dairy » Israeli Kitchen

Condensed Milk, Milk Cookies, Dulce de Leche, and a Ramble

Cookies, dairy, Preserves and Pickles, Sweet Things 15 Responses »

Jan 252012

It’s really much cheaper to make your own condensed milk. And you can make quantities of it at one time with almost no effort. But it does require time and patience. It’s something to stir while doing other kitchen projects. Like an intensive cooking or cupboard-cleaning session, or a morning of phone calls you’ve been putting off. Actually, the coolest thing would be to have a magical spoon that stirs all by itself. Lacking that, just old-fashioned patience and time will do.

Why would I want to make my own condensed milk? Well, here in Israel, all condensed and evaporated milk is imported in squeezable tubes and cans. Living in a dairy-rich country, it seems wrong to buy a milk product that’s been shipped across the planet. That’s Noble Reason Number One.

Hanukkah Spinach Patties

dairy, Hanukkah, vegetables, Vegetarian 2 Responses »

Dec 252011

Have you done a lot of frying this Hanukkah?

Me, I usually adapt fried foods to baked, but on Hanukkah, latkehs have to be fried at least once. So I fried traditional potato latkehs the first night, but until last night, I kept Husband and the Little One happy with fishy things like Slow-Cooked Salmon and Tajine of Red Mullet in Chermoulah. Then I decided to succumb to tradition and fry something. Hanukka’s winding down, after all.

I came across cookbook author Gil Mark’s Keftes de Espinaca – spinach patties. Perfect – Husband’s favorite vegetable is spinach. The Little One could do without it, but even she ate and took seconds of these patties. And to my delight, they needed but little oil to fry up into delicious, crusty morsels with tender insides. I served pasta with tomato sauce on the side and we had a great vegetarian meal.

Khachpuri, Georgian Cheese Bread

Appetizers, Bread, dairy, Home Bakery 7 Responses »

Nov 132011

I once made friends with three Russian butchers in my neighborhood supermarket. For some reason, they took me to their collective hearts. It amused them, I think, to share their wisdom with this American-accented lady who was always asking things. Saturnine Serge gave me a great lesson in sharpening knives. Dark, quick Reuven showed me how to cut a pocket into a half-breast of turkey for stuffing. And the bear-like Avi gave me the recipe for a luscious, cheese-filled bread from his native Georgia. In return, I brought them a bottle of my fruit wine (and the story is here).

I’ve since moved out of that neighborhood, but still think of my three friends with affection. Especially when I bake khachpuri, the cheese bread Avi taught me. Continue reading »

Peaches and Geranium-Scented Cream

dairy, Fruit, Sweet Things 2 Responses »

Aug 012011

Of the edible geraniums (most aren’t), the rose-scented ones are m favorites. Near my building there’s a large patch of them, which I raid for recipes like this one. Peaches in cream delicately flavored with rose geranium. It’s just so delicious.

You can infuse cream with lemon grass, basil, mint, or bay leaves too, but rose geranium is special. The recipe is from Elizabeth David’s Summer Cooking. The wise Ms. David said, “The flavour of the geranium leaves is exquisite.” I can’t say it any better.

And if you prefer to serve berries with this cream, or figs…oh dear. Too good to describe.

Geranium Cream

yield: 1-3/4 cups: enough to accompany 4-6 peaches or 1 to 1-12/ cups berries.

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh, heavy cream

3/4 cups soft cream cheese or 1 package Philadelphia cream cheese.

4 tablespoons sugar

2 large rose geranium leaves (or 3 medium)

Pour the cream into a double boiler. Add the sugar and the geranium leaves. Over a low fire, allow the mixture to heat through without boiling.

Allow it to cool but keep the leaves in. Mix the cream cheese in, stirring to obtain a thick, uniform cream.

Cover and refrigerate for 12 hours. Just before serving, remove the leaves.

Slice 4 peaches or whatever seasonal fruit you favor. Leave berries whole, if using. Place 1 sliced peach in each serving bowl.

Sprinkle the fruit with sugar.

Spoon cream over the fruit and stir gently to coat the fruit. How much cream per serving depends on how much cream you like. For us, this covers about 4 servings, but then we really love cream.

Apricot Swirl Cheescake

dairy, Home Bakery, Shavuot, Sweet Things, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 10 Responses »

Jun 052011

Do you have to be Jewish to love cheesecake?

Well, no.

But it helps.

Shavuot is coming up next Tuesday night. We have reasons – religious reasons – for eating dairy on Shavuot. For many, that’s cheesecake.

And what, you might ask, rolling your eyes, does cheesecake have to do with receiving the word of G-d on Mt. Sinai?

Well, nothing.

The custom is to eat dairy. Cheesecake is modern tradition, based on the indisputable fact that it’s delicious.

Two commonly accepted reasons for dairy on Shavuot. The gematria, or numerical value of chalav – milk – is 40. We eat milk to remember the 40 days that the Jewish people waited while Moses received the Torah on Mt. Sinai. (Moses was fasting the whole time, by the way). Another reason is that the laws of ritual slaughter and kashrut were unknown till the Torah was received: to avoid eating un-kosher foods while spiritually preparing ourselves, we refrained from meat entirely and got our protein from dairy.

