2009 January » Israeli Kitchen

Turkish Salad (Salat Turki)

Jan 292009

Turkish salad most often appears on the table as part of a colorful meze selection. It makes a good party salad, too, because you can make it a day or two ahead and it will still be wonderful. Note how healthy it is, too – low in fat and chockful of Vitamin C. Here’s my version.

Turkish Salad

yield: approximately 4 cups

Ingredients:

1 large onion

2 Tblsp. olive oil

1 green bell pepper

2 red bell peppers

2 large tomatoes

3 Tblsp. sliced or pitted, chopped green olives

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1 bay leaf

4 Tblsp. tomato purée

2 Tblsp. parley or coriander leaf

Tabasco or other hot sauce to taste

Method:

1. Peel and dice the onions. Fry them in the olive oil till golden: use a medium-sized pan or a large frying pan.

2. Remove the stem, seeds and white inner membrane from all the peppers. Chop into dice. Add them to the onions. Cover the pan and cook the vegetables till the peppers are soft – about 8 minutes. Stir once or twice.

3. Dice the tomatoes. If necessary, pit and slice the olives. Add all of these to the pan.

4. Add the bay leaf, black pepper, cumin, salt, and tomato paste. If you like, add Tabasco or chili of choice.

5. Cover the pan again and cook the vegetables over a medium flame for about 15 minutes.

Some want the vegetables to retain their individual forms and tastes (I do). Others like to blend their Turkish Salad and serve it as a dip. ‘Tis up to you.

6. Chop the parsley and sprinkle it over the salad. I didn’t have parsley when I took the photo above, but it does finish the look of the dish (and tastes good too).

Serve hot or cold.

Bruschetta (and how to say it)

Everyday Cooking, Just Hungry 6 Responses »

Jan 272009

A reader asked me what bruschetta is. It’s Italian for “toasted bread with toppings.” A handy, quickly-assembled appetizer or snack. If your toppings are substantial, add a glass of wine and you have a meal. All you need is some good bread, fresh or a few days old, plus olive oil, garlic, and any topping that presents itself to your mind. My favorite topping is simple: a slice of slow-roasted tomato, sprinkled with herb salt and plenty of pepper. If I have some around, a little chopped basil. Grated cheese is nice too, but more for looks than for flavor, because the garlic and tomatoes are delicious just alone together.

Today there was an unexpected guest for lunch, someone who really appreciates food and (probably because I write a food blog), has high expectations of my cooking. All I had on hand was vegetable soup and a tossed salad. But I wanted to please my guest, so to round out the menu I got this bruschetta together – in about 5 minutes.

There was sesame challah, getting stale.

I took slices off the challah and toasted them lightly under the grill. Tradition dictates rubbing a clove of garlic over the surface of the toast, then drizzling a little olive oil over it. But I like lots of garlic. I crushed a small clove, mixed it into a tablespoon of olive oil, and spread the garlicky oil over the toasted slices.

As there were some tomatoes slow-roasting in the oven, I fished some halves out and sliced each one in half again, horizontally. Each toasted slice received a slice of tomato. If I hadn’t had slow-roasted tomatoes handily sitting around, I would have sliced a tomato up thickly and sautéed the slices in olive oil. I sprinkled a little herb salt and some ground black pepper over the ensemble.

But there were more un-topped, grilled toasts. I snatched up some feta that was lurking in the fridge, sliced that too, topped the rest of the bread with it. Everything went back into the oven, under the grill for a few minutes. When the feta was warm and soft, I poked a few dimples into its surface, drizzled a little olive oil over it, and shook some paprika over the cheese.

You could taste each component, in every bite: toasty bread, olive oil, a hint of garlic, then either the slightly carmelized tomato or the salty feta. Thanks to the bruschetta, the simple meal became a feast, and my guest raved about it. I smiled airily and accepted the compliments, thinking, “It pays to read a lot of Italian cookbooks.”

Toasted bread with olive oil, that’s the base. Top the bread with slices of sautéed peppers, or rounds of fried eggplant, – or smoked salmon and a squeeze of lemon, dusted with finely-chopped chives and parsley (not to be grilled, this last) – or spread pesto on the toast and lay cheese on top. Big mushrooms, thickly sliced and sautéed, then thickened with cream, are very good. Some folks like to top their toast with chicken livers. Or onion confit. Or greens lightly cooked with garlic. Just look in the fridge and see what might taste good spread over garlicky toasted bread.

