the cookie tin next to the stove

Remember my mixer? The one that leapt to its death like a goldfish from its tank?

What? Am I the only one who had lemming-like goldfish growing up?

Well anyway, the old  has been been replaced  by a bigger, shinier model. I have not yet had a chance to make (or share the recipe for) the challah that challenged my mixer to a duel and won. But I have used my new toy twice already and I was very glad for the extra room in the big bowl. I broke it in with ka’ak b’sukar (yes, you do need to be careful when pronounching the name of these Syrian butter cookies). A pear frangipane tart quickly followed. The tart is on its way, but let’s first talk about the cookies.

I first tried sweet ka’ak b’sukar (sukar means sugar) in Israel when staying with my friend Zoe’s Syrian grandmother. Her Jedda (Arabic for grandmother) welcomed us into her home overlooking Jerusalem with a plate of pale twisted cookies and a pot of tea. My first impression was that they were a bit bland. By the fourth taste though, I was reaching for a fifth. I was hooked. Before going to bed, I’d find my hand making its way over to the cookie tin next to the stove. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d gingerly tip-toe across the cold ceramic floor, refreshing in the hot August night, and reach into that tin again. While waiting for the water to boil for coffee in the morning, I’d snag a few more. After three days, Zoe’s grandmother had to make another batch. The evening of my flight home, she gave me everything that was left in the tin.

I was so excited to find this ka’ak recipe that I didn’t look beyond the list of ingredients and the pretty cookies staring at me from the right side of the page. I threw four eggs and a cup and a half of sugar into my (new!) mixer bowl and started to beat. As I gathered the rest of the ingredients and finally read past the first step, I saw that the sugar was supposed to be divided – one cup in the mixer, the remaining half cup for coating the cookies.

The fix was easy — I made a larger batch. And it seemed fitting that my mixer’s six quart bowl easily fit the over seven cups of flour.

Ka’ak b’sukar (braided sugar cookies)

This is the recipe that I used, essentially one and a half times the original. If you have a smaller bowl, multiply all quantities by 2/3. Depending on how large you make you cookies, the full recipe makes about 50-60 cookies. They are meant to remain somewhat soft after baking (they’re not crispy at all).

- 6 eggs

- 1.5 C sugar, plus more for finishing the cookies

- 1 orange (to make 1 T zest)

- 1 T vanilla extract

- 1.5 C vegetable oil

- 7.5 C flour

- 1.5 T baking powder

 Mix. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat eggs, sugar, zest, vanilla, and oil. Slowly add the flour and baking powder until you get a sticky well-blended dough.

Chill. Refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes.

Preheat. Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Shape. If dough is too sticky to handle when you remove from the fridge, add a small amount of flour and mix everything together with your hands. Keep adding tablespoon by tablespoon of flour and mixing until it  no longer sticks to your fingers. Don’t flour the counter. Take a handful of dough and roll it on the counter into a strand about 1/2 inch thick. Bring the two ends together, folding the strand in half. Holding the folded over side, gently twist the doubled strand several times until it looks like a rope. Cut the rope into pieces that are 2 to 3 inches long. For me, most ropes yielded two cookies.

Roll. Pour some sugar onto a small plate. Lightly roll the twisted cookies in the sugar to coat.

Bake. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment. Place the cookies on the sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies should remain very pale, with only a tiny bit of browning on the bottom where some of the sugar caramelizes.

around and around

My last full day in Vienna, I woke up with the city. Before the cafes opened, I stepped out of my hotel into the misty haze hiding the slowly rising sun. I boarded a small bus and sat next to the driver as we made our way through the sleepy streets.  Past the men in light green jumpsuits sweeping the pavement. Past the early pedestrian commuters waiting on the curb for the light to turn before crossing the road, despite ours being the only car in sight.

Less than an hour into the drive, we watched from the highway as Bratislava approached and faded away. Hours before the time I normally wake up on a Sunday, we arrived in Budapest.

We spent the remainder of the morning criss-crossing the Danube from Buda to Pest and back again. We spent some time in the Castle District, roaming around the cobblestone streets and snagging glimpses of the buildings over on the Pest side.

A few minutes scaling the walls and I was ready to eat.

I was planning to step into the oldest cafe in Budapest for a slice of cake and tea, but got sidetracked by the scent of caramelizing sugar wafting from an open window. I entered the little bakery and watched as the woman in the white and black polka dot apron made Kürtőskalács, also known as chimney cakes. She rolled out the soft sweet dough and used a pizza cutter to separate out long strips. She methodically spiralled the strips of dough around a small long-handled rolling pin. She rolled the pin on the counter to smooth out the edges. She brushed the dough with butter and rolled it in sugar. She placed the pins of dough in the oven  hearth. A motor in the back turned them slowly as the caramelizing sugar crept around and around the dough.

Prompted more by my unwavering daze than the several Euros I dropped on the counter with a clink, she placed the still crackling brûléed sweet in a cellophane sleeve and then in my outstretched hands. I walked out, unraveling my snack as steam puffed out of the center like the chimney it was named after.

the weekend end

As I send this post out into the world, I’m sure most of you are getting ready for the weekend. I like to think that if weekend were a Jewish holiday, Thursday night would be “erev weekend” – the night before the weekend begins and the time to start celebrating.

