The cream skimmed off goat and sheep milk, cooked slowly with a little flour until it splits into a thick white paste and a clear golden butter. Both halves get used, and both are richer than anything else on the table.
Staka is dairy economics turned into a delicacy. Cretan shepherds skimmed the cream off milk left to stand, then cooked it down with flour over a low fire. The paste that forms is staka; the butter that separates out is stakovoutyro, and it goes into gamopilafo, into pastries, and over potatoes. Nothing is wasted. It is a mountain product, made where flocks are, and it travels badly, which is why it stays a Cretan speciality rather than a Greek one. Heraklion kitchens use it as a finishing fat: stirred into wedding rice, spooned over grilled pork fillet, or served plain with bread and a glass of raki.
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