Award-winning food writer and cook Georgina Hayden has shared three lesser-known yet “gorgeous” Greek and Cypriot dishes to try this summer – and they do not require fancy ingredients.

One of her favourites is called tava and she says it is “such an easy dish” to make.

“I love it,” the 43-year-old says. “It’s basically slow-cooked lamb mixed with rice and/or potatoes, lots of tomatoes, onions and cumin.

“You really don’t have to do anything – you don’t pre-fry anything, you don’t pre-cook anything. It’s all completely raw, you literally just mix it all in a big tray and you put it in the oven.

“You could put it in at 10 or 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning and that is your all-in-one Sunday dish… it’s a gorgeous dish.”

Another is yiahni, a style of cooking where vegetables are slowly cooked in olive oil and tomatoes, and occasionally with meat, and she says this is a “wonderful way of celebrating vegetables”.

She says cooking vegetables for a long time, sometimes up to an hour, makes them “sweet and tender and delicious”.

“It was something we ate in abundance and we’d always have it as a big pot on the table, with fresh bread, a bowl of olives and olive oil on the side, and I love that style of cooking,” she says.

The third is called afelia, which is slow-cooked chunks of pork with red wine and crushed coriander seeds, but she says this is “very rare”.

“You wouldn’t find it anywhere other than a Cypriot person’s house or a Cypriot restaurant, and it’s something I haven’t seen doing the rounds yet. But it’s super tender, melt-in-the-mouth, and really aromatic. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous dish.”

Growing up above her grandparents’ Greek-Cypriot taverna, Hayden developed a love of cooking and storytelling through the recipes passed down to her.

The mother-of-two started her career working at various food magazines and then went on to join Jamie Oliver’s food team, where she worked for more than a decade.

“I very much grew up in this food environment and our life revolved around the restaurant,” she says.

“I always joke that my life is pretty much, My Big Fat Greek Wedding – I married an English boy and grew up in a restaurant and was geeky and wore big glasses – but that’s where I get my passion from.”

Although she is “biased”, Hayden, who lives in London, says she loves Cypriot and Greek food and another favourite dish is avgolemono – a “nourishing” type of chicken soup.

Through her work and her travels across the world, she is “constantly writing and developing and having fun with food” and creating new recipes.

This led Hayden, who writes for publications such as The Telegraph, Delicious Magazine and Observer Food Monthly, to release her latest cookbook called MEDesque.

Described as a celebration of the very best of Mediterranean food done Hayden’s way, the recipes are easy yet delicious and inspired by flavours from the coastlines of Italy, Spain, the Baltics and beyond.

“My first few books were super traditional… but for the last two, from Greekish (2024) and MEDesque now, having fun with them has been liberating,” she says.

“We’re all so busy, whether you’ve got kids or not, or you work or you’re a carer, we want one-pan dishes or we want things a bit quicker. It’s so much fun being able to get those recipes and mess them up a bit.

“I’m never a prescriptive cook,” she adds. “I think it’s all about having things in your arsenal and knowing what you can use when, and I think that’s a really powerful tool.”

From working on a fishing boat in Malta and learning to make pastry in Morocco or fresh almond milk in Sicily, she has had many memorable food experiences.

She says she met some olive farmers in Crete and described them as “two of the healthiest people I’ve ever met my life” – and the couple both incorporate olive oil into their diet in an unusual way.

“They pour olive oil in their coffee in the morning,” she says. “He wasn’t saying it for comedic effect, he meant it and said, ‘Yeah, I have olive oil in my coffee every day’, and I just thought, ‘Wow’. I mean, this guy must have been his 50s and he was the absolute vision of health, and I just thought, ‘Gosh, there’s so much to learn’.”

Hayden says the Mediterranean diet is often referred to as “the best in the world” and, with “fad diets and social media”, she feels it is important to keep learning and to keep trying different foods.

As for other dishes olive oil is used in, but not commonly, she says it is delicious poured over vanilla ice cream with a pinch of salt or baked into cakes as it “keeps the sponge moist”.

There’s even an Amalfi lemon, almond, and elderflower wedding cake recipe in MEDesque that includes extra-virgin olive oil.

“I’m always team olive oil,” Hayden says.

Hayden, who has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, along with Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch and BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen, has various trips planned this year and wants to continue learning about food.

One of her favourites in MEDesque is the one-pan lasagne, which she says is great for a beginner, but she explains that “95 per cent of the ingredients in the book are very everyday”, so everyone can make the dishes.

Speaking about what she hopes people will learn from the cookbook, she says: “It’s just making the recipes their own.

“As a food writer, if I can write a book which becomes a staple part of someone’s kitchen, I mean, that’s the absolute dream.”

Pappa al ratatouille

“A mixture of ideas inspired by my adoration for Italian pappa pomodoro, but with French and Spanish influences,” Hayden says. “It’s so, so delicious, though it’s very humble and it doesn’t look like much. It becomes so creamy that it’s hard to believe it contains no dairy.

“If you’ve got a glut of lovely late-summer veg, it’s just stunning, a great make-do-and-mend style soup. If you don’t have a courgette, don’t worry about it; if you have more peppers, just shove them in. Make it to your tastes.”

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves

2 red peppers

1 aubergine

2 courgettes

½ bunch of thyme

Extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp caster sugar

400g can good-quality chopped tomatoes

125g stale bread, ideally ciabatta (gluten-free, if needed)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Start by prepping all your vegetables.