It’s up to you whether to lay your topping on and serve the bruschetta immediately, or to use ingredients that benefit from a quick grilling. I’m not in favor of chopped or diced toppings simply because they tend to slide off the toast and make a mess. For me, it’s long slices of this or that. And caution with juicy toppings: they can make your toast soggy. Assemble the bruschetta just before serving if your topping drips liquid, so the bread stays crisp.

And how to pronounce bruschetta? Like this: bruce-keta.

The Green Edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival Is UP

1 No Responses »

Jan 252009

Go to Ilana-Davita’s site to track down what the kosher folk are cooking these days. You’ll see that many of us are focusing on lighter fare – and shedding pounds.

Humble Helper…The Onion

1 No Responses »

Jan 232009

Onions at the Ful ve Choumous Place

Peperonata

Everyday Cooking, Useful Flavorings and Relishes, vegetables, Vegetarian No Responses »

Jan 232009

ééé

This is such an easy dish. You don’t need to make a lot, just choose two or three colors of ripe bell peppers. Have ready a handful of basil leaves, olive oil, 1 clove of garlic per pepper, salt and black pepper. If basil isn’t in season, a dusting of oregano does very well instead.

Rinse your peppers; slice them into wide strips.

Sauté them till they are tender, over a medium flame, in olive oil. Stir once in a while to prevent scorching. This should take about 15 minutes.

Peel and chop the garlic coarsely. Add it to the peppers and stir again. Let the garlic cook in the scant juices of the peppers, but keep a sharp eye on it so it won’t burn.

Season with herbs and salt and black pepper.

In 2 or 3 minutes more, it’s done.

Serve these savory, colorful peppers warm or cold as a piquant note to your meal. Or layer them into a vegetarian sandwich with feta cheese and a fat slice of ripe tomato. Or make bruschetta with slices of toasted bread and serve as an appetizer.

Pickled Lemons

Everyday Cooking, Useful Flavorings and Relishes 10 Responses »

Jan 222009

Pickled vegetables in vivid colors decorate all our food, from falafel eaten out of hand to restaurant tables set with good china and cloth napkins. And there’s a good reason for that. The gem-like colors attract your eyes, then the sharp aroma of vinegar and salt rises up and makes your mouth water. You reach for a few slices of spicy, orange pickled carrots , or green cucumber well brined with garlic – some purple eggplant shiny with olive oil – some olives, in all of their black, green, or brown beauty – and munch. All of a sudden, you’re really hungry.

I discovered all kinds of uses for lemons when I moved to my present apartment. Come winter, the lemon tree in the common yard is loaded with bright yellow, juicy fruit. Having gotten tired of concocting sweet things from the lemons, I discovered a surprising way to use them in savory dishes: preserved in salt. Now I like to lay a slice of pickled lemon on top of a stew about 20 minutes before it’s done cooking; serve quarters of them in a little bowl to accompany lamb chops; chop slivers of them to mix into salad; stir-fry some and scatter them over fish.

The first of the following recipes was taken from Elizabeth David’s Spices, Salt, and Aromatics in the English Kitchen. It’s the recipe I usually use. The second comes from Claudia Roden’s Book of Middle Eastern Food (1974). This book has an updated version from 2004, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. I haven’t made this recipe, but intend to for my next batch of preserved lemons. You can hardly go wrong with recipes by Claudia Roden.

Lemons Preserved in Salt

from Elizabeth David

1. Steep four whole lemons in cold water for 3 days. Change the water daily.

2. Cut the lemons into quarters (I prefer eighths) and pack them in a glass jar. Add 1 level tablespoon of coarse salt to each lemon. Put two layers of baking parchment directly over them, and weigh them down with a 2-lb. weight or a clean smooth stone. In warm weather, keep the jar in the fridge.

3. At the end of the week, the lemons will have released their juice, forming a brine. Remove the paper and the weight, cover the jar, and keep in in the fridge. Wait 2-3 weeks to use.