But, I’m not here to talk about the beginning of the weekend or Friday night dinner. Today, we’re talking about the end of the weekend ritual. The Sunday search through the fridge, quick look on the web, consultation with a towering stack of cookbook followed by a flurry of knives and cutting boards and pots and pans.

Soup is almost always on the agenda these days as the temperature drops below freezing and I am oh so thankful that I have an indoor parking garage.

For the past two weeks, the weekend end ritual fell on a Monday. A Monday! Twice in a row!

Last Monday, I came home to an empty fridge after hours and hours of flying back from Vienna. A quick trip to the store with an idea or two in mind, and a beautiful parsnip parsley soup emerged (thanks Jess).

This Monday was the end of another particularly joyously long weekend. After waking up late,  I settled on my sofa with a steaming cup of coffee, some toast spread with cheese that tastes better than butter, a pile of cookbooks, and my laptop.

The rummaging turned up a few pounds of  butternut squash, already cleaned and peeled and begging to be used. On the door of the fridge, a bouquet of cilantro in a glass of water. In a mason jar, preserved lemons that I made a few weeks ago, awaiting their debut. In the freezer, broth made last month from a couple of roasted chickens.

The flipping through pages, both virtual and real, turned up a hearty squash soup with a kick (you know how I like a kick).

The hearty would come from beans.

The kick from Middle Eastern spice.

Deciding to hibernate for the day, I made everything the slow, (almost) no shortcuts, from scratch way. I soaked and boiled and cooked and roasted and processed and blended.

The soup warmed the apartment and filled it with the scent of delicious.

Happy erev weekend!

Butternut squash and cannellini soup with chermoula

This soup is a mesh of a few difference recipes I found. The idea for using cannellini beans came from Bon Appetit. The spice mixture is based on Maroud Lahlou‘s red chermoula (Moroccan spice paste)and Yotam Ottolenghi‘s ultimate winter couscous.

This soup is a whole day affair, at least the way I made it with dried beans, oven-roasted squash, and chermoula.  But don’t be daunted. There are a few shortcuts you can take that should give you a very good soup in around an hour tops. First, use canned beans – you’ll just need to saute the onion and garlic in the soup pot before adding the rest of the ingredients. Second, don’t roast the squash. Third, skip the chermoula spice paste and just add half the amount of each of the spices directly to the soup with the squash.  

I use preserved lemons here. You can buy them jarred or make them from scratch. To make then from scratch, quarter lemons (regular or meyers) and layer them in a jar with tons of salt. Make sure the lemons are really tightly packed and have enough juice and salt to completely fill the jar. Let the jar sit in a cabinet for about a week and then transfer to the fridge for three weeks. Every few days, flip the jar upside down to mix everything around. Once the lemon rinds soften, they’re ready to use. When you want to add them to something, discard the pulp and only use the peel.

For the beans:

- 1 1/2 C dried cannellini beans or 4 C canned cannellini beans

- 1 bay leaf

- 1 onion

- 4 garlic cloves

- kosher salt

For the chermoula spice paste:

- 1/2 of a preserved lemon (~2 T chopped rind)

- 4 cloves garlic (~2 t chopped)

- 1 T cumin

- 2 t sweet paprika

- 1/2 t hot paprika

- 1/4 t cinnamon

- small bunch fresh cilantro (~2 T chopped)

- 2 T harissa

- 6 T crushed tomatoes

For the soup:

- 2 large butternut squashes (about 3 - 4 pounds total)

- olive oil

- 2 T cumin

- kosher salt

- 4 C chicken or vegetable broth

Make the beans. I used Michael Ruhlman’s instructions as a guideline.

Boil and soak. Pick through the dried  beans and remove any rocks or discolored beans. Bring to a  boil 3 parts cold water with 1 part dried beans (so, 4.5 C water, 1.5 C beans) and the bay leaf. Boil for 10 minutes and then turn off heat. Soak for an hour. Remove bay leaf, drain beans, rinse out pot, and add back the beans.

Simmer. Rough chop one onion, sliver 4 cloves of garlic, and add them to the beans. Fill the pot one inch over the beans with cold water (for this amount of beans, I used 6 cups of water). Simmer for 1 - 2 more  hours. When you can smell the beans and they’re almost tender enough (after 1.5 hour in my case), generously salt. By generously I mean a good palmful or two. The water should taste as salty as the ocean (similar to pasta water). Continue to cook until tender – you should be able to bite into them with almost no resistance. If the beans start to get mushy, it’s not a big deal because you’ll be pureeing the soup soon anyway.

Drain. Drain the cooked beans and onion and then add them back to the pot.

Make the chermoula.

Prep. Remove the preserved lemon peel from the flesh (slide your finger under the peel and the flesh should pop out pretty easily. Chop the lemon peel finely. Chop garlic.

Process. Put all the spices, cilantro, harissa, and tomatoes into a food processor (a mini one will do just fine). Pulse until everything comes together into a bright red paste.  Add salt to taste.

Make the soup.

Prep. Preheat oven to 450°F. Peel, seed, and chop squash into evenly sized chunks — the bigger the cubes, the longer they will take to roast; I typically cut into 3/4 – 1 inch chunks.

