Traditional dishes: Maties a Christmas dish from Thrace

I was looking forward to this theme and I am excited to see what recipes all of you are going to share here, so let me bring you something most of you might find disgusting, but I think is really tasty and can't imagine Christmas without!

A traditional Christmas dish from Thrace, where my mum's ancestors come from:

Maties

or Babes or Bobaria
This is something I remember having at the Cristmas table ever since I can remember myself. My grandma has been making them for years and we all love them!

At a first look they don't seem too impressive

^{And wait until you hear what they're made of...}

Maties are basically pork intestines _{(don't gag please!)} filled with rice and meat (mainly pork liver and thigh).

In order to be edible, the intestines have a very time-consuming and extra tiring process to go under - Grandma, you're a hero for doing this every year!
First of all, you have to buy the intestines from a butcher you know and trust and then it's up to you to do all the smelly job! Of course you buy the intestines cleared of any 'digestion byproducts', but you need to wash them many many times again before you cook them.

Grandma's way

She lets the intestines for almost a day in a pot filled with water and vinegar (since vinegar kills germs and odors), but she changes the water every few hours. Then she turns them the inside out in order to be able to remove any dirt from the inside and starts washing them under running water.

The stench?
Yes, unbearable I know! I wonder how she does it...

When they are clean (which takes many washing rounds) they can be filled with the extra yummy stuffing. The tips are tied with some thread so as to avoid any 'leakage' and the baking tray gets into the oven.

While being cooked they give off a very distinguishing smell, some may find annoying others find tempting_{(guess whose team I'm in)}. This is a very special dish, not for everyone's mouth and stomach to handle, you can tell...

When ready, you can remove the pieces of thread (you don't want to eat those I believe), cut into smaller pieces and serve on your festive table...

Our traditional Christmas table has Maties, some fried pork and some pork-and-rice soup. Red wine is poured into our glasses and the celebrations begin!

What do you say?

Would you try out these?

And this special dish is my entry for the new @cookwithus contest on Whaleshares:

Cook with Us #21 - Traditional dish from your country

^{Image source}

Thank you so much for your time!

Until my next post,
Steem on and keep smiling, people!

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^{Original content by @ruth-girl - 2019 - All rights reserved
Also shared on my Whaleshares blog}