2010 » Israeli Kitchen

Moroccan Beef Tajine

Dec 262010

A Really Nasty Virus infected by my computer last week. It’s still in the computer hospital – I’m temporarily working with a slow and cranky backup. This by way of explaining my long absence from you, dear Reader.

I’m going to show you the beef I cooked up in my tajine last week for Shabbat. After a phone call to my housebound son in blizzardy New York, I thought that for my readers in cold countries, a spicy Middle-Eastern stew is the sort warming, comforting dish that you want when you look out the window and it’s all snow whirling out there. (Here’s another tajine recipe for turkey.) Hard to imagine the extreme cold in Europe and the U.S. when here it’s too warm and dry and we’re still praying for rain. But tajine is welcome in any weather.

For me, beef has to be very well seasoned. In addition, there have to be at least three vegetables in the pot. North African tajines, those long-cooking, rich stews simmered in a clay platter, are ideal then.You don’t have to have a traditional tajine pot to make this: a pot set over low heat works fine too.

Notes: For convenience, use canned chickpeas. Just rinse and drain them before cooking.

Non-traditional but very delicious is 1/2 cup dry red wine as part of the cooking liquid.

Moroccan Beef Tajine

serves 4 and is easy doubled to serve 6-8

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

1 lb. stewing beef, chopped into 2″ pieces

1 large onion, thickly sliced

3 cloves garlic, halved

1 large tomato, peeled and quartered

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1 large bay leaf

1 teaspoon cumin

3-4 cups water or stock, to cover meat

1 cup cooked chickpeas

2 large potatoes, quartered

1/2 medium butternut squash, quartered

1/2 small head cabbage, quartered

2 tablespoons honey or Silan date honey

Fresh cilantro or parsley to serve

Method:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot and add the beef. Let the meat brown over medium heat , turning it over often. Add the onions, garlic, tomato, and all the dry spices, stirring to coat the meat, onion and tomatoes with the spices.

2. Add water or stock to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 1 hour with the lid on. If using wine, add it now.

3. Add the chickpeas and the remaining vegetables. Cook for 30 minutes, turning the vegetables and meat over occasionally to ensure even cooking.

4. Five minutes before serving, add the honey or Silan. Taste and add salt or pepper as desired.

Pile couscous or rice onto a large serving dish and push it to the edges to make a space in the center. Spoon the tajine into the center and sprinkle with cilantro or parsley.

Put a bowl of the cooking liquid on the table for people to spoon over their food. Enjoy!

Pickling Olives At Home

Open-Air Markets, Preserves and Pickles, Wine and Vinegar 16 Responses »

Dec 152010

Long ago and far away, a friend and I would drive up to the Meron hills and pick olives from abandoned trees there. But since moving to the center of the country, I buy raw olives in the shuk. Any shuk. This past September, it was the Ramleh shuk.

It’s a long process, curing olives, but not a lot of work. The first thing you have to do is find yourself a good rock. A rock with a good heft, one that the hand closes around comfortably.

It’s for cracking the olives. I found a likely one in a field near my building and brought it home to wash. It looks like a loaf of sourdough bread, but it’s a rock, and it crushes my olives fine. (The white bloom on it appeared after I poured boiling water over it and then rinsed it with vinegar).

My usual recipe calls for simply packing the olives in brine, but I was curious to try Sarah Melamed’s method with vinegar, so that’s what I did. The result was a little too vinegary for my taste, but after a second brining with fresh herbs, the olives, with only a hint of vinegar, became a savory treat.

You’ll only need a big jar and water the first week. So get yourself a clean rock and a kilo or two of raw green olives to start. Look for signs of ripening among the olives you buy – some will have turned darker.

Rinse the olives and drain. Discard any spoiled ones. Crush them with your handy-dandy rock, a few at a time, and put them in the jar. Some will escape and fly around the kitchen, of course, but just pick ‘em up, rinse again, and keep going. Take it easy, though – the weight of the rock should be enough to just crack the olives, not smash them to bits.

Cover the fruit with water. Make sure there are none floating – weigh them down with a small saucer or drape plastic wrap over the surface of the water to keep them under. Change the water every 24 hours. Do this for a week.

The olives will lose their bright color and take on a drabber, khaki shade. This is good – it means that their bitterness is leaching out. When the olives are uniformly darker, taste them to judge if they’re ready for brining. If they’re still bitter, soak them and change the water for another few days.

