What’s Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov » Israeli Kitchen

Lip-Smacking Limoncello

Mar 082011

Ah…so refreshing. Originally from the south of Italy, limoncello is becoming better known in the world as a digestif and something to toast “l’chaim” with. The lemon-based drink is also very good in cooking or baking when you want to add intense lemon flavor without the bitterness of fresh lemons.

You can buy limoncello at the liquor store. But I like things made from scratch. And come Purim time, my friends love getting it in their Purim baskets. The trick is finding unsprayed lemons because to make limoncello, you must use only the peels. Not a great idea to put pesticide-sprayed peels into vodka. But if you really, really want something, sometimes your wish is granted.

Across from the shuk, there’s a corner where several elderly people sit and sell little bunches of their garden produce for a few shekels. Once I scored a load of fresh grape leaves from an old lady there and cooked a dish I was longing for – mushrooms in grape leaves (here’s the recipe). Last week I was hurrying home from the shuk, loaded down as usual and a little impatient, when lo and behold – two bags of beautiful, home-garden lemons, on a folding chair.

The vendor was a small, thin man with big eyes under the brim of a sporty cap. I came to a halt in front of him.

“Are these lemons sprayed?”

“Nooo,” he said indignantly. “They’re from my own trees. It’s a different taste. Try them. Here – take both bags.” He stuffed the bags into the top of my shopping cart. If he hadn’t been so elderly and earnest, I would have taken only one, but as it was…those lemons looked good. All of 10 shekels for about 2 1/2 kilos of lemons picked that morning.

Now I had my unsprayed lemons. Cutting one open, the divine aroma of new citrus arose. My vendor friend was right – their sweetness and fresh flavor was beyond compare. I started my limoncello right away, to preserve the best of those essential oils in vodka, and juiced the peeled fruit for freezing.

Here’s the recipe. When you see how easy it is to make, you’ll want to go on a hike for some fresh lemons yourself.

Limoncello

Ingredients:

1 bottle of vodka, 750 ml.
7 or 8 large lemons
5 cups water
3 cups sugar

Method:

1. Wash the lemons well. Peel them thinly, avoiding the white pith as much as possible. A vegetable peeler works best.

2. Pour the vodka into a wide-mouth jar and add the peels. Cover tightly and label the jar with the date.

3. Shake the jar once a day. This redistributes the essential oils in the liquid. The peels will become pale and become hard. One week of this maceration will make good limoncello, but longer – up to a month is even better. When the peels have given their all, they’ll be crisp and dry.

4. Strain the vodka into a clean jar.

5. Make a simple syrup by boiling the water and sugar together for 5 minutes. Allow it to cool and add it to the vodka.

6. Allow the limoncello to develop for 1 week. Then bottle. Store in the freezer and serve it cold. It will pour out thick and syrupy if frozen.

Smack yer lips.

Enjoy!

Eggplant Stuffed With Burgul and Dried Fruit

Tu B'Shvat, vegetables, Vegetarian 10 Responses »

Jan 192011

For our Tu B’Shvat feast, I thought I’d stuff an eggplant. I saw this gorgeous shiny purple “baladi” – prime – eggplant in the shuk. Brought it home, set it down on the kitchen counter, and contemplated it.

I could imagine layering it, fried, with cheese. Doing something tomato-saucy.

Umm, too much. Too big to chop up into ratatouille. We would be eating ratatouille for weeks. Too big for babah ganoush for the same reason. Too big to grill. Too big, too big, too big. There’s only three of us in the house these days. What was I thinking?

But it looked so good.

Then I recalled a fruity bulgur salad that was sitting in the fridge. It was full of chopped nuts and fruit and chives and celery. Hmmm. Wheat. Walnuts. Currants. Sounds like Tu B’Shvat to me. So I stuffed and baked the purple monster with fruity bulgur and let me tell you, it was good. We didn’t have any trouble eating it up. If you’re fond of eggplant, try this one.

Eggplant Stuffed with Fruity Bulgur

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant

olive oil

1/2 cup medium-grade bulgur

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup boiling water

1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1/4 cup raisins or currants

1 celery stalk

1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds

2 tablespoons minced chives or 1 shallot

1/2 red apple

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon cumin

dash cinnamon

1. Place the bulgur in a heatproof bowl with the salt and mix. Pour the boiling water over it and cover the bowl. Leave it alone for 1/2 hour.

2. Meantime, toast the sunflower seeds in a medium oven for 5 minutes. Chop the walnuts coarsely and the celery and apple finely (don’t peel the apple). Chop the chives (or shallot).

3. Pour some of the lemon juice over the apples to prevent browning. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, cover, and set aside.

4. Remove the green cap from the eggplant. Slice the eggplant in half horizontally. Cut away the pulp, leaving a thin shell inside. Chop the pulp finely and add it to the fruit bowl. Mix well.

5. Brush the insides of the eggplant halves with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and grind some pepper over all.

6. Fluff the cooked bulgur up with a fork. Add it to the fruit/eggplant bowl and mix well. Drizzle more olive oil into it, mix, and taste for seasoning. Add more salt, pepper, honey, cumin or cinnamon to taste.