Lemons preserved this way will keep one year.

Pickled Lemons (Lamoun Makbouss)

from Claudia Roden

Mrs. Roden recommends preserving limes this way, too.

1.Scrub lemons well and slice them. (My note: thinly.)

2. Sprinkle generously with salt and leave them to drain in a colander at least 24 hours. This will dissipate their bitterness and “cook” them soft.

3. Put them in layers in a glass jar, sprinkling paprika between the layers.

4. Cover them with a neutral-flavored oil. Mrs. Roden says that olive oil is too strongly flavored and may dominate the lemons.

5. Close the jar tightly and wait 3 weeks before using. (My note: best kept in the fridge.)They will be soft and “a beautiful orange color.”

Alternately, you may freeze the lemon slices and proceed to salt them while they’re still frozen. They will release much of their juice and become soft. Proceed as above; the lemons will be ready in only a few days.

Butternut Squash Stuffed with Quinoa

Everyday Cooking 4 Responses »

Jan 202009

Lately quinoa has been on my mind. It’s one grain (seed, really) I never paid much attention to, till I tasted a fresh salad of it with cubed cucumbers and tomatoes. The salad looked like tabbuleh. It had sharp accents of thinly sliced red onion and was seasoned with plenty of olive oil and lemon juice, and a little mint. Strewn on top were halves of skinned almonds. Quinoa has a characteristic, faintly nutty taste. It’s different and pleasant. I liked it.

And I like the idea of an almost neutral-flavored, versatile grain that’s packed with nutrients, notably protein, amino acids, and minerals. So I’ve been experimenting with it.

I thought it would work well as a basic ingredient for stuffed vegetables, and so it proved. Here’s my Butternut Squash Stuffed with Quinoa. It took about 1/2 hour to make and was a hit with the family. It’s a satisfying dish, giving you the comfortable feeling of having eaten well.

Butternut Squash Stuffed with Quinoa

Serves 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side dish.

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash (dalorit in Israel)

2 tsp. olive oil

salt, pepper, cumin, and ground coriander seed – a few pinches of each

1/2 cup raw quinoa

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup cilantro or parsley

1 small onion

4 halves of sun or oven-dried tomatoes, put to soak in 3/4 cup plus 1 Tblsp hot water .

The water from soaking the tomatoes

more salt and pepper to taste

2 Tblsp. olive oil for sauteeing

optional: Parmesan cheese to grate over the finished dish

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 F – 190 C.

1. Cut off the end of the squash. Slice it in half. Remove the seeds. Cut most of the flesh out. I find it easiest to do it like this:

2. Rub 1 tsp. of olive oil into the cavity of each half. Drop pinches of salt, cumin, and coriander over the halves, and rub the spices in. Grind some fresh pepper over them.

3. Put the squash halves to bake, cut side up. They will need about 20 minutes.

4. Put the dried tomatoes in a small bowl and rehydrate them in the 3/4 cup hot water. Allow them to soak 5 minutes.

5. Remove the tomatoes from the water and save the water. Put the tomatoes aside.

6. Rinse the quinoa very well in running water, stirring and turning it over with your hand till you see no more “suds.” These suds are caused by bitter natural substances, saponins, that repel birds and insects in the field- and people at the table. Quinoa tastes good only if you rinse it before cooking.

Cook the quinoa with the 1/2 tsp. salt and the water from the tomatoes. Just put it all into a small pot over a low flame, cover, and let it steam till it’s done – about 15 minutes.

7. Chop the flesh of the squash.

8. Peel and dice the onion.

9. Rinse the cilantro or parsley and chop it up. Since nettles are in season here, I used nettles.

10. Scissor or chop the tomatoes up coarsely.

11. Sauté the onions in a little olive oil, till they’re golden.

12. Add the chopped squash to the frying pan and cook, stirring often. The squash and onions should cook up within 15 minutes.

13. Add the chopped cilantro or parsley and the tomatoes. Stir. Cook till the greens are wilted.

14. Tip the contents of the frying pan into the pot where the quinoa cooked. Stir everything up well. Taste, and add s&p if needed. You may like to drizzle a little more olive oil into the mass.

15. Remove the squash halves from the oven and let them cool slightly so you can handle them. At this point, the flesh should be tender and slightly charred.

