wow that was completely beautiful our fangs to time lapse photographer didn't need for this so a greek at meze gathers together all kinds of savory foods in the time you're looking for a stand out presentation for appetizers or a fantastic party platter this is going to become your go to let me show you my recipe for a healthy teddies these are tasty little greek meatballs so mixing the spices herbs and other ingredients into a beet negm it's a big difference in distributing flavor so i have one egg that i've whisk here and now i'm going to add about now working together thank you and i also have just a little touch of white pepper too just for a little bit of a different flavor so i'm putting all that again and then i am going to throw in some vinegar about a teaspoon of vinegar or so because it just sharpens everything up they really brings out the contrasts and all the flavors just makes everything taste better i'm a huge fan of fresh herbs i know probably many of you are and you know we don't use a lot of fresh oregano in this country but it has a wonderful flavor it's not as sharp as dry to regen oh so it adds a mellower undertone so i've got some here and we're going to throw in about i'd say a teaspoon or so of chopped regen now another herb that i love is freshman and this is all about greek food i mint is is in greek food in so many dishes it brings a fantastic freshness into all kinds of recipes spearmint is the authentic greek mint so if you can find that go for it and i'm adding about three  some onions i have some very finely chopped red onion i'm going to add that again and that adds just a wonderful flavor now here are the kinds of things you wouldn't necessarily think about putting in your meat balls but if you've ever had cinnamon in your meatballs with bread crumbs now has bread crumbs you know they're stabiliser and they put all the is these fresh flavors together and how she going to make a good mixture and you find those little round canisters in the supermarket there dried bread crumbs and they're going to have a different flavor for you than fresh bread will have and so i'm not usually a fan of white bread but i have found that good quality white bread is just it's going to make these new balls more tender and delicious so what i do is i just the bread and then it's a quick tip because what sometimes you try great bread it gets all over the place so i just kind of put it in four and then like that it just is so much easier this way just to grate it like that so that's how we do that with the bread crumb then i've got about a half a cup of bread crumbs that i've put into our mix here bring that all together and now it's time to add the need to the meat balls so i've got about three quarters of a pound of ground lamb and a quarter pound of ground beef both are eighty five percent lean we want to little fat for flavor but not too much so now we add the egg mixture in and we have to find a mixing this all up together sometimes i use like a potato masher i just have a quick spoon here most of the time i do this with my hands because you just you know nice clean hands you mix everything together and it just comes out really well so we've got that and obviously i'm trying to save time here and it's to be mixed better but we don't over mix either you know we don't want to get  mushy clumping together so just mix it just until everything is incorporated and then refrigerated for at least an hour this gives the flavors time to mingle and it's a lot easier to shape your meatballs too so when you're ready you're going to shape your meatballs and from second time i just moving ahead here so i have some flour and i always dress them in flour and then i get a cast iron pan if you don't have a cast iron pan that's ok but if you can use a cast iron pad and makes a huge difference and then greek olive oil which is very earthy and robust when you're cooking great food you know really go for it and get get the greek olive oil because going to make a huge difference for you so i layer you know probably that much of a good system out of olive oil in here so they can really cook and then i cook them until they're beautifully brown on the whole sides so then i take them and i have them just all set up and i like to garnish them and get them ready for the platter so right now let's just take a look at these because they're so beautiful and when i say they're ready for their close up yeah i think you know what i mean so these are just so beautiful tender fresh when you put them in your mouth the lamb really stands out and again you get a feeling of really tender lightness with these meatballs which is really texture that i've built into this recipe so i buy strange two percent greek yogurt and then i always pour the liquid out on top then i strain that again maybe a half hour or more and i actually end up with even more liquid so this just makes the yogurt thicker and richer which is what we're looking for so i'm going to put about half a cup there we go and the other thing that i found which is a little different but it makes a big difference in flavor is that south korea is wonderful and has he it has that heavier feel and that deep tang a quality so i actually do a half and a half mixture of both so i've got some sour cream here and i add that into and so the combination of them is really rich and wonderful so i like to use a fork when i am mixing these together everything just comes together so much more use a length and some of the additives to a little bit of salt in here and then i have a clove diced garlic you that fresh it depends on how fresh your deal is but i have fresh del here and i want to put in about two tablespoons but then let me taste it and see what you think you know it may taste ok it may not but you know it's something you just want to to look into and then i have another little ingredient here that i'm kind of throwing in that you may wonder what is she thinking but i have found that just maybe a quarter of a teaspoon or so of sugar really plays to the sour notes of the yogurt in the sour cream so it may not seem to make sense but go with it because it just makes a tiny speck so here's the other thing about this dish that's so important it's a cucumber i mean there's nothing like this cold cucumber in the dizzy on a hot summer day so what i've done here is i have peeled it in half like this and then i'm going to cut it into these long wedge hoarders and then i'm just going to cut away the seeds because they don't help our situation here but see this one doesn't really cut that well she got the gist of what i'm doing here and then again i go back to the greater because what we're going to do is you just use the large holes on the greater again if you use the smaller ones it just gets too mushy so we're just going to grate half a cucumber just like this and then what i do is i put it in a clean dish towel i let it sit for an hour or two because you're just going to end up with a much more cucumber a taste and and i really you know it's like wow you just like fresh this is fresh a beautiful cucumber so i throw all that in up you can refrigerator just get a little cool and then that's it so let's take a look at another beautiful photo of our finished product so i want you to see what it looks like and there it is now it's all instagram ready right  a lot of the time so you can put it inside there's a dk or you can just put it on top as a garnish and boy is this so good with the meatballs inside a pita way it's like heaven so not to put any pressure on you to visit them all but there are actually six thousand greek islands in the aegean and ionian sea celestial cruises is a greek own tour company that offers really interesting and authentic vacations they know their islands so here's a look along with two turkish locations and some of the l right well you can see our mess platter is really starting to come together i have two more quick rest plays that i want to show you and one is just one of my favorites of all greek foods it's a simple simple marinated salad so what i'm doing here is i'm going little tiny bit of salt to that but not too much and the reason is that we're going to be putting something on special at the end so i'll kind of hold that to the end of show you now one of us think that you're supposed to do as an olive oil and tomatoes with fresh tomatoes that's something that people tend to do but i find they taste a lot better and brighter and more interesting with just a splash of red wine vinegar or any kind of an air but but because this is greek of course we use the red wine vinegar it's just that splash of vinegar and we put a little salt on and now we top it off with about a teaspoon maybe to two spoons fresh capers and you can find these in specialty food stores in the olive or cheese section they're really so much different so so so much better than the jarred are the recipes we have for you and it's time for a look at our finished mez platter so let me show you how we put it all together on a beautiful board i like to use a like a wooden cutting board like i cope with h because that way i can lay out fresh herbs and you know these are all the herbs that we've used in the cooking we've got the reagan oh the mint the parsley and that just makes it all so much nicer it looks pretty and then you can actually double on the herbs too with everything so you can see our meatballs from the center with their partially garnish and then next to them ours that zuki and then our marinate if that isn't the middle of what some other dishes too because i like to focus on maybe three or four you know of my recipes and then and yes you can eat them so it's all good when you put that all together and you can take a bite of this a bite of that and you're just sitting around with people you care about and just and enjoying the nibbles of this i mean it's just something really special and of course we use pita bread typically we put it slice it into six triangles music for scooping it like a little sandwiches now some people like to toast pita bread but i find it is going to be a lot easier to cut if you actually put it in the freezer for maybe a half hour or so then you can just put a surrounded knife through and make your cuts and is going to be a lot faster and easier for you to do and then you just just use it up to pick up any and it just it all works perfectly and you can also just open up the little