2009 November » Israeli Kitchen

Book Review: The Book of New Israeli Food by Janna Gur

Books I'm Reading, Cookbooks I Like 24 Responses »

Nov 172009

Random House Publishers asked me to review this book, which I was thrilled to do. And as I started going through the recipes, the gorgeous photos, and the stories, I knew I was in for a serious treat.

The text covers the foods Israelis savor every day: salads, chummous, soups, stuffed vegetables. Recipes focus on authentic, homey food like Shakshuka (6 recipes for shakshuka!), the spicy chreime fish from North Africa, and kubbeh soup. But I was also intrigued by sophisticated recipes that evolved out of local ingredients. The Couscous and Roasted Vegetables Salad, for example, which looks trendy – and delicious.

Then there are pages devoted to street food and shopping in the shuk; then recipes for Shabbat, Jewish holidays, and Ramadan. Also, I loved discovering occasional little jewels scattered throughout, such as the recipe for garlic confit tucked into the meze section. The book finishes with an excellent selection of recipes for basic condiments to keep on hand. You’ll find preserved lemons and spice mixes there. The very last is a “Special Ingredients” section explaining the uses of special ingredients: pomegranate juice, date honey, and more.

The tone is conversational, sometimes humorous, and so vivid that (with the fabulous pictures) you can almost breathe the atmosphere of Israeli life.

We’re offered glimpses. An elderly, bearded baker in Jerusalem, prayerfully focused on manipulating his dough. A Tel Aviv café where people sit at small tables, in the sunshine. Children solemnly lighting Chanuka candles. A young Arab woman arranging concentric circles of date and sesame cookies with care. A winemaker sitting thoughtfully beside a huge faucet pouring red wine into an open tank.

The Book of New Israeli Food is a book to savor at leisure first, away from the kitchen. You lose yourself in the rich narration, fill your eyes with the beautiful, sensitive photographs by Eilon Paz. You mark recipes as you turn the pages. When you put it down, you go to the kitchen fired with the desire to get cooking, the faster to eat some of those mouth-watering recipes.

Local ingredients. A distinctive Israeli accent in the cooking and the text. Photographs that make you hungry, and easy-to-follow recipes. All things I like.

***********

I received no financial compensation for this book review.

Yiddish in the Kitchen

Just For Fun 12 Responses »

Nov 132009

Certain Yidddish expressions just naturally sit pop into the mind when I’m not even thinking. In my hot chocolate post below, instructions included a shlook of brandy. Yes: a shlook is a dollop, but it’s also a gulp. Like, shlooking Coke right out of the bottle. Or everyone gathered in the kitchen, cooking together and sneaking an occasional shlook of the cooking wine.

Another juicy Yiddishism is koch-leffel. That’s a soup ladle, but also means a gossipping busybody – someone who’s always stirring up trouble.

Tsimmis. That’s carrots, sweet potatoes, and sometimes beef, all stewed together with honey and dried fruit. It also means a complication, a situation that escalated. Like, “Everybody had a different opinion, and they were all shouting – oy, what a tsimmis!”

There’s shmaltz, of course. Chicken fat rendered with onions. Delicious to cook with, heavenly to spread lightly on a matzah – and so high in cholesterol that it’ll get you to heaven early if you don’t watch it. But apply the word to anything sentimental – that weepy old song, a three-hanky movie. Ever hear Jimmy Durante’s recording of “As Time Goes By?” Shmaltzy – but I love it!

I’ll post more Kitchen Yiddish as it occurs to me. Meantime…

Ah Gut Shabbos!

Sometimes The Only Thing To Do Is Make Hot Chocolate

Everyday Cooking, Sweet Things 14 Responses »

Nov 122009

These past two weeks, I’ve been wanting to write about apple pie. I used to bake good apple pie – learned from my Mom, who learned from Grandma. Rich, sweet fruit spilling out of a flaky crust…I had it down pat. Thought I still did, although I haven’t baked a pie in while.

Well, if you don’t use it, you lose it. I had no less than three apple pie disasters in the past two weeks. I was demoralized.

These were times for desperate measure. Times when the only thing to do was square the shoulders, starch the upper lip, and make myself some hot chocolate.

So that’s what I did. I like it very strong, almost bitter, and dark. Spiced with cinnamon and enough chili flakes to burn the back of the throat a little, and smoothed out with vanilla. Brandy is nice but not essential. A floating island of whipped cream on top – if I’m really feeling self-indulgent. Tonight I had only 10% cream, which doesn’t whip up but still adds depth and richness. I added a couple of tablespoons to each cup.