Roast. Cover cookie sheet with parchment. Spread squash out in single layer, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with cumin and salt, and shake around in the pan. Roast for 15-20 minutes, shaking the pan mid-way through to make sure the squash cooks evenly. The squash is ready when it’s nicely browned and yields easily with a fork.

Simmer. Add squash to the pot with the beans in it. Add half the chermoula or spices now and mix everything together. Pour in 4 C broth and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the broth (without any squash or beans) has a nice flavor.

Puree. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup.

Serve. Garnish with a nice scoop of chermoula, some cilantro, and a few very thin slivers of preserved lemons.

Or … make it the easy way.

Saute. In a large pot, heat the  olive oil until it glistens. Saute garlic and onion.

Add. Add half the amount of each ingredient in the chermoula spice paste directly to the pan and mix with the garlic and onion.

Add more. Add beans (drained and rinsed) and cubed butternut squash.

One more addition. Pour in broth.

Simmer. Bring the soup to a boil and then drop down to a simmer until the squash is tender.

Blend. Whir the soup with an immersion blender until smooth.

Eat. Garnish with a few sprigs of cilantro and dig in.

to the wind

I have a whole slew of recipes and pictures to share from a dinner I made several weeks ago. They are a bit overdue but too good to miss. So, here goes.

The first is a classic roasted chicken.

I’ve always been a little apprehensive about cooking a whole bird. I’ve  never actually made a Thanksgiving turkey. But in the fifth week of the cooking class I took, Chef gave us a fail-proof classic French technique for roasting a chicken. Throwing caution to the wind (or as much caution to the wind as you can throw when following a cooking instructor’s fail-proof technique), I roasted not one, but two (two!) chickens for dinner.

I pulled the small chickens out of the fridge, rinsed and patted them down inside and out, and let them come to room temperature.

I cranked the oven up real high — 450ºF to be exact.

I cut one lemon per bird into quarters and slid them into the birds’ cavities with a few sprigs of thyme.

I loosened the skin around the breasts and slid a few more sprigs of thyme into each pocket.

I rubbed the birds with olive oil and sprinkled them with a lot of salt and pepper.

I trussed them up, tying the legs so they daintily crossed at the ankles.

I popped then in the oven for 45 minutes.

No turning or flipping. No basting. Just a few temperature checks until 165°F in the breast and it’s done.

I scraped up the bits on the bottom of the pan, made a roux, added broth, and collected the gravy.

At dinner, one of my friends carved half of the first chicken and then guided me through the other half.

The skin was crispy. The meat was moist. The dinner was a hit.

The next day, I covered the leftover carcass with water and simmered with a few vegetables until a broth was born.

(I also made soup, challah, brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes with almond milk, and chocolate bread pudding. I’ll send the bread pudding recipe real soon.

Classic roast chicken with lemon and thyme

- 1 small (~3.5 pounds) chicken

- 1 lemon

- fresh thyme

- olive oil

- salt and pepper

- 2 T flour

- 2 T margarine

- 1 – 1.5 C chicken broth

- carrots, celery, onion

Prep. Rinse chicken and pat dry inside and out. Let it come to room temperature - this takes about an hour. Preheat oven to 450°F.

Season. Slice a lemon in quarters and stuff them into the cavity. Slip a few sprigs of thyme in the cavity around the lemons. With your fingers, loosen the skin from around the breast, and slide a few more sprigs of thyme underneath the skin. Slather the chicken with olive oil and sprinkle with a several large pinches of kosher salt and a few grinds of pepper.

Tie. I can’t really describe how to truss a chicken because I never do it the same way twice, though I have found some helpful instructions. The gist of trussing a chicken is that you use kitchen twine to tuck the wings underneath the chicken and tie the legs together in front of the cavity. This helps the chicken cook evenly (and looks a little more polite when sitting at the table).

Roast. Put the chicken breast side up on a rack in a pan. Roast until the breast temperature reaches 165ºF . This took me about 45 minutes, but you should start checking after 25 minutes.

Rest. Remove the chicken from the pan and let it rest for 15 minutes before slicing.

Make gravy. Scrape up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Add margarine and flour, and whisk together until thick and smooth. Heat gently until the flour starts to brown - keep stirring. You know the roux (mix of flour and fat) is ready when it no longer tastes like flour. Add chicken stock and keep stirring. Let the gravy reduce to the thickness you want. You can always add more stock (or water) if it gets too thick.

Make stock. In a large stockput, cover the leftover chicken bones and carcass with cold water. Roughly chop the carrot, celery, and onion , and add them to the pot. Simmer for 3-4 hours until the bone start falling apart, skimming the scum off the top. Don’t boil or stir. Strain the stock, cool it on the counter, refrigerate, and skim the fat off the top. Fill ziploc bags with 2 cups of soup each and freeze them for the next time you want to make soup or gravy.

the kind of city that holds open the door for you as you pass through

I’m back from my spur-of-the-moment weekend in Vienna.  No recipe today, but there’s a sachertorte in our future. Once I translate a few recipes from German.

If you’ve never been, then let me tell you – Vienna is a walkable elegant city. Perhaps the most elegant city I’ve ever visited.

Elegant in a dapper sort of way.

In that shine your shoes, brush off your coat, adjust your tie, comb your hair, and don your hat before heading out into the light drizzle sort of way. The kind of city that holds open the door for you as you pass through.