2. Peel and finely slice the garlic. Halve the peppers, remove the seeds and finely slice. Peel the aubergine in stripes, leaving some of the skin on, and cut into small cubes, around one-and-a-half centimetres. Cut the courgettes the same size. Pick the thyme leaves.

3. Place a large saucepan or flameproof casserole over a medium heat and pour in four tablespoons of olive oil, then add the garlic.

4. Fry for a minute before adding all the rest of the prepared vegetables, the sugar and most of the thyme.

5. Season generously and fry for 15 to 20 minutes, over a medium-high heat, until the vegetables are coloured and starting to soften.

6. Add the tomatoes to the pan, pour in 800 millilitres of water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and leave to simmer for around 30 minutes, until the soup has thickened and is rich.

7. Tear the bread into small chunks and stir into the soup. Cook for a further 10 minutes.

8. Stir in two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, taste and adjust the seasoning.

9. Serve with the remaining thyme sprinkled over the top.

One-pan moussaka

“Making a good traditional moussaka is a wholesome, but time-consuming process,” says Hayden. “That’s not the case with this version, which I created because of the love for the one-pan pastitsio from my last book, Greekish.

“This is a recipe that you can easily make on a weeknight evening. We’re not spending time whisking a white sauce here, or frying slices and slices of veg. It will impress, while also absolutely satisfy that Greek holiday moussaka craving we all get from time to time.”

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

2 red onions

2 garlic cloves

1 large aubergine

Olive oil

400g minced meat (Hayden likes half beef and half pork, but use what you like, even lamb is good)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp dried oregano, plus more for the top

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

2 tbsp tomato purée

400ml beef stock

750g waxy potatoes, red-skinned if possible

250g mascarpone

250g Greek yoghurt

1 large egg, plus 1 egg yolk

50g Parmesan

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Peel and finely chop the onions and garlic cloves.

2. Peel and cut the aubergine into one-and-a-half to two-centimetre cubes.

3. Set a wide, shallow flameproof casserole that has a lid over a medium heat and add enough olive oil to cover the base.

4. Fry the aubergine for around five minutes until golden. Season as you go and stir just a couple of times; you want to get a nice crust.

5. When it’s golden, add the minced meat and increase the heat to high. Break the meat up with a wooden spoon and season it well.

6. Add the ground cinnamon, dried oregano and cayenne. Brown for a few minutes, then add the chopped onions and garlic and fry for a further 10 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas mark five.

8. Stir the tomato purée into the meat, fry for a few minutes, then pour in the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer while you slice the potatoes. Scrub, then slice them as finely as you can, two to three millimetres thick.

9. Remove the casserole from the hob and lay the potatoes over the top, overlapping them as you go, a bit like a hotpot. Season and sprinkle with a little extra oregano, drizzle with olive oil and cover the casserole with the lid.

10. Place the covered dish in the oven for 30 minutes, removing the lid for the last 10 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.

11. Mix the mascarpone, Greek yoghurt, egg and egg yolk in a bowl. Finely grate in most of the Parmesan, season and stir it in.

12. Remove the casserole from the oven, pour over the sauce, then finely grate over the remaining Parmesan.

13. Return to the oven, without the lid, and bake for a further 25 to 30 minutes, until golden all over and bubbling.

14. Leave to rest for five minutes before serving.

Churros Dutch baby

“I love classic Spanish churros for breakfast – who doesn’t?” Hayden says. “Dipped in hot chocolate, they’re such a treat, but deep-frying is not something I want to be doing on a weekday morning (or any morning, come to that). This is a striking and fun alternative.

“As with all good batters, you can just leave this one in the fridge overnight for next-level effortlessness. My kids’ dream breakfast.”

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

85g plain flour

275ml whole milk

3 large eggs

A good pinch of sea salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g unsalted butter

4 tbsp icing sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

150g chocolate (Hayden likes a mixture of dark and milk, but whatever floats your boat…)

200ml single cream

Method:

1. Blitz the plain flour, 175 millilitres of the whole milk, the eggs, sea salt and vanilla in a blender until smooth. You can also do this by hand with a whisk.

2. If you can, cover and leave the mixture to rest for 30 minutes, or in the fridge if leaving longer (though bring the batter to room temperature before cooking).

3. Preheat your oven to 220C/200C fan/gas mark seven.

4. Cut the butter into cubes and place in a large ovenproof frying pan or cast-iron pan.

5. Pop into the oven until the butter has melted and is browned (this adds loads of flavour), but you don’t want it to burn, so keep an eye on it.

6. Working quickly and carefully, leave the pan in the oven, pour in the batter and shut the door. Leave it untouched for 20 minutes (do not open that door!).

7. Then reduce the oven temperature to 180C/160C fan/gas mark four and bake for a further five minutes.

8. While the pancake is baking, make the cinnamon sugar and the hot chocolate. Mix the icing sugar and ground cinnamon and set aside. Cut or break the chocolate into small equal-sized pieces and place them in a heatproof bowl.

9. When the Dutch baby is almost ready, heat the single cream and remaining 100 millilitres of milk in a small saucepan over a medium heat, so it is hot but not boiling. Remove from the hob before it starts to bubble, then pour it over the chocolate. Leave for one minute, then stir until you have a thick, smooth chocolate sauce.

10. When the Dutch baby is ready, remove from the oven and dust straight away with the cinnamon sugar, as evenly as you can. Serve with the chocolate sauce on the side.

‘MEDesque’ by Georgina Hayden (Bloomsbury Publishing, £26).