Serve up a Greek feast with these springtime Easter recipes

When I think about Easter, I fantasise about Greece and Sicily. In Sicily, almond trees are in blossom in February and March, with frothy clouds of white and pink flowers everywhere. I suppose I think that the spring they experience so early should be felt by everyone. I’m yearning for globe artichokes but they’ve been eating them since late February. By Easter, marzipan is being used to make doll-sized fruits painted with tiny brushes – these are called frutta martorana. There are baroque creations such as cassata, an elaborate cake, but many areas have their own particular celebratory treats. In Favara in Agrigento, they have agnello pasquale, a lamb shaped in marzipan, filled with pistachios and sugar, and decorated with silver bells, beads and ribbons.

And then there is actual lamb, prepared in different ways; in braises such as lamb spezzatino, where the meat is cooked with saffron and mint, and roasts that are cooked plainly with potatoes, olive oil, garlic and herbs. Lamb, pistachios, almonds and herbs seem perfect foods with which to usher in a new season and warmer weather – and to think, even if you’re not religious, about new beginnings.

Greece, if anything, has even more ways to cook lamb. Looking through Diane Kochilas’s masterful work The Glorious Foods of Greece, there’s lamb roasted with potatoes and artichokes, with lemons and vegetables, and stuffed with ricotta, dill, fennel, mint and eggs. Incidentally, I have owned this book for nearly 25 years. There are no photographs and more than 500 pages. It’s pure cooking, research and joy from beginning to end.

It’s not just lamb that is worth celebrating, it’s the rich regionality of Greek food: carrot and pumpkin pie from Kefalonia, greens pie with milk and eggs from Roumeli, chicken and cheese pie from Epirus (one of the best areas for pies in the whole country). There’s a Greek Easter bread called tsoureki, which is a bit like challah, scented with citrus, anise and dried cherry pits, and often decorated with eggs dyed red (to represent Christ’s blood).

Easter is not just nodded to, as it is here, it’s steeped in celebration – processions, specific to particular villages and regions, happen in Holy Week, and Easter Sunday starts at midnight with as much excitement as New Year brings elsewhere. There are bells, fireworks and dancing. It’s a party.

I have said before that Easter should be as big a celebration here as Christmas is. Many of you may well hate this idea – more cooking, more money spent and yet another big event to host – but the main meal could be as simple as the roast lamb with spinach, spring onions and rice here (and it’s all cooked in one dish). Simple dishes seem right for spring – it feels as if you’re opening all the windows and letting in light. The traditional Christmas meal in this country is heavy and rich, and you can end up passed out on the sofa afterwards. Easter food pulls you outside; in fact the Greek Easter feast is often eaten as a barbecue, including lamb roasted on a spit.

The feast on these pages is Greek-ish rather than completely authentic. The lamb is based on a Greek dish (so many of the Easter lamb dishes share the same ingredients), and there’s my version of the Greek classic gigantes plaki. The baba ghanoush is from Oma, a Greek restaurant in London. I loved it so much I begged them for the recipe – the confit garlic makes all the difference. It’s not a Greek dip, though you find it in Athens.

The Greek Orthodox Easter usually falls on a different date to ours. They follow the Julian calendar and we follow the Gregorian one, but this year we have Easter on the same day. A good reason to celebrate on 20 April with Greek food.