Alyson and I snagged an amazing room on the Ringstraße, the road that encircles Vienna’s central district. If you’re wondering how to pronounce “Ringstraße,”  I can assure you that it’s not “Ringestrabe.”  Despite what our taxi driver told us, that beta-looking letter is not a “B.” It’s a double-S.

While we’re on the topic, let me just say that we did not have much taxi luck Vienna. After we walked to Alef Alef in the former Jewish ghetto and found it closed from Thursday to Sunday, we hailed a taxi to take us to Simchas. When we gave the driver the address, he shook his head and pointed to the bridge in front of us. “Just go across the Danube and the restaurant is straight ahead. 10 minutes.” He was the only taxi around, so we walked across the river. And kept walking. And walking. We walked one more block. And then we found another taxi to take us the next two meandering miles.

We visited several cathedrals and a museum and went to a concert (though we were dissapointed that “The Cat’s Duet” was missing from the program). Then we spent the rest of our time eating (and a little requisite shopping). There’s a fabulous line in a book I read a few months ago that could not be closer to the truth, especially in Vienna: “The only reason I travel … is for an excuse to eat more than usual.”

I was determined to taste as many sachertortes as possible. For the record, my favorite one was the first one I tried – that very one staring at  you. It was not particularly sweet, hit the right level of denseneess without being dry, with just a subtle layer of apricot beneath a thin, dark, rich (sounds like a pretty good date to me) coating of chocolate.

Anyway, our days went something like this:

Drag ourselves out of bed.

Coffee and pastry for breakfast, at a kaffeehaus chosen the night before. (It’s no wonder that the French refer to pastries as ”viennoiserie.”)

After breakfast, wander around and see a site or two. After about two hours, one of us would say, “are you hungry yet?”

The other one would say, “no…but I want to eat anyway.”

And so we did.

The afternoon? A repeat of the morning.

And then after dinner, plan where to have breakfast the next morning.

One morning, I woke up early and broke tradition: rather than going to our previously-agreed-upon cafe, I asked our hotel receptionist to recommend the best place for coffee. She said to skip the well-known places, walk down a side street, and find a small, old, dark cafe with a grumpy waiter. I landed at Cafe Frauenhuber and drank my coffee a few tables away from that lovely gentleman you see at the beginning of this story.

And one morning, we skipped the kaffeehaus all together in favor of a French cafe across the street from our hotel. I noticed it our first evening, drawn to the long communal table that I glimpsed through the window.

I was very excited to strike up a conversation with the strangers on the other side of the vast table. If I ever open a restaurant, I’m going to call it “à table” – just like that, without caps with a little bit of a French-English pun. It will be grounded around a huge table, maybe two. It will get crowded at times – just the way I like it. And you’ll make fleeting friends with strangers. Maybe not so fleeting. But that’s all a dream right now.

In between cafes, we wandered out to Naschmarkt – once we heard how it was pronounced – nosh market — how could we miss it?

Apparently Vienna is the cool place to go these days — at the very moment we were in town, the New York Times ran a segment about spending 36 hours there. And, before the rest of the Times-reading world flocks to it, I managed to get a seat at Motto em Fluss – their newly-discovered and recommended bar/lounge/restaurant built atop a ferry station on the Danube.

I spent my last day in Budapest, just a 2 hour drive from Vienna. That story to come.

more later

Guten Morgen from München. Well, the airport at least.

Look what was waiting for me at the Dallmayr cafe an hour before my connecting flight. 

Ahhh…

A croissant so good that it left a trail of crispy flakes down the front of my shirt.

Another short flight and now I’m off to get wienerschnitzel here in Austria.

More later.

carry me through

Welcome to 2012.

Before we get too far into the new year, I want to send out the recipe that carried me through the last few weeks of 2011. With the track record it has, I suspect it will carry me through the first weeks of 2012 as well.

I met this wild mushroom soup when my aunt Sessie made it for Thanksgiving. Two weeks later I made it for shabbat dinner, using the hugest pot I own - the bright green stockpot peeking out from behind the soup (thanks, mom and dad!). We ate the leftovers while making sufganiyot. Then I made it again for a huge crowd in Atlanta. Meira liked it so much she froze and brought the leftovers home in her suitcase. This recipe makes great leftovers

One soup, three times, five weeks – that might be a record.

There’s not much to this soup and I’m almost embarrassed to call it a recipe. You start with olive oil, a basic mirepoix - the holy soup trinity of onion, carrots, and celery — and garlic. And then stock. And then thyme. And then pretty much every single mushroom in every single variety you can find in your grocery store. I’m talking pounds and pounds of mushrooms here. A few minutes with your immersion blender, and you’re done.

Wild mushroom soup for a crowd

Roughly chop an onion, a 1/2 pound of carrots, a bunch of celery, and 4-5 pounds of assorted mushrooms (I used white, cremini, shitake, and king oysters). Mince a few cloves of garlic. Cover the bottom of a large stockpot (like the green one my parents just gave me) with olive oil and heat until it glistens. Saute the onion until it become transparent. Add the garlic and saute for a few more minutes, being careful not to let it burn. Add the carrots and celery and 2 quarts of vegetable stock. Bring to a boil and then drop to a simmer over low to medium heat. When the vegetables start to soften, add in the mushroom and a few sprigs of fresh thyme (or a few large pinches of dry thyme). Keep simmering for about 2 hours until all of the vegetables are very soft. Puree with an immersion blender. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. This makes enough for 10 and can be doubled or tripled, as long as you have a bit enough pot.

family hold back

Welcome to the South.