Once the olives are ready, drain them and put them in a large bowl while washing out their jar. Make a brine. This is:

10 grams of salt for every 100 ml. of water or 7 tablespoons of salt per half-cup of water.

For every 4 cups of brine, add 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar. Mix well.

Replace the olives in the clean jar. Pour the salt/vinegar brine over all. Add 1 sliced lemon or lime, hot red peppers, garlic cloves, sprigs of rosemary or thyme, black pepper, bay leaves, allspice, or grape leaves – to taste and depending on what you have in your kitchen at the time.

Cover the olives with plenty of olive oil to exclude air and prevent spoilage. Close the jar. Leave it alone for a month, then taste an olive every week or so till you’re satisfied. For me, it took 8 weeks. If you like them the way they are, serve them as is. If, like me, you prefer a salty taste to vinegar, drain them, make a new brine as above without the vinegar, and put them back in the jar with fresh herbs and a new layer of olive oil to cover them. After a week or two, they’ll be ready, and just keep improving over time.

Keep your olives in a cool, dry place. How to serve them?

Eat them alone, as a nosh or appetizer. A little fresh, chopped parsley, cilantro, or basil, mixed into the bowl of olives you intend to eat right away, is a very nice thing. Or:
Chop some into dishes that use chopped meat, like picadillo, meat loaf, or hamburgers
Add whole olives to braised chicken 10 minutes before serving
Or to potatoes
Or to rice
Or add some chopped to an omelet…the world is yours with these olives.

Sourdough Muffins, 2 Ways

Home Bakery, Sourdough 4 Responses »

Dec 132010

Friday night, the Little One and I lit the Shabbat candles and sat down to wait for the rain. It had only sprinkled a few times in our part of town, but the wind was driving yellow dust in front of it, tormenting the trees, knocking planters off balconies. Thunder growling in the distance, and daylight fading quickly. Tension in the air. The world was waiting for release.

And it came. Finally, real, soaking rain beating down. We smiled and breathed out. How wonderful to be indoors when it’s cold and wet outside. I was glad I’d brought my tender nasturtiums in; they wouldn’t have survived on the porch. On Shabbat day, I served the winter’s first cholent, that comforting, aromatic overnight stew.

There’s something about cold weather that makes me want to bake. Probably because turning the oven on heats the apartment up – but the tantalizing smell of freshly baked goods may have something to do with it. I’ve been baking sourdough. Having scored half a kilo of butter in the shuk several weeks ago – and “scored” is the word, because there’s been a butter shortage in Israel for weeks - I made sourdough croissants. Then an experimental sourdough loaf with a cup of spelt flour in it (it came out rather too moist and heavy for my taste).

From my file of sourdough recipes, I pulled out one for muffins. Hm. I hadn’t made sourdough muffins yet. And they turned out surprisingly easy. I had thought that they would need rising time, but blending acidic sourdough and a little baking soda makes muffin magic – all you need to do is mix everything up and pop the filled tin into a hot oven.

Here are two kinds of sourdough muffins from the same basic recipe.

Sourdough Apple Muffins

Note: these are really not very sweet. If you want to satisfy a sweet tooth, bring the sugar up to 1/2 cup.

Ingredients:

1 Granny Smith apple, halved

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup oil

1 cup refreshed starter

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 425° F, 220° C

1. Dice one half of the apple. Grate the other half into a separate small bowl.

2. Mix the cinnamon and 1 tablespoon sugar into the diced apple. Set aside.

3. In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and sugar. Add the diced apples and stir well.

4. In a larger bowl, combine the starter, egg, oil, and vanilla. Mix well and add the flour/apples. Mix to just combine everything – don’t overmix or you will get Tough Muffins.

5. Fill your muffin molds to just under the top and scatter the grated apple over the surface of each one.

Bake for 20 minutes. Let the muffins sit in their tin for 5 minutes, then remove them and let them cool down on a rack.

Sourdough Carrot-Cranberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 carrot, grated – 1/2 cup, although if your grated carrot amounts to a little more, use it all.

