Vanilla

Vanilla in a Greek kitchen usually means a small paper sachet of vanillin powder rather than a bottle of extract or a pod. The sachets are sold in strips in every Greek supermarket, and when an older Greek recipe calls for one vanilia it means one of these, roughly equivalent to a teaspoon of extract, which is worth knowing before translating a quantity literally.

Its main work is in the custard and cream side of Greek sweets: the semolina custard inside galaktoboureko and bougatsa, rice pudding, ekmek kataifi and the cream layers of most bakery cakes, usually alongside a strip of lemon peel rather than on its own. It rarely leads a Greek dessert, since honey, syrup and spice do most of the talking.

The one place it does lead is the ypovrichio, the submarine: a spoonful of stiff white vanilla fondant dropped into a glass of ice water and eaten off the spoon, a summer treat still served in old-fashioned cafes. Vanilla flavour also fades under long baking, so extract goes into a custard off the heat rather than into a pan at the start.