Atlanta, to be exact.

I spent last weekend with my adopted Atlanta family. They “adopted” me years ago when my parents had moved to the West coast and getting home for the holidays proved difficult. The first time I went home with Meira was Rosh Hashana. I met the family – Monica, Caroline, Micah and relatives from Montreal - over dinner. A dinner that included simanim - eating symbolic foods to represent hopes for the coming new year. A dinner served on three tables that snaked around the dining room. (You know how much I like snaking tables for the holidays.) A dinner that included so much food and so many guests that it had to be served buffet style in the kitchen.

When we had gathered around the buffet, Meira pulled me aside and whispered “FHB.” In response to my tilted head and furrowed eyebrows, she explained, “family hold back – I’m afraid we won’t have enough food for our guests.”

At that point, I knew I was part of the Katz family.

The next morning when I stumbled downstairs, I found Deborah at the kitchen table, having popped over for breakfast. (Deborah! I used her first book as a source for my high school senior thesis. So, I’ll just say it again: Deborah!)

Over the course of the next few days, we had lunch with Roberta and Allen, Leslie and Chuck, and countless Atlanta families who have welcomed me back into their homes and their community many times since.

Over the course of the next few years, the Katz family grew, and I’ve joined in for many of their simchas (celebrations). First Caroline met Randy. Natanel soon followed as they purchased a  house just a few blocks from Monica. Then came Eden with those long gorgeous eyelashes. Then Micah met Eliana. Meira and I visited them out in San Francisco last year. Amanda Lynn and Chipper Jones rounded out the family. Caroline and Randy bought a mini-van for this growing brood.

The kids got nicknames. For a few months each, I called them Monkey and Duckie after the stuffed animals I bought when they were born. But, leave it to the Katz family – they are a family of nicknamers. Nanz and Shaindy quickly emerged. As Nanz grew, everyone around him got new names. Monica became Maman. Caroline and Randy became Mommy and Abba. Meira became Dodah. Micah and Eliana became Uncle Macah and Auntie Ana (with the British pronunciation of auntie, not the American “antie”). Deborah became Dodah Deba. This trip, I became Dodah Gayle (though I’m still pushing for Tante Gayle). Natanel also started calling me Miguel – I’m thinking he means My Gayle, and I’m cool with that.

As a birthday gift to Maman, I offered to cook shabbat dinner last week. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. When she heard I was visiting, Monica (I’m still getting used to calling her Maman) emailed me immediately to ask if I would cook for her and the family. In the days leading up to my trip, she and I emailed back and forth to decide on a menu and prepare a shopping list. Mere hours after my arrival, we went grocery shopping. For fifteen people. That’s right, fifteen family members and guests would grace our table that Friday night. I’ve never cooked for that many people in my life.

We filled a giant shopping cart at Kroger.  We bought over 8 pounds of mushrooms (that soup recipe will follow in a few days), 3 bunches of red chard, 10 pounds of potatoes, 4 heads of cauliflower, and on and on. While I’m mentioning Kroger, let’s talk about their in-house (kosher) butcher  for a moment. When he saw the two of us pondering the ribs in the refrigerated section, grumbling that they were not quite what we wanted, he approached and asked if he could help. I explained what we were preparing and that I needed thick short ribs – about 2-3 inches of bone – and cut in one or two rib pieces. He returned with a piece of meat, cut to my specifications, asking if it was OK. It looked great. He then spent the next 30 minutes while we filled that giant cart, cutting and packaging the meat exactly the way I wanted. I might actually consider that this year’s Hanukkah miracle.

While on line, Monica sent me back to the butcher to pick up a few more pounds of short ribs (again, exactly to my specifications). At this point we had north of 13 pounds of ribs. I can say for sure that I have never had that much raw meat in my posession in my life (though, I did once come close).

We got home and I set to work. I seared and I braised. I stirred and I blended. And then we all went out for Chinese food for dinner. The next morning, Sylvia showed up.

Given that Sylvia is wearing an apron and cleaning chard and the fact that I’m wearing makeup (well, I did put it on special for the picture) and hugging her, you might think that Sylvia did the bulk of the cooking on Friday. And you would be correct. I was finishing up a project for work, and my “study breaks” included seasoning the cauliflower florets she had cut up, sauteed the chard she had washed, roasting garlic, mashing the potatoes she had cut and boiled, and observing the chicken she was breading with pretzels. I was in heaven!

Before the guests arrived, Monica fretted that we wouldn’t have enough ribs to go around. The rule of thumb is one pound of ribs per person, but  I had figured that 13 pounds would suffice for 15 people since a few of those people were kids. Like a good Jewish mother, Monica was concerned that someone might go home hungry.

So, I made an executive decision. We were not going to serve buffet style. We were going to plate in the kitchen and serve everyone individually. You should try this because everyone thinks its fancy.

And no one in the family had to hold back.