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup oil

1 cup refreshed starter

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup sugar

1- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Method:

Preheat oven to 425° F, 220° C

1. Mix the grated carrot and the cranberries. Set aside.

2. In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and sugar. Add the carrot/cranberries and stir well.

3. In a larger bowl, combine the starter, egg, oil, and vanilla. Mix well and add the flour/carrot-cran mix. Mix to just combine everything – don’t overmix or you will get Tough Muffins.

4. Fill your muffin molds to just under the top.

Bake for 25 minutes. Let the muffins sit in their tin for 5 minutes, then remove them and let them cool down on a rack.

Pan-Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli

vegetables, Vegetarian 2 Responses »

Dec 102010

Skies are grey, rain sprinkles down, and storms are promised for the weekend. Do we feel gloomy? No! We’re thrilled. Let it rain, let it come.

Winter vegetables are now worth cooking. This past long summer, you had to get to the shuk early, before the produce wilted on the stands. Leafy greens had big holes in them where bugs had been noshing. Root vegetables looked stunted. But everything’s reviving with the colder nights and rain. Cauliflower and broccoli looked especially tempting this week, so I brought some of each home for lunch last week. I found inspiration for the recipe in one of my favorite sites, 101 Cookbooks.

Pan-Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli

4 servings

Ingredients:

1 small cauliflower

1 medium-sized bunch of broccoli

Olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 clove of garlic

2 scallions

Freshly-ground black pepper

zest of 1 lemon

Method:

1. Cut away the leaves from the cauliflower (don’t throw them away) and cut the stem off. Break the head up into small florets no bigger than the first joint of your pinkie finger. Do the same with the broccoli. Keep the florets all about the same size, so that they’ll cook evenly. Rinse and drain.

2. Chop the scallions finely. Chop the garlic finely and use the edge of your knife to mash it.

3. Pour a dollop of olive oil into a large skillet and heat it up for a couple of minutes. Add the cauliflower and broccoli and stir gently to coat them with oil. Keep the flame medium-high. Leave the vegetables alone a minute or so, then lift a few to see if they’re starting to color at the bottom. If not, give it another minute. Sauté another five minutes , stirring gently.

4. Add the garlic and scallions and stir; cook only another minute. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed.

5. Remove from the heat. Grind a little pepper over all and stir in the lemon zest.

Serve right away.

.…So what’s with those cauliflower leaves?

Well, I’m always surprised that people throw them out. Steamed and with a little olive oil or butter drizzled over them, they’re a fine vegetable side dish.

Kosher Chicken and Dumplings

Everyday Cooking, Fleish: Meat and Poultry 5 Responses »

Dec 072010

Way back in 1964, a group called The NewBeats recorded a song called “Bread and Butter,” where a lover of the plainest food surprised his girl eating chicken and dumplings…with another man. I’d always been intrigued by the mystique of chicken and dumplings, a Southern dish I didn’t know, growing up.

Maybe I was also piqued by the incredible falsetto vocals of the NewBeat’s lead singer. Anyhow I found some recipes, all easy, and resisted the urge to do my usual wine-and-Mediterranean- spices thing to cook up this down-home chicken.

Kosher Cooking Carnival #61 Up

Everyday Cooking, Hanukkah No Responses »

Dec 072010

Mirj of Miryummy hosted this month’s Kosher Cooking Carnival, with plenty of entertaining insights into the State of Jewish Home Food. Have a look and go through the recipes…plenty on Chanukah for last-minute recipe inspiration.

The Carmel Fire, Chicken and Rice

Israeli Moments 2 Responses »

Dec 052010

I debated it with myself. Am I’m going to write something about the holocaust of fire that incinerated so much of Israel’s northern forests and forced 17,000 people out of their homes? But look, here I am typing. My gut won’t let me alone.

I live in Petach Tikvah, too far south to see plumes of smoke and smell the burning. I was at the mall this morning, picking up a few last-minute gifts for the grandchildren, who are coming for latkehs tonight – just doing normal things. And the mall was full of people doing normal things. In the center of the mall, there was a clown and a Hannuka sing-along for the children. Jelly donuts distributed everywhere. People walking around with shopping bags in their hands – like me.

I came home in a fairly even mood and put chicken and rice on the stove to heat up. Served myself a small portion because I’m cutting calories, and turned the radio on. The news came on and before anything else, they broadcast the names of those being buried today, who lost their lives in the fire. The roll call droned on: name, age, and location of funeral. Name, age, and funeral, one after the other. My stomach contracted, but I went back to the stove and filled the plate again.I sat down and ate, and ate, while the radio spun the names and places into the air.