It seems like a lot of trouble for a cup of hot chocolate. But part of the charm is in the ritual of carefully preparing the most delicious cuppa for yourself and one other lucky person. It’s like saying, “Here, take a little sweetness and fire for yourself.”

Hot Chocolate Morale Restorer

serves two

Ingredients:

2 cups – 1/2 liter milk

2 oz. – 50 grams – half a bar – of bittersweet chocolate, broken into chunks or grated

a pinch of salt

4 tablespoons cocoa powder

4 tablespoons sugar

1 tsp. cornstarch

1/4 cup boiling water

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 stick of cinnamon or 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

chili flakes

1 teaspoon cocoa extra

Optional: a shlook (Yiddish for dollop) of brandy. Whipped cream.

Method:

1. Mix the cocoa powder, sugar, salt, and cornstarch together in a small pan.

2. Pour 1/4 cup boiling water over the dry mixture and stir till everything is dissolved and you have a smooth paste. (You can skip this step and just add the dry stuff to the hot milk in the next step, but there will be cocoa lumps.)

2. Put the milk, cinnamon stick, and vanilla into a pot you can pour out of.

2. Slowly heat the milk up. When you judge it to be hot – not simmering or boiling, just hot – add the 2 oz chocolate. Stir to dissolve.

3. Add the sugar/cocoa paste to the milk.

4. Keep stirring. When a ring of bubbles forms around the edges of the milk, turn the heat off. Remove the cinnamon stick.

5. Pour the chocolate into two cups.

6. Shake as much chili as you like onto the surface of the hot chocolate. Anywhere from just a few flakes to a lot. I like a lot.

7. Stir a tablespoon of brandy into the chocolate, if you want.

Whipped cream is decadent and pampering, but not crucial.

With or without brandy or whipped cream, shake a little dry cocoa into each cup.

Sit down, sip, and feel strong, like an Aztec warrior.

The Aztecs should have had it so good.

2 Recipes: Vegetable Stock and Potato/Leek Soup

Everyday Cooking, Soup 13 Responses »

Nov 092009

Eat it hot, and call it potato/leek soup. Eat it chilled, and suddenly you’re speaking French: vichyssoise. At this time of the year, I prefer it hot. The flavor is at once subtle and hearty: delicate leek laid over sturdy potato, with hints of vegetables from the stock coming through.

Recipes for this soup assume that you have some chicken stock on hand to use as the base. I most often do have chicken stock, but don’t use it in this soup because it wouldn’t be kosher. It must have milk and cream; chicken stock is dispensable. Make an aromatic vegetable stock instead.

It’s so easy. Here, look.

Vegetable Stock

about 5 cups

Ingredients:

1 medium onion

1 tomato

2 carrots

2 celery stalks

A few mushrooms, either fresh or dried – optional and very good. I threw in a couple of dried Shiitakes.

1 small potato

1 cup chopped zucchini or other squash (I used butternut squash)

1 garlic clove

1 bay leaf

1 tsp. salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

Water to cover the vegetables: about 4 cups

Note: wild herbs like dandelion root, nettles, mallows and purslane add lively flavor and boost the nutrition even higher. Include half a cup if you have some.

Method:

1. Scrub the potato but don’t peel it. Chop it up.

2. Peel the other vegetables except for the tomato and optional mushrooms. Chop everything.

3. Put everything, water included, in a pan. Simmer with the pan covered for 45 minutes.

4. Strain the vegetables, saving the soup.

That’s it. You won’t need all of this for the potato/leek soup. Freeze extra stock for cooking rice or enriching another soup or gravy.

Now, for de zoup.

Potato/Leek Soup (if hot), or Vichyssoise (if cold)

6-8 servings

Ingredients:

4 slender young leeks or 2 big ones: 4 cups chopped

1 medium onion

1 medium-large potato: 2 cups chopped

4 cups vegetable stock

3 tablespoons olive oil

salt

white pepper

2 cups milk

1/2 cup light cream (I use the Israeli 10%)

Method:

1. Clean the leeks. Remove the root part and most of the green top. Chop them up.

2. Peel and chop the onion and the potato.

3. Pour the olive oil into your soup pan and light a medium flame under it. Put all the vegetables in.

4. Cook the vegetables, stirring often, for 5 minutes.

5. Add the hot stock, cover the pan, and allow the soup to cook for 30 minutes.

6. Allow the soup to cool down. Use a blender to make a fine purée out of it. I use a stick blender, so it stays in the pan.

