From Suq to Shuk

Breakfast with Oren

Yesterday I had the pleasure of eating with my dear friend Oren who in two days will be inducted into the IDF.  Celebrating his last few days of freedom, he came to Tel Aviv to see friends and soak up some sun at the beach.  Since I am quite busy with schoolwork, Oren came over bright and early.  We had planned to eat breakfast together, but with limited funds we decided it would be more cost efficient and tastier to go to the Shuk, buy ingredients and make breakfast for ourselves instead of going out to eat.  

Israeli breakfast consists of eggs, cucumber and tomato salad, bread, all sorts of cheeses, tuna and sometimes tahina and olives.  Well we're two North American boys who prefer a heartier breakfast with meat involved, and a fresh fruit rather than salad.  I picked up some bacon and Oren some sliced turkey as he has decided forego pork products entirely.  Mango season has recently begun and so we bought so very  very delicious mangoes as well as a melon, and some cherries whose season is nearly over.  Although the Shuk is not a farmer's market it does contain certain elements of a farmer's market.  The eggs we purchased, for example, were not industrial processed and refrigerated but rather delivered that morning from a farm to some Arab merchants who sell the eggs in packages of either 15 or 30.  Since I don't eat that many eggs we opted for the carton of 15 (for 12.5 shekels) and made a huge 7 egg omelette that we split between us.  the yolks of these eggs are more orange rather than yellow and the difference in colour translates on your palate to a superior taste.

We came home, prepared our food in under twenty minutes, ate well, and then I turned to my studies as Oren headed to the beach.  I care far more for food than I do for partying, so it was a more appropriate (interim) farewell than a night of drinking.  Having been well fed, I proceeded to work on my essays having spent the morning in the best possible way - with good food and the best of company.

   

Breakfast for Dinner - French Toast

A week ago I came home from the bakery with far more bread than I knew what to do with.  After one night of eating just plain bread and butter, Lior asked that I make French toast.  I had the left over bits of flank steak from the night before, so for lunch I cut that up really thinly and made a bit of a stir fry that I served over mashed potatoes.  It was not a beautiful plate, the pictures of it are not beautiful, and so dinner became the main event of the day.  I really enjoy having breakfast for dinner, mostly because I love breakfast food and don't eat most mornings.  

I would have made the French toast for lunch but we had no eggs.  It was Saturday, so the only supermarket open was Tiv-Ta'am which is also the only non-kosher chain.  I bought some bacon while there as well, though the woman working behind the counter was incompetent.  She was both unable to cut the bacon at the proper thickness and incapable of passing through one complete slice.  All I got were fragmented strips that were too thick.  I decided to be playful with the bacon and rather than simply fry it in its own fat, I placed it around a ring and put in the oven so it would retain a circular shape.

I paired the French toast with bacon fruit and some syrups.  As strange as this might sound, I don't have any maple syrup.  This is a situation that must be rectified but last week I made do with the other syrups available to me.  Previous trips to Ikea had produced a small collection of lingonberry and elderflower syrups.  I used the lingonberry syrup over the French toast and mixed some diced kiwi with agave nectar, which is also a syrup.  I used some sliced pear for some more fresh fruit in the mix, and some apples were present as well.  I think that the recipe is straight forward enough that you should all be able to put it together from my list of ingredients and the pictures too follow - so no recipe today.  Instead, enjoy my breakfast for dinner that sort of looked like Kermit the Frog.

B'Teavon!

  

Breakfast for Dinner

I've had a terrible craving for pancakes, so I made some.  This is unusual for me, for although what I eat for dinner changes almost every day, I'm generally quite boring about my choice of breakfast.  I like scrambled eggs and I like bacon (which was a new addition sometime during my last year of university).  Eggs and bacon generally come accompanied by potatoes and toast in the United States; in Israel they come with cucumber and tomato salad, whole grain bread, tuna and cream cheese.  I much, much prefer the American version, although I'm happy to eat a salad whenever.

So for whatever reason, I felt like pancakes.  I actually developed this recipe on my own, since all I could find were recipes for pancakes with buttermilk, which I have yet to find in Israel.  I once saw an episode of Iron Chef America in which Chef Todd English present a deep fried pastry covered fig stuffed with goat cheese and bacon.  I thought to do something similar, but I ended up eating alone last night and I just couldn't deal with the prospect of even more dishes.

I made a bacon relish with celery and whiskey and it was delicious (it had been the intended filling for my deep-fried fig pastry).  In the good old Quebecois tradition of drowning everything in maple syrup, my "Breakfast for Dinner" was also a good combination of sweet and salty, between the eggs, the pancakes, the bacon relish and the blood orange marmalade.  Most of my recipes betray the fact that I do not keep a kosher kitchen, but perhaps this one even more so.  In any event, it was delicious.

Ingredients:

For the pancakes (makes 6)

1/2 cup of all-purpose white flour

1 tsp of baking powder

a pinch of salt (about 1/8 of a tsp)

1 tsp of sugar

1/2 egg, scrambled (reserve the other half for your eggs)

1 tsp of veg oil

1/2 cup of milk

1 ripe banana, mashed

2 tbls pomegranate syrup (if unsweetened, add 2 tsp sugar)

3 tbls of butter

For the bacon relish

5 strips of bacon, super small dice

1/2 spanish onion, diced

3 branches of celery, diced

1/4 cup of Jack Daniels

a bit of pepper

For the eggs

2 1/2 eggs (the extra half being taken from the pancakes)

2 tbls of milk

S+P

1 tbls of butter

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients for the pancakes in one bowl.  In a second bowl, scramble your egg, divide in two with half going to your fried egg.  Mash banana into egg, then add add milk and veg oil.  Then pour in dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix in well with a spoon.  Add pomegranate syrup, doesn't need to bee perfectly incorporated, there can be some stripes running through the batter.

In a sauce pan heat the bacon over medium for about 5-6 minutes, until it's really crispy and all the fat has been released.  Add the onions, and sautée for another 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the celery, and after two minutes add half the whiskey.  Stir slightly, allow the whiskey to reduce, then add the second half and do the same.

Melt 1 tbls of butter in a large frying pan over medium heat.  When good and hot, add 1 ladle of pancake mixture to the pan, making two pancakes at a time.  Allow to sit for 3 minutes on one side and 1 minutes once flipped.  Remove to a baking dish and leave on 75C in the oven to stay warm.  The pancakes will soak up all the butter, so for each batch, add 1 tbls butter.

Add 1 more tbls of butter to the pan.  Scramble your eggs and combine with milk, S+P.  The pan should be good and hot after making all those pancakes, so as your pour the mixture in it will solidify very quickly.  After two minutes fold omelette over.  Then fold over again to serve.

Plate and enjoy!

B'Teavon!