If you can’t say that the other news is good, it’s at least better. The fire is finally under some kind of control and we don’t need help from other countries any more. Some Carmel residents have been allowed to return home, but they’re ordered to stay indoors and keep their air conditioning on to filter out the smoke, dust, and fire-fighting chemicals. Their children mustn’t play outdoors yet.

I finished my chicken and rice and stood listening to the last of the news, nervously picking at leftover cookies even though my stomach was full and tight. I don’t want to eat in this painful way. It doesn’t comfort, doesn’t do me any good. It’s regressive, infantile, a denial mechanism – what have you. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. My fingers kept searching out one more broken cookie half, a few more crumbs. Finally I just left the kitchen and sat down to think it through.

I’m so grateful to be where I am, with food in my fridge and with plans for normal things in my head. What about the people whose fridges were incinerated, whose computers and kitchen pots and beds and clothes and school books and toys – are gone? They’ll need all the things that we take for granted, all the big and little things that make up a normal life.

The Knesset has put aside investigation into the causes of the fire for now, and is focusing on starting recovery. But the newly homeless are going to need help for a while yet, folks. I ask you – readers outside of Israel, please find a representative of the Jewish Federation or indeed any Jewish organization that’s organizing donations for the victims of the fire – and donate whatever you can. In Israel, israelgives.org seems to be efficiently making use of citizen’s good will and desire to help.

Please comment and give links to any other organizations that you know of.

Bless us…

Image of Carmel Fire December 5, 2010 via Virtual Jerusalem

:: Virtual Jerusalem

Hanukah Cheese Fritters with Dried Fig Jam and Creme Fraiche

Chanukah, Sweet Things, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 9 Responses »

Dec 012010

If at first you don’t succeed, fry, fry again.

Tonight Hanukah starts – are you ready? Get out the recipes and arm yourself with spatula and crumpled paper for draining those potato latkehs – or butternut squash latkehs – or apple fritters.

I’m still faithful to potato latkehs of course, or my family would give me what for. The house is fragrant with cinnamon and apples from the applesauce I cooked today for topping those crisp brown ovals. The sour cream is sitting comfortably in the fridge. I’m set… but I want something a little different.

So I fried these homely little cottage cheese fritters. They’re easy to make and seriously delicious to eat – light, sweet little dough bubbles. The Little One gave her approval, saying “Yum!” It looks like I have a hit.

Try any of the fritters and latkehs with a dried fig jam and creme fraiche (recipes below). I did, and it was good. Really good.

Cottage Cheese Fritters

Ingredients:

1 cup cottage cheese, drained for 20 minutes

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1 cup flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

oil for deep frying

powdered sugar

Method:

1. Mix the cottage cheese and eggs.

2. Stir the milk in; mix well.

3. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and cinnamon. Mix gently, stopping when everything is incorporated.

4. Heat oil to shimmering. Fill a tablespoon half-way with batter, and push each blob of batter off the spoon with your finger. Don’t be tempted to make the fritters bigger; they won’t cook in the middle.

Some of the fritters may first sink to the bottom of the pot and may need to be gently encouraged to break free, but most will rise up and bob around, expanding like little balloons full of hot air.

Fry till golden brown on all sides, drain on kitchen paper, and roll in powdered sugar.

They’re best eaten hot.

Creme Fraiche

Creme fraiche is hard to find and expensive here, so when I need it, I make my own. It has to be made two days before, but Hanukah is eight days long… you’ll have time.

Mix 2 cups of heavy cream and 2 teaspoons of buttermilk in a glass jar. Put the lid on tightly and shake it for one minute.

Let the cream mixture sit out at room temperature for 24 hours. Then stir it and put it in the fridge for another 24 hours. It’ll keep for a week.

Dried Fig Jam

Ingredients:

3 cups dried figs, soaked in hot water for 1/2 hour

2 tablespoons butter or margerine

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1- 1/4 cup orange juice, more if needed

Method:
1. Drain the figs, cut the stems away, and chop them coarsely.

2. Heat the butter or marge and the cinnamon stick. Add the figs, the orange juice, and the vanilla.

3. Cook uncovered for 20 minutes on a medium flame, stirring occasionally. If the jam starts looking dry, add more orange juice, by tablespoons.