16. Spoon the stuffing into the squash shells. Mound it up. If you wish to keep it pareve (or for vegans), the dish is now ready.

But a generous amount of Parmesan cheese grated over the stuffed squash puts a great finish on it.

If they’ve gotten cold, just pop them back into the hot oven for a few minutes.

Eat them with a spoon for scooping out the filling and the flesh of the squash.

Rice Pudding With Drunken Raisins

Everyday Cooking, Sweet Things 5 Responses »

Jan 152009

I don’t know about other folks, but I tend to buy all kinds of beans and grains and rice and stash them away in the freezer. Then I forget I bought them and buy all over again. Maybe it’s a genetic throwback to some ancient foremother – a primeval anxiety to store proteins and carbs away, in case the mammoths die out or something.

Or maybe I’m just absent-minded.

In any case, today I went on a fact-finding mission to the freezer. Lo: all kinds of odds and ends of rice. Basmati rice, sushi rice, jasmine rice, long-grain Persian rice. Just a few tablespoons of this kind or a quarter-cup of that. I removed the rolled-up cellophane bags from the freezer, put them on the kitchen table, and sat looking at them.

Rice pudding, I realized. Not too sweet, but deeply flavored with vanilla, brown sugar and sweet spices. A few drunken raisins stirred in towards the end. Hmmm….

This is easy to make, but takes a little patience and 1 1/2 hours of cooking time. The slow cook and occasional stir yield a rich, creamy texture without the need to add eggs.

Rice Pudding With Drunken Raisins

6 servings

Ingredients:

1 cup any rice, rinsed

3 cups water

1/2 tsp. salt

4 cups milk

1 vanilla stick

1 stick of cinnamon

2 Tblsp. butter or ghee

4 Tblsp. brown sugar

4 Tblsp. white sugar

3 cloves

1/2 cup black raisins

Enough rum, brandy, whiskey or flavored vodka to cover the raisins.

Method:

1. Cook the rice in the water till all the water’s gone and the rice is very tender.

2. Set up a double-boiler with a larger pot holding enough water to come up about halfway to the rice pot when you place it inside.

3. Light a medium flame under the large pot.

4. Into the cooked rice, stir the salt, butter, vanilla bean, cinnamon stick, and milk.

5. Stir in the sugar, tablespoon by tablespoon. Stir thoroughly to dissolve the sugar, each time.

6. The water in the large pot should be hot by now. Place the rice pot inside and cover it.

7. Lower the flame so that the water doesn’t boil away (add more if it does).

8. Put the raisins in a small bowl and cover them with your booze of choice. Set aside.

9. Cook the rice for 1 hour and 20 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes to help the rice disintegrate and become creamy.

10. Add the cloves at the final 10 minutes. The pudding should be almost done now, thick and heavy. Stir it very well, scraping the bottom with your spoon to prevent sticking.

11. When the pudding is done – and it’s done when most of the liquid has evaporated and the mass is soft and creamy, with a little texture – remove the cloves, vanilla stick, and cinnamon stick. Drain the raisins and stir them in.

Serve the pudding warm or cold, with lightly-sweetened whipped cream if you like. If you intend to serve it cold, place a layer of plastic film right on the surface of the pudding, to keep it from forming a skin.

Myself, I like it hot.

Notes:

If you plan to serve this pudding to children, either soak the raisins in hot tea – Earl Grey tea is nice – or put their servings aside, minus the drunken fruit.

Pitted, chopped prunes or dates may be substituted for the raisins.

Ghee lends a special, extra-milky taste that excels even the taste of plain butter.

Cool Beans: Fava and Choumous

Eating Local, Everyday Cooking, Vegetarian 14 Responses »

Jan 142009

Ful ve Choumous Made With Fava Beans

Floury dark fava beans set down in a nest of yellow choumous and a beige ring of tehinah, topped with a brown hamine (long-cooked) egg. Parsley, to offset the earthy flavors. Lemon juice, to balance the dish with a little acidity, and a generous drizzle of good olive oil. On the side, pickles for piquancy, and a little bowl of hot sauce. Onion, just because. And fresh pitas. Nutritious, cheap, comforting. A vegetarian dish that’s atisfying in every sense. It’s ful ve-choumous: the Middle Eastern workingman’s lunch.

