

2/3 tablespoons of chopped fresh dill or fresh mint (half of us prefer mint, the other half prefers dill but pick one or the other, not both)

2 tablespoons of good olive oil

1 lemon

2 persian cucumbers, chopped into small 1/4 “ pieces (regular cucumber will work too)

½ tsp of salt (we used 1 tsp because we have a problem)

Mix yogurt, garlic cloves, cucumber, dill or mint together in a medium sized mixing bowl. Whisk in olive oil and the juice of 1 lemon until thoroughly mixed. Let sit for at least 20 minutes. Feel free to add any more of one ingredient depending on what you and your friends like

This will be your accompaniment to the carrots and the sauce for the swordfish.

Pan con tomate:

Now that we finally have tomatoes popping up, this seemed like a no brainer. It’s such a simple recipe, and it’s great because everyone can participate and it can accompany pretty much any dinner. A staple in Catalonia, Pan con tomate can be seen across the Mediterranean.

What you need:

One loaf of thick country bread

3 or 4 tablespoons of good olive oil depending on how many servings

4 large garlic cloves

2 or 3 heirloom tomatoes if in season (campari tomatoes work well too)

Cut rather thick slices of country bread (think texas toast) & generously brush with olive oil on both sides.

Peel the garlic cloves and halve 2 tomatoes (quarters if larger, basically want to be able to grip it in your hand).  PHOTO

Grill bread until both sides are crunchy and lightly charred but still soft in the middle

Remove from grill and rub with a garlic clove all over several times on one side

until the aroma is prevalent.

Tomato needs to be rubbed into the bread on the cut side until all the flesh is gone and you are left with the peel. you might be able to make one tomato cover two toasts.

**Put on a platter with manchego cheese, pan fried haloumi cheese, big green olives,  and prosciutto for before dinner snacks.  

Thanks, Callie!