4. Serve warm or at room temperature with latkehs or fritters. Store leftovers in the fridge.

The Blue, Blue Skies Over Israel

Israeli Moments 5 Responses »

Nov 292010

The nation struggles to keep water flowing from my faucets whenever I want it. Other countries in the Middle East are already rationing their water. It’s drying up, folks, drying up.

Is it absurd to feel guilty every time I wash dishes, put a load in the washing machine, brush my teeth? But I do. Feeling guilty doesn’t stop me from doing those things, but it’s a constructive guilt, because it makes me work consciously and waste less precious water as I soap and rinse.

Sometimes I imagine where that careless flow is going. Down the plumbing, mixing with other “black” waters, rushing along the great sewage pipes, eventually pouring out to sea. Our recycling efforts started late; we’re still wasting so much water.

I’ve taught myself, and my family, to turn the faucets off frequently while doing the washing-up; to choose short washing cycles – all that well-publicized bag of tricks. It takes a little getting used to.

Will these tiny efforts help? I believe they will. And the more talk about water conservation with everyone, even with my hairdresser, (even my blog readers), hopefully the more awareness at large. That’s what I, the individual, can physically do.

Today, though, I’m working on a different level. The Sephardic and Ashekenazic chief rabbis asked Jews in Israel to fast and pray for rain today, Monday. I feel compelled to join those who do. Maybe my tiny strength, the ounce of energy in my voice, bound to the strength and energy of all the others, will make a difference as the prayers rise toward Heaven. It’s a 12-hour fast; basically I’ll skip breakfast and lunch. It can feel difficult towards evening, but I’m sure I’ll manage.

Outside, it’s pleasantly cool, but the heavens are a beautiful, a catastrophic blue, faintly streaked with white cotton candy. I have the childish desire to step out onto my balcony and scan the skies – is it working yet? Are those wisps and tatters of clouds gathering, growing heavy with rain?

Not yet – not yet.

Not yet.

Photo of faucet and water by ScienceHeath via Flickr.

Apple Fritters for Thanksgiving or Hannukah

Chanukah, Vegetarian, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov No Responses »

Nov 242010

Looking for a side dish to go with the Thanksgiving turkey? These little apple fritters provide a lightly sweet note to offset savory dishes. The recipe below includes butter, but use margarine to keep the fritters pareve.

They came about because I was thinking of a latkeh alternative for Hannukah. Have a look at my 5 Hannukah recipes, including one for Moroccan sfrenj fritters. While I was thinking of fried foods, apple fritters occurred to me. Then, naturally apple fritters occurred in my kitchen.

For a meat meal, drizzle just a little dark honey over them before serving. For a dairy or vegetarian meal, serve them with cream and honey sauce (recipe below) – delicious. Alternatively, drizzle a little dark honey over cubes of firm white cheese and eat the fritters with that – also very good.

Apple Fritters in Beer Batter

Recipe adapted from Al-HaShulchan magazine, Sept. 2010

about 20 2-inch fritters

Ingredients for beer batter:

2 eggs, separated
2/3 cup white beer
a pinch of salt
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted
1 tablespoon sugar

oil for frying

Ingredients for apples:

3 peeled apples, chopped into large dice
1/2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon honey

Ingredients for Cream and Honey Sauce:

1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons honey

Method:

1. Make the batter:

Whip the egg yolks with the beer till light. Add the salt, flour, and melted margarine or butter. Mix well and set aside, covered, for 30 minutes. (In hot weather, let the batter rest in the fridge.) Later, you’ll add the whites, so don’t throw them away.

2. Prepare the apples:

Mix the chopped apples, raisins, vanilla and honey in a bowl. Set aside.

3. Prepare the cream and honey sauce:

Mix all the ingredients well and put it away in the fridge till time to serve the fritters.

4. Assemble and fry:

Mix the whites with the tablespoon of sugar until stiff. Mix this gently into the yolk batter. Add the fruit and mix again, gently.

Fry the fritters in hot, shallow oil, turning them over to brown each side.

Drain, turning them over to allow the oil to drain from the lumpier side.

These fritters can be made ahead, frozen, and popped into a hot oven straight out of the freezer. Let them heat through for about 10 minutes.