7. Stuff the eggplants, tamping the bulgur mixture down with your hands to keep it firm. Drizzle yet another little olive oil over all.

8. Tuck a strip of tin foil tightly around each half. Bake at 350° F – 180° C for 1 to 1-1/2 hour, depending on size of eggplant. When the meat on the shells and the chopped eggplant in the stuffing is tender and an appetizing odor of “cooked” arises, it’s done.

Remove the tin foil and bake another 10 minutes to make the top crisp.

The stuffing tends to crumble when first taken out of the oven. To slice firm portions, allow the dish to cool and then re-heat it. Good at room temperature too.

Moroccan Beef Tajine

Fleish: Meat and Poultry, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 11 Responses »

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!

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.

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.

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.

2 Recipes: Spiced Olives and Potatoes with Olives

Appetizers, Everyday Cooking, vegetables, Vegetarian, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 9 Responses »

Nov 062010

My neighbors and I cook at around the same time of day, and our cooking smells waft around the building. I stick my head out the kitchen window and sniff judgementally. One neighbor’s food smells great, with sharp notes of onions, turmeric, cumin. Another’s cooking is so bland it depresses me. (Boiling potatoes again, are we? Don’t you get tired of boiled potatoes?)

Yesterday, Friday, every woman was cooking for Shabbat. Naturally, she needs to put something nutritious, filling, and cheap on the table. Potatoes suit the menu every time. I looked at my potato bin. This Friday, I was bored with them. I needed some potato inspiration.

Flipping through my cookbooks, I found an interesting recipe in Joyce Goldstein’s Saffron Shores: Jewish Cooking of the Southern Mediterranean. Actually, it’s two recipes in one, because first you must prepare spiced olives, then add them to potatoes and cook them together.

Goldstein’s recipe calls for crushing whole olives with the flat of a cleaver or a mallet, then soaking them overnight. I didn’t have time for that and figured that canned, pitted olives would release plenty of their salt with a few good rinses. So they did. And the dish was very good. It has the advantage of being vegetarian and pareve, for everyday meals as well as for Shabbat. And the olives, you can serve serve and eat as an appetizer all by themselves.

Spiced Olives

Yield: 2 cups

Ingredients:

2 cups of pitted olives

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large bay leaf

2 cloves of garlic

½ teaspoon sweet paprika

A large pinch of cayenne pepper and/or ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Juice of ½ lemon

Method:

Rinse the olives thoroughly, three times in cold, running water. Drain them.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or shallow pot, over a low flame.

Cook the bay leaf, garlic, paprika and cayenne or pepper for 3 minutes.

Add the olives to the skillet and cook for 5 minutes, turning them over occasionally.

Remove from the fire and let cool. Put the olives, with the bits of garlic clinging to them, in a clean dish.

Add the lemon juice; mix.

You may store the spiced olives in the refrigerator for a week if kept in a clean, dry jar.

Potatoes Stewed with Olives

Serves 6

Ingredients:

The olive oil left from cooking spiced olives, or 3 tablespoons fresh olive oil

1 large onion

2 ½ lb. – 1 kg. potatoes, unpeeled but scrubbed and sliced 1 inch (2 centimeters) wide.

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 cups spiced olives

¼ cup finely chopped parsley or celery leaves

Method:

Chop the onion finely. Sauté it for 5 minutes in the skillet where the spiced olives cooked, with their oil returned to it. If using fresh oil, sauté the onions in 3 tablespoons of oil.

Add the potatoes and the spices. Don’t add salt – the olives will add enough.

Add water to halfway up the potatoes, and bring to a boil.

Cover the skillet, lower the flame, and cook the potatoes 15 minutes.

Add the olives and cook another 10 minutes, turning everything over once or twice.

Check to make sure the potatoes are tender; give them a few more minutes if necessary, but don’t let them get mushy.

Sprinkle the dish with the chopped parsley. Serve hot.

Tomato and Pumpkin Seed Bread

Home Bakery, Succot, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 4 Responses »

Sep 232010

image-tomato-bread

Has everyone had a good Succot yom tov? I hope so, and wish my readers a Chag Succot Sameach.

Husband, the Little One, and I spent the first day with my married daughter, her excellent husband, and our three delicious little grandchildren. I was happy. My oldest grandchild, just turned seven, sat down next to me on the sofa and read me stories out of his favorite books. I know, it’s supposed to be me reading to him, but he wanted it that way.

Lunch had been varied and plentiful. Everyone else was taking a nap. My little boy cuddled up to me, holding his story book, reading out loud as a treat to me. His little voice skipped through the Hebrew, page after page, in a light monotone. Drowsiness crept over me. After a few minutes I was cross-eyed, trying not to drift off. But I resisted and laughed and made appropriate noises of shock or surprise as the stories unwound…and unwound. I think he never caught on that I only heard one word out of six. I just hope that when he grows up he’ll remember sitting close with his Grandma, sharing his favorite stories. He won’t know that my heart filled to the brim and that, drowsy as I was, I truly had no other desire in the world than to be exactly where I was, exactly at that moment.

What does this have to do with the recipe featured above?

