This recipe is inspired by pitarakia, small handheld pies enjoyed on the Greek island of Ikaria, filled with up to 20 different seasonal greens and herbs, onions, leeks, and olive oil. Diane Kochilas turned the idea into “the kind of rice dish that is so beloved both in Ikaria and throughout Greece—a comforting, soft dish silky with olive oil and sprightly with all the nutrition that so many greens and herbs impart,” she writes in “The Ikaria Way.”
The dish falls under a category of Greek dishes called ladera, “in oil“—meaning olive oil, which Ms. Kochilas calls ”the defining food of the Mediterranean diet.”
