I love Claudia Roden’s Book of Jewish Food.  There are 800 recipes in it, from all the ethnic streams of Jewish life. You can almost hear Ms. Roden’s warm, humorous voice telling the myriad histories of Jews in the Diaspora and what we eat. She’s written a little encyclopedia of Jewish history and Jewish cooking.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of  cooking out of the book.  So when I found myself with a whole chicken and no idea what to do with it, I opened up The Book of Jewish Food and found this recipe.

At first I thought: “Chicken soup with cinnamon?!” But I can tell you – it’s not only easy to cook, it’s really easy to eat. The rice, cooked for a long time in a rich chicken broth, gives the soup a smooth, glutinous texture that’s infinitely soothing, while the spices and lemon blend together subtly to give it character. Just that warm, exotic touch that your dinner needs on a really cold night.

Iraqi Chicken Soup with Rice

yield: 6 generous portions

printable version here

Recipe adapted from Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken

4 celery stalks, with some of the leaves, chopped

2/3 cup short-grain rice, clean and rinsed

1 small onion, chopped

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

Juice of 1 large lemon OR 1/4 preserved lemon

2 teaspoons of salt

1-½ teaspoon ground turmeric

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon freshly-grated ginger root, or ½ teaspoon dried, ground ginger

More salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1.  Place the chicken in a large pot and add 2-¾ quarts (11 cups) of water.

2. Bring to a boil, removing any scum that rises to the surface.

3. Add all the other ingredients plus 2 teaspoons of salt.

4. Simmer 1 hour over a low flame.

5. Remove the chicken to a large platter or a chopping block. Let it cool a few minutes till you can handle it.

6. Take away the skin and remove the bones. Return the flesh to the soup pot.

7. Simmer the soup 1/2 hour longer.

8. Taste for salt and pepper; add more if needed.

Serve the soup with plenty of chicken in each bowl.

More recipes starring chicken from Israeli Kitchen:

Nut and Herb-Crusted Chicken Fillets

Garlic Chicken (or Turkey) Bites

Roasted, Fruit-Stuffed Chicken For Tu B’Shvat

Curried Chicken With Sweet Potatoes and Apples

Mimi Makes Kreplach

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.

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Following good food-blogger’s ethics, I declare that I received no financial compensation for this book review.

See that book? It’s  Comer Bem – Eat Well, by a possibly fictitious ” Dona Benta”. It was the “Joy of Cooking” of the Brazilian home when I lived there, 40 years ago.  Like the “Joy,” it provides recipes but also teaches measurements, temperatures, substitutions, and menus.

It’s meant to be the manual of the beginner cook, leading gently on to fine recipes. And like the “Joy,” most homes had a copy of it on a kitchen shelf. For all I know, it’s still sold in updated editions. My well-worn copy, complete with sort of livid-looking photographs, was published in 1969.

We used to refer to Dona Benta as if she were really the grandmotherly figure on the book’s cover:

“Dona Benta says never to cook fish with garlic.”

“Don’t care if she does, I’m putting garlic in.”

Looking at it four decades later, I recognize a retro style that presumes the reader to be a stay-at-home woman. Here, for example, is the heading of the chapter on seasonings and condiments. Arch advice for the Little Wife:  No olvides que a veces más puede un guiso bien sazonado que el más sabio de los maquillajes.  (“Don’t forget that sometimes a well-seasoned stew is more powerful than the most artfully applied makeup.”)  Oy. But perversely, I love it.

Why a quote in Spanish for a Portuguese-speaking reader, I don’t know, but sprinkled throughout the book are quotes and phrases in French and English, too.

I was leafing through the book, enjoying the casual instructions (“add enough flour to make a dough you can roll out”) and looking for something interesting to serve with an eggplant soup I’ll be making tonight. And there were these cheese tartlets. Quejadinhas. A crisp, delicate pastry crust containing a savory cheese filling, devoured while still warm. Overcome by a wave of nostalgia – I’ve eaten plenty of quejadinhas in my time – I had to make them. Here they are.

Quejadinhas – Brazilian Cheese Tartlets

Makes 12 muffin-sized tartlets

Ingredients for Pastry:

1/3 cup hard cheese, grated. Parmesan is good; I used a local Kashkeval.

3 Tblsp. butter

4 Tblsp. milk

1/2 tsp. salt

12 Tblsp. flour. This is an annoying amount which I tried to measure into cups – it came out to 1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup of flour. See what I mean? Easier to just keep track of of the spoonfulls as you measure.

Method for the Pastry Shells:

Grease a 12-mold muffin tin well.

Preheat the oven to 200°C – 400°F.

1. Mix the cheese, butter, milk, and salt in a medium bowl.

2. Add the flour by tablespoons, mixing occasionally till you obtain a soft, pliable dough that holds its shape. It may take more or less than the 12 tablespoons. You don’t want a stiff dough like for bread, rather a tender paste.

3. Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface or a sheet of baking paper. Stretch it out with the rolling pin till it’s 1/4″ thin.

4. Cut out circles. I used a tuna-can ring, but realized that the resulting circle would be too small, so I just rolled each circle again to make it 4″ – 10 centimeters wide.

You can re-roll the unused parts to make new circles. Once you have your 12 circles, save any extra pastry to fix tears or build up shells that look low in the muffin tin.

Ingredients for Filling:

150 grams – just under 1 cup – grated cheese. Can be sharp and dry, like Parmesan, or heavier and milder, like Gouda.

1 cup milk

4 eggs, lightly beaten

More grated cheese for sprinkling on top – if using a sharp, dry, light cheese, 4 Tblsp. will do.

Method for Filling:

Just mix it all up together.

Line the greased muffin molds with the pastry circles. They are now shells.

Fill each shell up to halfway with the cheese/milk/egg mixture.

Sprinkle a little more grated cheese over each filled shell.

Pop into the hot oven and bake for 18-25 minutes or until the tartlets are golden-brown.

Allow them to cool in the muffin tin and remove carefully.

They may be frozen and reheated in a hot oven for a few minutes. Best served warm, with cold white wine or beer.