Nothing, nothing at all.

Or maybe something. I came home from an evening and day spent with some of my most beloved people and sat down with a glass of chilled white wine to let you know… that life’s best things (in case you hadn’t figured this out yourself) are the simplest, seem most natural and often come when you’re not expecting them. The trick is to recognize them when they happen.

But about this bread. It’s simple and natural too. Succot is a good time to serve it. It’s moist and red- and green-speckled. It has the sunshine flavors of late-summer tomatoes, and a preview of autumn in the green pumpkin seeds. It’s different. And delicious. Try it.

Here are your tomato options. Choose one for this recipe.

4 halves of sun-dried tomatoes, rehydrated in warm water for 1 hour and chopped coarsely; or
1 cup peeled, seeded and chopped fresh tomatoes, sauteed in a little olive oil; or
3 halves of slow-roasted tomatoes, finely chopped

Tomato and Pumpkin Seed Bread

Ingredients:

1 oz. – 30 grams fresh yeast, or 3 1/2 teaspoon dried

1/4 pint – 150 ml. water

1 lb. – 500 grams bread flour

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

tomatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 handful green, shelled pumpkin seeds

1 handful sunflower seeds

Method:

In a large bowl, rehydrate the yeast in the water. Add the olive oil and the salt, and the pepper. Gradually add enough flour into the mixture to make a stiff batter – about 2 cups. Stir. If necessary, knead the batter lightly for a few minutes, in the bowl. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour.

Stir or knock the dough down, sprinkling more flour as needed to make it come away from the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the tomatoes and the seeds. add more flour as needed to make a firm, but not dry dough.

Knead ten minutes. Lightly roll the dough into a ball and put it into a clean bowl. Drizzle a little olive oil on top, and turn the dough ball around to become coated with oil. Cover it and let it rise a second time, about 1 hour.

Deflate the dough gently and shape the dough into a fat, rectangular loaf. Pinch the bottom seam with your fingertips to make it keep its shape. Put baking paper on a baking tray, or grease the tray lightly, and place the dough on it. Cover the dough and let it rise a third time till doubled – 35-45 minutes. If your kitchen is warm, the dough will take the shorter time to rise.

About 20 minutes into the last rising time, preheat the oven to 400° F – 200°C. When the dough has risen and is light, bake the loaf for 45 minutes.

Remove the bread from the tray and place it on a rack to cool.

Slice, and spread with good butter.

Shana Tova!

Rosh HaShana 7 Responses »

Sep 082010

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Wishing you a happy, healthy, and prosperous year תשע”א – from my Israeli Kitchen to yours.

Honey Chiffon Cake

Home Bakery, Rosh HaShana, Sweet Things, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 5 Responses »

Sep 072010

Light and honeysome, spicy and not too sweet. A good Rosh HaShanah cake.

But don’t try baking it in a tube pan, like I did. It needs to spread out and rise. I’d forgotten that. So my first try looked like the work of a nervous bride: it overflowed and managed to burn while staying raw at the bottom. I was disgusted. Sad. To console myself, I sang the How Long Blues around the house till all the neighborhood dogs howled in sympathetic chorus.

Never mind. Today, I closed all the windows and turned the air conditioning on so I could sing in peace while I baked the cake again. And it looks and smells so good, now my problem is hiding it from Husband and the Little One till Yom Tov.

We all should only have such tsuris.

Honey Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

4 eggs, separated

1 cup sugar

1 cup honey

1 cup oil

3 ½ cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup strong tea

Method:

Preheat the oven to 300° F, 150° C.

1. Have ready 3 bowls: one deep, and two medium-sized.

2. In one of the medium bowls, beat the egg whites till stiff. Gradually add the sugar, beating constantly, till all the sugar is incorporated.

3. In the deep bowl, beat the egg yolks till light. Beat in the honey, then the oil. It will be a thick emulsion.

4. Sift the flour, baking powder and soda, the spices and salt together into the second medium bowl.

5. Add the dry ingredients to the egg/honey mix, alternating with the tea. Start and end with the flour mixture.

6. Mix the egg white mixture into the batter, folding it in gently but making sure that it’s well incorporated.

7. Pour into a greased and floured 9″ x 13″ cake pan.

Bake for 1 hour.

Older Entries Newer Entries

Israeli Kitchen

Lip-Smacking Limoncello

Limoncello

Eggplant Stuffed With Burgul and Dried Fruit

Eggplant Stuffed with Fruity Bulgur

Moroccan Beef Tajine

Moroccan Beef Tajine

Kosher Cooking Carnival #61 Up

Hanukah Cheese Fritters with Dried Fig Jam and Creme Fraiche

Cottage Cheese Fritters

Creme Fraiche

Dried Fig Jam

Apple Fritters for Thanksgiving or Hannukah

Apple Fritters in Beer Batter

2 Recipes: Spiced Olives and Potatoes with Olives

Spiced Olives

Potatoes Stewed with Olives

Tomato and Pumpkin Seed Bread

Tomato and Pumpkin Seed Bread

Shana Tova!

Honey Chiffon Cake

Honey Chiffon Cake

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