I’m afraid that if cheesecake had been around while we were waiting, our minds would not have lingered long on things spiritual. But – we are also commanded to rejoice on our holidays. Is cheesecake a cause for rejoicing, or one of many ways to rejoice?

This recipe takes a certain amount of focus. And two or three mixing bowls. And some time. But it’s worth the effort because it’s one of the best I’ve ever made. Rich and dense, with a tart-sweet marbling of puréed fresh apricots – a melting mouthful.

If you use a springform pan and grease it well with butter, you will have a smooth-edged cake. I was chicken about its being hard to remove so I placed baking paper in a pan with a removable bottom and got bumpy edges all around.

But when I served the cake to the ladies of the book club, nobody refused to eat the bumpy edges and got up from the table enraged. In fact they loved it.

The cake goes in four stages: bake the cake bottom, pureé the apricots, mix the filling and bake. It needs at least 3 mixing bowls. But don’t be daunted. Read the recipe through and follow my tips for a seamless baking session.

Apricot Swirl Cheesecake

adapted from Junior’s Cheesecakes by Fine Cooking, The Taunton Press

1 9-inch cake – 12 slices

Printable version here

The Cake Base

Ingredients:

1/3 cup flour, sifted

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch salt

2 large eggs, separated

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Zest of 1/2 lemon

2 tablespoons melted, unsalted butter

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Preliminaries:

Preheat oven to 350° F, 180°

If using a springform pan, grease all inner surfaces very well with butter. If using a pan with a removable bottom, place a sheet of baking paper inside.

Wrap the entire outside with tin foil. This is necessary because at the second stage of baking, the cake will bake inside a water bath.

Have ready a pan into which your baking pan will fit easily, for the water bath.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together into a small bowl.

Zest the lemon.

Melt the butter.

Separate the eggs, with the yolks in a large bowl and the whites in a bowl big enough to contain them whipped.

Measure the sugar, leave it in its measuring cup, and put a measuring spoon on top of the measured sugar. This spares last-second hunting for the spoon when you’ll need to remove a little of the sugar.

Method:

Beat the yolks for 3 minutes, using an electric mixer set on high. Keep the mixer running and add 2 tablespoons of the sugar from the 1/3 measured cupful. Beat another 5 minutes.

Beat in the lemon zest and vanilla.

Sift the dry ingredients over the egg yolk/sugar mix and beat in on low, just to blend lightly. Blend the melted butter in.

Wash the beaters absolutely clean. In the second bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar till stiff. With a spatula, remove about 1/3 of the whites and fold them into the batter. Then add the remaining whites, mixing lightly. Stop when the whites are evenly distributed throughout the batter.

Spread the batter evenly in the pan. No water bath yet – that’s for when the whole cake is assembled. Bake 10-12 minutes or until just set and the center springs back when touched. It shouldn’t be baked till brown.

Keep the oven on. Leave the crust in the pan – you will bake the cheese filling on top of it. Put the pan on a rack to cool while you’re preparing the filling.

The Filling

Ingredients for Purée:

3-5 fresh apricots: enough to make 3/4 cup puréed.

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1-2 tablespoons sugar

Blend apricots and cornstarch and add sugar to taste. The amount of sugar will depend on the sweetness of the apricots. The purée should still be tart.

Ingredients for Cheese Filling:

3 cups full-fat cream cheese at room temperature. If using American cream cheese, use three 8-oz. packages. Israelis: I used Ski.

1/4 cup cornstarch

1-1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 large eggs

2/3 cup whipping cream

In a large bowl, mix 1 cup (1 package) of the cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar, and the cornstarch. Beat on low for 3 minutes or until all is creamy. Beat in second cup (package) of cream cheese, then the third.

Increase the speed to medium and beat in 1 cup sugar, vanilla, and eggs, one at a time. Beat in the cream. Mix thoroughly but stop when everything is mixed; don’t overmix.

Spread the batter over the prepared crust.

Spread the apricot purée over the cheese filling, pushing it down with the back of the spoon here and there. Cut through the purée and batter in a figure of 8, going deep enough to just feel the cake on the bottom. Do this three times, but no more or the cake will will be yellow instead of marbled.

Put the cake in the second pan. Carefully pour hot water between the two pans, up to an inch from the top of the cake pan. Bake for 1 to 1-1/4 hours or until completely set.

Remove the cake from the water bath and put it to cool on a wire rack. Don’t move it for 2 hours lest it fall. When it’s totally cool, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours to overnight.

Leftovers stay delicious if wrapped well and kept cold, for 4 days.

Strawberries and Cream

dairy, Fruit, Sweet Things 5 Responses »

Apr 112011

Piles of heavy, red strawberries raise that divine sweet/tart odor in the shuk. Bring some home while they’re still in season. Marry them to cool whipped cream enriched with kirsch. Then feed them to your happy family.

This is hardly a recipe, more like a dream of spring fruit.