Ana Sortun’s tamarind-braised beef short ribs (“Sultan’s Delight”)

This recipe is from Ana Sortun’s Spice” Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean with just a few modifications. It serves 8, but it’s easy to modify using the formula of 1 pound of meat per person. This is one of those recipes that can be made in advance and is better the next day. I like to use a cocotte (dutch oven) with a heavy cover because you can sear and braise in the same pot. If you don’t have one, use any other ovenproof pan covered with heavy duty aluminum foil.

- 8 pounds beef short ribs (1 pound per person)

- kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

- 1 C medium-bodied red wine (I used a shiraz)

- 1 C balsamic vinegar

- ½ C packed brown sugar

- 3-4 garlic cloves

- 1 large onion

- 1 carrot (or a handful of baby carrots)

- 2 T tamarind paste/concentrate (see directions below to make your own, or buy the kosher Golchin brand

Prep. Bring meat to room temperature. Pat dry and then season meat on all sides with salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 350F. Roughly chop the onion and carrot, and mince the garlic. Whisk the tamarind into a cup of water and set aside.

Sear. In an ovenproof pot (a dutch oven/cocotte is great), sear the seasoned meat in a tiny bit of olive oil – you don’t need to add much oil because short ribs do have a fair amount of fat.  Sear the meat until there is nice caramelization on all sides. You know it’s ready when the meat shrinks away from the bone.  You may need to do it in 2 batches, depending on the size of your pot. Put the seared ribs on a plate.

Deglaze.  Deglaze the pan with the red wine. Add the vinegar, brown sugar, and garlic and mix until the sugar dissolves. Pour the liquid into a bowl.

Fill. Lay the ribs in one layer on the pot. They can be a little bit crowded. Pour the liquid mixture and the tamarind paste dissolved in water over the ribs. The liquid should come ¾ up the sides of the short ribs. Add more water if necessary.

Cover. Cover the meat in the pot with parchment paper and then cover the entire pot with heavy duty aluminum foil. Then cover the whole thing with a heavy lid or an extra layer off foil. Essentially, you want the pot tightly closed.

Braise. Place the pot in the oven and braise for 3 – 3.5 hours. You know the short ribs are ready when they fall apart when poked with a fork. Some of the bones will probably be completely separated from the meat.

Strain. Use tongs to remove the meat onto a platter. Strain the liquid into a bowl.

Chill. Place the bowl of liquid into the fridge for at least an hour until the fat rises to the top and completely solidifies.

Boil. Boil the de-fatted liquid in a pot and then simmer until reduced by ¼. Whisk every once in a while – the sauce will thicken and glisten.

Reheat. Return the short ribs to the cocotte/dutch oven. Add half the sauce and about ½ C water. Cover tightly and reheat for 20-30 minutes, rolling the ribs around in the sauce every 10 minutes.

Serve. Pour a little extra warmed sauce over the ribs when you serve them with mashed potatoes, sauteed red chard, and “popcorn” cauliflower.

 

Tamarind paste

Tamarind is a fruit in a pod. You can buy the dried pods in Indian grocery stores. Making the paste from scratch takes a while but isn’t too labor intensive – I’ve actually made it a few times. What you’re interested in is turning the sticky stuff into a concentrate. This recipe is adapted from Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews.

- 1 pound tamarind pods

- 1 C sugar

- 1 T lemon juice

Peel. With your fingers, gently crack the dried pods and pull out the sticky seeds. The seeds are linked in a chain and have a fibrous “spine” running down the length of the fruit. The “spine” comes off pretty easily – discard this along with the pod shells.

Soak. In a large bowl, cover the sticky seeds with warm water. Cover and soak overnight (at least 6 hours).

Strain. With your hands, mash the pulp, separating out the fibers and pits. Cut out a large piece of cheese cloth and double it up. Place it in a bowl and fill it with the pulp. You want to have a lot of extra cheese cloth around the edges. Pull the edges of the cloth together around the pulp and keep twisting to strain out as much of the pulp as possible.

Soak and strain again. In a new bowl, dump the pulp that was left in the cheesecloth in more water. Again, mash up the pulp. Strain through cheesecloth again. You may need to do this a third time.

Boil and simmer. Bring all of the strained liquid to a boil in a large saucepan. Lower the heat and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. Mix in sugar and lemon juice.

Boil again. Increase the heat to medium and slowly boil, stirring with a wooden spoon. The mixture will continue to reduce and eventually turn very dark brown and take on a silky consistency.

Store. Once the concentrate has cooled, pour it into a glass jar. You should have about a cup. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to a year.

 

grill? yes I will!

In the months before Christmas, I started a class
of chopping and stirring and cooking with gas.

I dragged myself up every Sunday at eight.
Luck’ly they set out strong coffee to wait.

Knife skills and techniques were taught on week one,
but at home were dull knives that weren’t much fun.

Week two was eggs that we poached, whipped, and scrambled.
We made a soufflé even I could have handled.

On week three, we learned that a good stock should jiggle,
but without salt and acid, soup surely will fizzle.

The fourth week was braising, keep temperatures low,
to make cabbage and short ribs and osso bucco.

When week six was sauces, I made béchamel;
I took home a pear so the recipe I could tell.

But wait! You’ve just noticed — where’s the fifth week?
Oh you smart readers, nothing past you can I sneak!