7. Add the milk and the cream. Blend again.

8. Taste for salt and pepper. Adjust seasoning (this soup needs a lot of salt), and blend again.

9. If you have removed the soup to blend it, put it back in the pan and heat it through, slowly. Stir often; don’t let the bottom burn and don’t let it boil.

10. If you prefer the soup cold, make sure it’s entirely cool and refrigerate it till chilled.

Don’t add anything else to it – no little grating of cheese, no spoonful of tomato paste, no pinch of spices. If you feel the need to decorate each bowlful, scissor some chives or scallions on. Anything else would confuse its pure, garden-fresh flavor.

Fish Eyes

Everyday Cooking, Soup 15 Responses »

Nov 062009

My son Eliezer was about nine years old and heavily into grossing his sisters out.

“I’ll eat anything,” he boasted. “Even fish eyes.”

Eeeww. When had I ever served him fish eyes? But it caught his imagination. He strutted around talking about fish eyes, knowing he was safe. Who would ever test him on it? His friends were impressed. Wallah, that’s macho, eating fish eyes!

Then Rosh HaShana came up and I started cooking simanim. I’d never cooked black-eyed peas before, but they’re one of the traditional foods, so I simmered some up. Then I noticed how much like little eyes they looked.

Hm.

I made up a little salad with the peas, and bided. On Rosh HaShana day, we all sat down to eat and I casually put a bowlful of black-eyed pea salad in front of my boy.

“Fish eyes for you, honey,” I said. “Since you like them so much.”

He looked down at all those little white beans with the black dots, and turned green. His sisters watched, horrified. Was he really going to eat all those fish eyes? My parents, in on the joke, exchanged amused glances. He bravely poked his fork into the bowl and winced as the beans yielded.

“I’m kind of full already, Mommy,” he said. “I’ll eat them later.”

I looked at him sitting there and I melted. He was just a rambuctious little boy trying to prove himself. Finally I explained that it was really just beans. He accepted the joke with good grace, but never did eat any.

Eliezer is now 29 and says he has forgiven me, but he still doesn’t eat black-eyed peas.

I remembered this a few days ago when I was making fish soup out of the bones and heads of some fresh bass. With carrots, celery, tomato, a bay leaf, onion, chunks of potato and cilantro, it did make a rich, flavorful broth. A little drizzle of olive oil – a squeeze of lemon. Perfect.

I was pleased to have used up all the fish, even the bones, which still had some meat clinging to them. But I knew I had to remove every trace of the heads, because The Little One can’t bear to see fish heads. When she orders fish in a restaurant, I have to ask for the head to be removed in the kitchen. On Rosh HaShanah, we hide the fish head siman under a napkin.

So I took a slotted spoon and began straining out the bones. Oops. The heads fell apart, bones and cartilige separating all over the pan, and – where’d the eyes go? Oh no. There were four little boiled eyes in the soup somewhere, and I had to get them out or risk my daughter fainting at the table.

Sighing, I took up the strainer and ladled the soup into it. Aha – got one in there with all the carrot and celery pieces. Got two. Got three fish eyes, but where was the last one? I strained everything twice, poking under the vegetables with a spoon and turning every piece of fish over. No fish eye.

Well, maybe I’d already strained it out or something. It was lunchtime, and I had to get the soup on the table. I’d made a particularly savory herb bread to go with it, and the smell of fish and herbs and fresh bread was driving the family insane.

I must say, the soup was good. The Husband and The Little One served themselves seconds and sliced more bread. I looked into the pan – there was still enough for me to have seconds too. I ladled it into my bowl, put my spoon in, and sat frozen, looking into an eye.

There it was, in my bowl. I turned it over with my spoon, but it floated up again, iris side up.

Was this some kind of karmic retribution for tormenting an innocent nine-year child all those years ago? I don’t know, and I don’t care.

What I did was, I threw the damn thing out.

Curried Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Apples

Everyday Cooking, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 5 Responses »

Nov 032009

Savory and a little sweet, with the pungent touch of curry and wine, cooked slowly. That’s how I made this chicken today. I liked it cooked in a large, flat skillet because the juices stayed and reduced themselves into the most delicious sauce.