Well, I may be a Western housewife transplanted to Israel, but it took me about one minute to acquire the taste.

When I’m in the shuk I step into a little place where the owner knows how to make a really flavorful ful ve choumous. It’s hardly noticeable from the sidewalk, just a little place with bar tables along the walls and another long table standing in the middle. Sections of today’s newspaper lie strewn around for customers to read while waiting for their order, or while they’re eating.

There I sit down to and apply myself to the business of cleaning my plate, like the shop owners and workers around me.

This gentleman was particularly nice to my companion and me, speaking excellent English to her and allowing me to take his photograph (and a later one of his glass of tea).

Most of these small eateries offer one or two other dishes: a pitta spread with choumous on the inside and stuffed with an omelet, or maybe meatballs with rice and beans.

But customers order ful ve-choumous, either as their main dish or on the side.

The ingredients are always the same, but each cook makes them a little different. Some people like dark fava beans, using a traditional pot whose long neck allows slow evaporation of the cooking liquid.

And some just boil up the quicker-cooking, lighter, white bean.

Although I don’t have a traditional bean pot, I prefer the dark fava beans, myself. That’s the real ful.

Ful ve-choumous is easy to make, but requires a number of steps. If you want to do this totally from scratch, you will need to prepare three ingredients the night before: beans soaking in one bowl, chickpeas in another, and a pot of gently-boiled eggs simmering on the stove.

This recipe serves 4-6

At various times, you will need:

500 grams/1 lb. of dried fava beans

water for cooking

5 cloves of garlic

a bay leaf

olive oil

the juice of 2 lemon halves, and 1 more tablespoon

salt

1 tsp. cumin

6 eggs

the brown, shiny peels from 2 large onions

2 cups of chickpeas, or 1 can

1 cup tehina, plus 3 more tablespoons

First: The Ful.

Pick over the fava beans.

Rinse them, and put them to soak overnight in plenty of water. Next morning, drain the beans and put them up to cook in fresh water.

Add a fat clove of garlic, a bay leaf, and some olive oil to the water. Cook the beans till tender, 1-3 hours. If you choose white beans, they will cook in far less time – up to an hour.

When the beans are soft but not falling apart, crush 2 fresh cloves of garlic into a small bowl. Stir 1 tsp. each of salt and cumin in, and add this seasoned garlic to the bean pot. Add a tablespoon of lemon juice. Stir the beans up. Crush some of them with a potato masher or a fork, so that they’ll absorb the flavors of the seasoning. Let them cook another 5 minutes. Then either turn the flame off, or start serving.

Second: The Hamine Eggs. You can just boil eggs as usual, or take this opportunity to do it the old-fashioned way: make hamine eggs, or as we call them, huevos alchamiados. Make several, it’s not worth the trouble for only one or two.

Take 6 eggs and the peels from 2 large onions. Put it all in a pot.

Cover the eggs and peels in plenty of cold water; bring to a simmer.

Drizzle a layer of olive oil over the suface. This prevents the water from evaporating during the long cooking period.

Simmer the eggs, covered, over the very lowest flame you can achieve for 6 hours or overnight. Very delicate, creamy eggs, unlike any others.

Third:The Choumous.

Put 2 cups of dried chickpeas in a separate bowl. Cover them with plenty of water and let them soak overnight. As with the beans, drain them, and cook in fresh water till soft. It’s not a sin to open a can of chickpeas either. Although fresh-cooked always taste the best, canned chickpeas still make good choumous.

Do not add salt to either beans or chickpeas till they are completely cooked and easy to mash.

Put the cooked or canned chickpeas in a blender or food processor. To them, add

1 fat clove of garlic

3 Tblsp. of tehina

salt to taste

juice from 1/2 lemon

2 Tblsp. olive oil

Blend everything to a smooth paste, adding a little more olive oil if you like. We like our choumous with some texture in it, but if you like yours more mayonnaise-like, add more oil and a bissel more water, and keep blending till you like it. Once you’re satisfied, cover the choumous and set it aside while the beans finish cooking.

Fourth: Tehina.