Week five as you know, was on hot hot hot heat.
For my part, I set forth with grilling some meat.

Other types of dry heat, we also did try,
from broiling to roasting to deep deep fat fry.

You may not have realized, but until that day,
I’d never tried frying or grilling, no way!

I faced deep fat frying just earlier this week,
with sufganiyot – fancy doughnuts, so to speak.

But I think grill cooking and taking out trash
are jobs for a man, and I’ll flutter my lash.

Though I’m planning to try – only grilling, of course -
with a grill pan I own, or another resource.

I’ll start this “man’s task” with a feminine flair,
with fruit and with teacake and other sweet fare.

And, in case you are wondering, although I will grill,
the trash taking out will remain my worst skill.

 

Grilled fruit

A lot of different fruits can apparently be grilled. While my cooking partner and I were waiting for our meat to marinate, we scrounged around the kitchen for other things to grill. We found pears and grapefruits and set to work. We cut the fruit into good sized chunks that wouldn’t fall down the grill grates. For the pears, we made 4 cuts around the core. For the grapefruit, we made about 4 slices perpendicular to the fruit segments. We then brushed all surfaces with a little olive oil (I’m sure melted butter would be great too), a nice sprinkle or two of sugar, and a small pinch of salt (if you want). Fire up the grill. Or, if you are like me and only have indoor cookery, put your grill pan on medium heat. When your grill (pan) is hot, place the fruit on the grill. Let it cook for about 5 minutes on each side for harder fruit (apples, pears) or 2-3 mintues per side for citrus. Just like with meat, the fruit is ready when it releases itself from the grill (pan) – if you have to tug at it, leave it be for a minute more.

Grilled cranberry-orange zinfadel bread with orange mascarpone cream

We made these “breads” as tea cakes in mini loaf pans. They would obviously work just as well in 2 large loaf pans. I think the cake is great as is, but excellent with the extra texture and flavor from the grill. When you make the dough – think of it  like pancake batter – you don’t want to over mix. Instead you want the ingredients to just barely come together.

For the cranberry-orange zinfandel bread:

- 1/4 C oil

- 2 eggs, slightly beaten

- 4 C flour

- 1 1/2 C sugar

- 1 t salt

- 1 T baking powder

- 1 t baking soda

- 1 C walnuts or pecans

- 3 C whole raw cranberries

- 2/3 C fresh orange juice

- 1/2 C white zinfancel

- 2 oz melted butter

For the orange mascarpone cream:

- 1 C (8 oz) mascarpone

- 1 t orange zest

- 3 T fresh orange juice

- 1 T orange liqueur (Cointreau, triple sec, Grand Marnier)

- 1 T confectioner’s sugar

Prep. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly butter/oil and flour 2 loaf pans, 6 mini loaf pans, or 2 dozen muffin tins. Toast nuts in the heated oven for 10-15 minutes – the second you start smelling the nuts, grab them from the oven. Check them at about 7 minutes. When the cool a bit, chop them up into medium sized chunks.

Mix. In a large bowl, mix oil and eggs well. Then add the dry ingredients – flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir this all together until it just barely combines — the mix will be a bit crumbly. Fold in nuts and cranberries. Then add juice and zinfancel and stir until just blended.

Bake. Pour batter into the greased and floured pans. Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out dry.

Grill. Turn on  your grill (or get your grill pan ready). When the bread is cool, slice it into 3/4-inch slices. Brush with melted butter and grill slices 3-4 minutes on each side.

Make mascarpone cream. In a bowl, whisk mascarpone until smooth. Add zest, orange juice, orange liqueur, and sugar and whisk until well blended.

Eat. Top a grilled cake slice (or two) with a big blob of mascarpone cream.

between mouthfuls

Happy Hanukkah everyone!

This year, I started celebrating the night before the first night of the holiday. I didn’t light any candles, but I could have said a shehecheyanu — the blessing traditionally recited on the first night of Hanukkah, other holidays, and special occasions. This was a special occasion alright. Because I fried.

And fried.

And fried.

Yesterday, a friend sent me from Israel a recipe for sufganiyot. Excited to try a batch that very night, I left work a little early to pick up what I needed. A bag of flour. A bag of sugar. A dozen eggs. Yeast. And two gallons of oil.

That’s right. Two gallons.

And then I rushed home to mix and knead the dough so it would have enough time to rise before my bedtime.

An hour later, my friend Ilana came over. She claimed she could smell the sweet rising dough from her apartment a few blocks away.

We checked the dough to see if it had doubled. We looked at each other and shrugged. Neither of us had ever made sufganiyot before. We decided the dough wasn’t quite ready and covered it back up with a damp towel.

I poured wine and heated up soup as we settled in to watch a few recent Top Chef episodes. We’re a few weeks behind, so please don’t ruin the surprise and tell us what happens. If you can restrain yourselves, then I’ll be sure to share with you really really soon the recipe for the mushroom soup that we ate.

One glass of wine and half a Top Chef in, I checked the dough and we were ready to roll. Literally.

I sprinkled flour on the counter, grabbed a rolling pin and set to work. The soft elastic dough gave way, fanning out across the granite. Ilana grabbed a glass from the cabinet and cut circles out of the dough. I gathered the scraps and re-rolled them, and Ilana cut out the rest.