Curried Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Apples

serves 2-4, depending on appetite

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs with drumsticks

1 medium onion, quartered and sliced thickly

1 large tomato, thickly sliced

1 bay leaf

4 cloves of garlic, peeled but left whole

1 large sweet potato, peeled and quartered lengthwise

2 Granny Smith apples, washed but not peeled, and quartered

1/2 tsp. curry powder

1/4 cup wine, any kind

2 Tablespoons maple syrup or Silan date honey

salt and pepper

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Method:

1. Use a large, shallow skillet. Pour the olive oil in and add the chicken pieces. Keep the flame at medium.

2. Arrange the onion and tomato slices on top of the chicken. Add the bay leaf, the curry, the garlic, salt and pepper.

3. Cover the skillet partway and let the chicken start to brown. My skillet doesn’t have a lid, so I borrowed one from another pan and tilted it over the skillet.

4. After about 20 minutes, turn the chicken over, letting the vegetables and spices fall to the bottom of the skillet.

5. The chicken should be about half done. Add the sweet potato and the apples. Keep the apples skin side down so the pieces stay whole by the end of the cooking. Sprinkle salt and pepper over all.

6. Drizzle the wine and the maple syrup in. The liquids will bubble up and start to reduce. Let it go for a few minutes, then cover the skillet partway again.

7. Maintain medium heat and cook a further 20 minutes. You’ll probably need to stir the vegetables around a bit. If the liquids dry out, your flame’s too high – splash in a little more wine and reduce the heat.

Cook till the chicken is cooked through and golden, and the sweet potatoes are tender.

A big mixed salad goes well with this. And if you need to fill the menu out some more, serve the chicken with rice.

This meal is good enough to serve on Shabbat. We licked our fingers.

Doodling Around With Sourdough

Home Bakery 18 Responses »

Nov 022009

Last night, I opened the fridge and there was my sourdough starter, looking sort of reproachful. It had somehow migrated from the back of the fridge to the front, where I could see it and feel guilty about it. C’mon, little guy, I know you’re strong, I thought to it. You’re surviving. You don’t really need me to refresh you every week … do you?

I haven’t quite reached the stage of talking to inanimate objects, although the day is probably not too far off. Thing is, a sourdough starter isn’t inanimate; it’s full of live yeast culture, and I’m supposed to take care of it instead of leaving it in the back of the fridge for weeks at a time.

At least it didn’t think anything back at me. But it did look neglected. So I shlepped the jar out, mixed the hooch back into the starter and removed a cupful to another bowl.

Once the original starter was refreshed and stored away again, I reached for the cupful to throw it out. But I hate to pour good, live culture away. So I beat in about 3 cups of all-purpose flour, covered it with plastic wrap, and set it aside while I did more important things, like watching Shrek with my Little One for the eleventeenth time.

A lovely, bubbly sponge developed meantime. Hm. This had possibilites. So I mixed in a tablespoon of olive oil, a tablespoon of salt, and about 2 more cups of flour. Stretched and folded. Floured the bowl heavily, covered my dough with plastic wrap again, and went to bed.

Funny how one thing leads to another, and how small things can shape your day (or destiny). I had errands to run this morning, but it was raining. Casting around for an excuse to stay home, the sourdough caught my eye. It was well risen, fair and light in its bowl, rich in the promise of good bread. Pretty good for a little cupful of starter I’d almost thrown down the sink last night. Wouldn’t it be a pity to let the dough keep on fermenting the whole morning? It would get too sour to enjoy. Better stay home and bake something wonderful.

So I divided the dough into thirds.

With one third, I made a quick little focaccia. Just olive oil, kosher salt, and plenty of freshly-ground pepper. I let it rise again for half an hour, meantime pre-heating the oven to 450°F and shaping the next two breads.

The focaccia baked up in about 20 minutes. When it cooled down, I split half of it open and stuffed my breakfast omelette into it. Pretty good, with a tomato.

There were about 3/4 -cup of black olives that needed to get used up. I sliced and kneaded them into the second third of the dough. When I took the focaccia out of the oven, I put the boule to bake – it took 1/2 hour on top, then another 10 minutes upside down.

And there was some firm white cheese (Hemed, for Israelis). And a few tablespoons of grated Parmesan. The last third of dough I rolled into a rectangle, filled with cubed white cheese and the Parmesan, and rolled up into a fat snake. Then, using a technique more commonly used for sweet yeast cakes, I cut the snake almost in half lengthwise, and twisted the two halves around each other. Painted the whole with a little beaten egg I’d set aside before making my omelette, and let the cheese bread rise while the olive bread was baking.