Figure on about 1/2 cup of halved or quartered, hulled strawberries per serving. Once they’re clean and cut up, sugar them lightly – a tablespoon or two will be enough, depending on how many servings and how sweet the fruit is to start with.

Whip a cup of heavy cream till thick, then add 3 tablespoons sugar and whip till it makes soft billows. Add 2 tablespoons of kirsch or other liqueur. Whip again to incorporate the liquid.

Then layer cream, sugared strawberries, and cream again. Top with a few more berries. Drizzle a little strawberry jam over the cream that’s peeking out between the berries, if you like.

Dip your spoon in and eat, closing your eyes to fully get that flavor, essence of spring. Strawberries and cream for breakfast – what a wonderful way to start the day.

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

dairy, Shavuot, Vegetarian 10 Responses »

Aug 132010

Leafy greens are one of my favorite foods. But not that of the Little One. To get them into her, I have to get sneaky and combine them with a buttery crust, preferably some mushrooms, and cheese. She thinks it’s a dairy meal, I call it vegetarian. So what does she get?

Quiche.

Actually I’m embarrassed about this quiche. It’s delectable to eat – looks pretty on the table – satisfies my Jewish Mother Feed’em Requirements and there’s never a scrap left over. But Elizabeth David, food writer whose scholarly, elegant works I’ve been re-reading, would turn her nose up at it. Quiche, according to the late, great Ms. David, real quiche, needs only cream and eggs, and “a small amount of streaky bacon.” No cheese. No vegetables of any description.

Oh dear. Well, times have changed. The classic Quiche Lorraine is still a thing of wonder (minus the bacon for kosher folk), but the cheese-and-veg-loaded tart is accepted by all as quiche too. So here mine is.

Years ago I found that the basic crust recipe from Molly Katzen’s The Enchanted Broccoli Forest works best for me. I don’t even get the food processor out to mix it up. I just rub the butter into the salty flour, scooping up more flour from the bowl to release any butter clinging to my fingers. I like the friction of grainy flour in my hands. The work relaxes me. But for those who don’t like that idea, just whirl your crust ingredients in the food processor.

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Ingredients for Crust:

1/4 cup cold butter, diced

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

water or milk – by tablespoons, as needed*

Method:

1. Rub the butter into the flour, or put the flour into the food processor and add the diced butter – till the mixture looks like coarse sand. Add the salt.

2. Add the liquid, one tablespoon at a time. * Note about the liquid for crust: Molly Katzen’s recipe calls for “up to 3 tablespoons.” That’s for American flour. Working with Israeli flour, I always need up to 5 tablespoons for the dough to hold together. Go slowly and stop adding liquid as soon as the dough holds together.

3. Make a ball of the dough, wrap it up in plastic wrap or a clean plastic bag, and chill it for an hour in the fridge.

Meantime, prepare your filling.

Ingredients for Filling:

2 cups fresh or frozen spinach

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup milk, buttermilk, or loose sour cream

salt and pepper to taste

Firm cheese to slice and lay over crust – about 200 grams – 7 oz. or 3/4 cup * Israelis: I use Hemed cheese. Katzen recommends Swiss or Cheddar as this first cheese.

1/2 cup another, mild cheese, for filling. Brie is good, but any mild cheese is good too.

Method:

1. If using fresh spinach, wash it and steam it quickly in its own rinse water. Add no salt. If using thawed-out frozen spinach, steam it with no added water or salt. Chop it up coarsely.

2. Chop the onion. Sauté it in a little olive oil or butter till it’s beginning to soften. Slice the mushrooms and add them to the pan. Sauté the vegetables till the mushrooms start to release their liquid. Season with salt and pepper. Remove the pan from the fire.

3. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the milk and beat again. Add a pinch of salt and another of pepper. Set the bowl aside – in the fridge if the kitchen is hot.

4. Slice the first cheese. Chop the second cheese into large dice.

Assemble the Quiche:

1. Roll the dough out and fit it into your baking pan. I usually place a sheet of baking paper on the pan first because I hate to scrub out baking pans. But it’s not as pretty.

2. Fit the slices of firm cheese over the raw crust.

3. Mix the sautéed vegetables into the spinach; mound all on top of the crust.

4. Pour the beaten egg/milk mixture over and into the vegetables. Dot the cubed cheese all over.

Transfer (carefully) to the oven, pre-heated to 375° F -190°C. Bake 35-40 minutes.

This dairy, vegetarian dish is light yet filling – comfortable for lunch or dinner these hot days. Keep it in mind for Shavuot, too. Enjoy!

How to Culture Kefir at Home

dairy 28 Responses »

Oct 222008

image-kefir

Last winter, I didn’t catch one cold. Nor the flu. I didn’t even get the pinkeye that my husband and daughter shared for a few days. Tfu, tfu, tfu – I’m spitting three times to avert bad luck. Well, I haven’t lived in Israel all these years without getting contaminated by fear of the Evil Eye. But as far as the chesty colds and bronchitises that I’ve had every year, all my life, last winter was tissue-free for me. So what’s the big difference?