Put into a bowl:

1 cup raw tehina paste

3/4 – 1 cup water, depending on how thick or thin you like it

1 fat clove garlic, crushed

salt

olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

Blend all the ingredients, either by hand or in the blender. If you’re not used to the ways of tehina paste, don’t be alarmed that it initially becomes very thick when mixed with water. Keep mixing, it will smooth out amazingly.

To serve: spoon a generous amount of choumous onto the plate. Take the spoon and spread it into a neat circle, thinner in the middle.

Spoon a ring of tehina on the inside of the choumous circle.

Put a pile of hot beans in the center of the plate. Top the beans with a little chopped onion, chopped parsley, and a peeled, still-warm hamine egg. Squeeze lemon juice over the whole; drizzle olive oil over it. If you’re fond of hot sauce, drizzle a few drops of it over the dish too. Serve with pickles and pita.

To drink, serve beer, lemonade, or tall glasses of tea with mint in it, like this:

Another way to serve ful ve-choumous is to make plates of the choumous, techinah, and beans, with only the egg on top. Put chopped onions, lemon quarters, pickles, hot sauce and parsley in separate bowls and pass them around for each one to serve himself as he chooses.

Now tear a chunk off your pita and use it to scoop up some of everything. Savor every mouthful, it’s the real McCoy.

Pennies Towards Heaven

1, Israeli Moments 11 Responses »

Jan 112009

“If a man puts his hand out on the street, you have to put something in it.”

My Dad said that often. I think of him when I’m running around town with not a minute to lose and suddenly a person looms up, blocking my way, mumbling blessings and holding out a hand. All I want to do is brush them aside and keep going. Most times though, I swallow my impatience and dig through my purse for loose change. The beggar thanks me, but it’s Dad’s humanity and sense of justice that merit the thanks.

Foolish, sentimental, useless charity disturbs an American relative who comes to visit sometimes. When a beggar approaches her, she shudders elaborately and hurries away in disgust. She argues that the most effective way to give is through worthy organizations – that the State takes care of the poor… well, maybe. Well, maybe I’ve lived in Israel too long, but her attitude disturbs me.

I wonder what forces oblige people to beg in the streets and if they ever get used to exposing themselves like that. I wonder if they can survive on the coins people give them. My relative has forgotten the word tzedakah. Tzedakah does not mean “charity.” It means justice. Whether the beggar moves you to pity or offends your sense of smell, a few pennies fulfill your obligation and relieve a little of the misery in the world. And – this is my private feeling – I believe that the blessings of a poor man will echo again in Heaven someday.

I was in Jerusalem recently, hurrying to catch a bus. Something about this man sitting at the exit of the underground passage at the Central Bus Station drew me, and I stopped in front of him.

He was selling poetry. His own work, in English. His name is Robbie – Reuven Bramel, and he is an Englishman who’s lived here for many years. Once Reuven had a responsible teaching job and owned his home, he said, but a series of escalating disasters destroyed his health and brought him to selling his poems on the street. He explained his circumstances matter-of-factly. I felt a little guilty, as if he felt obliged to exchange his life’s story for my money. But there’s no self-pity in him, and his strong, cheerful spirit won’t be put down. Could I confront life and fight back like that? I don’t know, and hope I never have to find out.

Robbie handed me a patriotic poem (“My interpretation of HaTikvah”), which he then recited for me, rolling the r’s impressively. He also has a poem about the irises of Gilboa. Whatever I might think of his poetry, I respect him; he’s still battling, drawing on the poor resources he has left to earn a living. I told him I’d give his home address to anyone who wants to buy his poems (whatever you want to pay), so here it is: Reuven Bramel- Greenspan St. 10/25 – East Talpiot – Jerusalem.

Street musicians come from another place, and have different destinations. There are talented, professional musicians busking on our streets. They also have what to give in exchange for your coins – a lively klezmer tune, an aria from Carmen, Yiddish folk songs calculated to squeeze the heart a little.

All of us feel the effects of the worldwide recession. Here in Israel, we are also busy surviving a war. In these parlous times there are ever more calls on our willingness to give. But don’t pass the street people by. The coins you drop in their hands (or their hats) will weigh the scales in your favor, later on.