I floured a pair of cookie sheets and we gently lifted the rounds from the counter and slid them on to the sheets to rise again.

An hour later, the flat rounds had become nice and plump, with a slight jiggle when I reached out to touch their smooth skin.

The oil started to bubble in my new cocotte (thanks, mom and dad!) placed over the biggest burner on my stove. Ilana dropped the first dough scrap into the pool. In a flood of bubbles, it browned up fast. Too fast. We lowered the heat. The second and third scraps quickly browned too. We lowered the heat again. And then lowered in another scrap. It floated on the oil, staying pale and wan. We turned up the heat. With the fifth scrap came a flurry of teeny tiny bubbles and slow trickle of larger ones. The triangular scrap puffed up even more, turning golden and then coffee-with-a-touch-of-milk brown.

A quick taste and we knew we were ready for the real deal.

I scooched the first doughnut towards the edge of the cookie sheet, helping it along the way with a spatula, and slid it into the oil. A quick bob in the oil and then a float, it turned golden to brown and was ready to be flipped. A few more minutes and it landed on the paper towel-lined countertop. Several more batches and we had an army of plump beauties lined up at attention.

Armed with a new turkey baster, I pierced the side of one of the sufganiyot, gently nudged the tip into the center and slowly squeezed the bulb, drawing the tip backwards to the edge, leaving a trail of jam behind.

We tore open this first sufganiyah and, between mouthfuls, filled the rest.

The final touch – I showered them with powdered sugar.

As we plucked up the sufganiyot, they left their chubby little outlines behind.

Sufganiyot

These doughnuts are traditionally filled with bright reddish-pink jelly though in Israel they come in all flavors. I used raspberry jam. Next time I’ll try dulce de leche. Using a drinking glass to cut the dough, we were able to make about a dozen doughnuts (but only eight made it to the office with me this morning).

- 2 packets dry yeast (or 2 T)
- 3/4 C warm water (body temperature — I take it from the tap)
- 1 C whole milk (you can use water instead if you’d like to keep the sufganiyot non-dairy)
- 3/4 C sugar
- 6 T shortening or margarine (Crisco works great here)
- 1 t salt
- 2 eggs
- 5 C flour (or more)
- 1 gallon (or more) vegetable oil (vegetable or peanut oil is best; canola oil works ok too)
- confectioner’s sugar

Proof. Mix yeast with warm water and a pinch of sugar. After about 5 minutes, it will foam up.

Heat. Warm milk in a pan over low heat until it reaches body temperature.

Mix. In a large bowl, mix sugar, shortening, and salt until creamy (I used my barely-functional waiting-for-the-new-one-to-arrive mixer on low speed and it hobbled along, so you could probably do just as well the old-fashioned way). Add eggs and mix. Add yeast mixture and milk and continue to mix. Add 2 cups of the flour. Beat in the remaining flour a half-cup at a time until the dough is very elastic and no longer sticks to the bowl. I had to add a total of 6 cups.

Knead. Knead dough for 5-10 minutes. I started kneading in my mixer and then finished up the last few minutes by hand on a floured counter.

Rise. Put dough in a greased bowl. Cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place until it doubles in bulk – at least an hour. I heat my oven to the lowest temperature possible (170ºF) and then turn it off and leave the covered bowl inside to rise.

Knead. Once dough has doubled, knead it again briefly.

Roll. Roll the dough out on a floured counter until it is about 1/2 thick.

Cut. Using a drinking glass to cut the dough into rounds. Re-roll the scraps and cut the rest of the rounds. These (the rounds from the re-rolled dough) will need to rise a little bit longer than the others. Keep the remaining scraps to test the oil.

Rise again. Place the rounds on a well-floured cookie sheet (ideally the kind without edges) so the dough is easier to slide right off into the oil. Let rise again until double, at least another hour. The rounds will get nice and round.

Heat. Fill a really wide pot with high sides with oil and heat over low to medium heat. Remember those scraps left over? Gently slide one into the oil. If one side browns in 1-2 minutes, the oil is too hot. If it takes more than 5 minutes, the oil is not hot enough. You’ll probably need to test and adjust the temperature a few times. The oil is perfect when you it forms a lot of teeny tiny rolling bubbles around the dropped dough. I checked the oil temperature with a meat thermometer – it was 310ºF. I’m not sure how accurate using a meat thermometer is; most recipes call for the oil to be 350ºF.

Fry! Once you’ve got the oil at the right temperature, lower the cookie sheet close to the surface of the oil and scootch your first roly-poly round into the oil. Tiny bubbles should surround the doughnut. When the first side puffs up and reaches a nice brown (a bit darker than “golden”), flip it over. It took us about 3-4 minutes per side. And we made about 3-4 per batch.

Drain. Cover your counter or a few plates with several layers with paper towels. Using a slotted spoon, remove the sufganiyot from the oil onto the paper towels and drain off excess oil.

Fill. Load a turkey baster with whatever filling you want to use. Poke it into the side of a doughnut as far as it will go. Slowly and steadily squeeze the filling into the sufganiyah while gently pulling back to the edge of the doughnut.

Dust. Sift confectioner’s sugar over the top of the sufganiyot.

Eat. The sufganiyot are best fresh, but they will last about 24 hours if well wrapped.