KO’s Papara

Our second offering for “Starting your day the Greek way” is Papara!
 
Stale bread cut into chunks and served with warm milk OR loaded with lashings of creamy natural yoghurt… that is Papara. It is usually savoury and it’s enjoyed as a light meal or snack.
 
The meaning of Papara also extends to the dunking of bread in olive oil, salad juices and pan juices, which are all part of the true Greek gastronomic experience.
 
Growing up under the Meteora my parents both enjoyed Papara with Xinogalo (sour milk). Sheep and goats were milked. The milk was collected in a large metal bowl and strained, before being placed in a galodermato (milk-leather). The galodermato was made from an entire goat or sheep skin (from the neck down). The skin was washed, shaved, softened and dried in the sun. The legs of the skin were used to create handles for the bag. The handles were reinforced with heavy duty twine. The milk was left in the galodermato for a few days to ferment and create xinogalo. The xinogalo was drunk as is or mixed with bread to make papara.
 
I have my own “papara story”… when I was young, my dad worked at Judakoff’s Delicatessen at the Prahran Market. He would return home from work with stinky cheeses (for a young nose), small goods, olives, onions rolls (who remembers those?) and a jar or two of Gippsland Sour Cream. I loved it when the Sour Cream glass jar was half empty, because then I would cut chunks of bread and add them to the jar (can someone confirm the bottle had a drawing of a young girl on it?), attempt to mix the bread through the sour cream and savour each and every sour, creamy morsel. Oh man, take me back!
 
In today’s video I am sharing a sweetened milk version and a savoury yoghurt version. The yoghurt I used is Farmers Union Greek-Style Yoghurt, because it’s tangy, creamy and has just the right consistency to coat the bread chunks perfectly. I hope you try both and enjoy the joyful comfort of these humble preparations.

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KO's Papara

Course Breakfast

Cuisine Greek

Keyword bread, cinnamon, milk pie, papara, sugar

Ingredients

For the milk papara you will need… 

• 10-12 bite-sized chunks of stale bread 
• 150-200 ml full-fat milk,   warmed
• Cinnamon  
• Sugar

For the yoghurt papara you will need… 

• 10-12 bite-sized chunks of stale bread 
• 200 g Greek-Yoghurt (preferably on the looser side) 
• Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) 
• Sea salt 

Instructions

Preparing the milk papara 

1. Pour warm milk over the stale bread pieces in a soup bowl 

2. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon and sugar 

3. Enjoy! 

Preparing the yoghurt papara 

1. Dollop the yoghurt over the stale bread pieces in a soup bowl 

2. Drizzle generously with EVOO and season with sea salt

3. Enjoy!

Serving papara 

1. Serve papara for breakfast, lunch, a light supper or as a snack 

2. Kali Orexi!