From Suq to Shuk

As Israeli as it gets - schnitzel and mashed potatoes with deep fried eggplant

I did not know what to make yesterday when I went to the Shuk, and I wasn't entirely sure what I would make when I got home either.  This dish was prepared out of a lack of imagination, but embracing Israeli cuisine even more whole-heartedly than the day prior's dinner.  Around Hannukah time I bought some Magen David (Star of David) cookie cutters, that until yesterday had gone unused.  I thought that for such a typically Israeli meal, I certainly couldn't leave out the symbol of our great country.  The accompanying sauce was the leftover "Sephardic style haroset" from the dinner prior.  Having come back from the Shuk with eggplants, potatoes and chicken, this just made sense.

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast, cut into two then each half butterflied (you can ask the butcher to do this for you)

1/2 cup of flour

1 egg

1/2 cup of panko

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

1 large eggplant

3 large potatoes, peeled and chopped into small pieces

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tbls butter

1/4 cup of milk

S+P

Directions:

Boil the potatoes in a sauce pan or larger pot until they fall apart when pierced with a fork.  While boiling, skim the starch with a fork.  Drain and then mash in pot completely, before mixing in butter, milk and garlic.  Cover to keep warm.

Cut the eggplant into 1/2" discs, then cut out your stars, or whatever other shape you would like.  Fry in a deep fryer for 3-4 minutes at 180C.  Remove to a plate with paper towel, and leave in the oven on a low setting to stay warm.

Place the butterflied chicken on a cutting board, cover with cellophane, then pound with a wooden mallet or heavy frying pan/sauce pan.  Remove the cellophane and cover your chicken cutlets with flour, then shake off the excess.  Scramble the egg in a bowl, then dip the chicken in the egg, and afterwards cover in panko, shaking off the excess.  Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium, once hot add one piece of chicken at a time, 2 minutes on each side.

Assemble all components on a  plate and top with some of yesterday's haroset.

B'Teavon!

 
 

Chinese fried chicken wings with two sauces and pomegranate seeds

So I made fried chicken wings, and to counter Joel's accusation that I don't make Asian food, I made them Asian.  This dish did not in fact require either oven or burner, but rather blenders and a deep fryer.  I'm taking advantage of avocado season as much as possible because for much of the year hass avocados are not available. The overwhelming majority of my memories of fried chicken wings were at Andy's Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, where I would often buy the $5.95 lunch special in high school.  There they served it with hot Chinese mustard so I decided to make sauce that played on that and the yellow colour of the mustard.

Ilan and Elijah were present to indulge in this Asian inspired delight.

Be sure to wait a few minutes after the chicken comes out of the fryer for the exterior cools far more quickly than the interior.  The sauces (especially the mustard sauce) would go very well with steak as well.  For those who like spicy wings I suggest the addition of sri racha to the mix.

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken wings, tips discarded or reserved, drummettes, detached from the wing.

1/2 cup of soy sauce, plus 1 tbls for later

2" ginger, grated and juice reserved

2 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 stalk lemongrass, bottom part only and bruised with the back of knife

1 lime, halved

2 tbls chinese fivespice

flour as needed

1/2 cup yellow cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup ginger oil (or 1/4 vegetable oil and 1" of grated ginger)

2 tsp sesame oil

1 egg

1 tbls hot mustard

1 tsp tobasco

2 1/2 ripe avocados

1 bunch of cilantro, stems discarded

seeds of 1/4 pomegranate

S+P

Directions:

Combine soy sauce, ginger and juice, 1 clove of garlic, lemongrass, juice of 1/2 lime and the chicken in a ziplock bag.  Allow to marinate for 2 hours at room temperature, or overnight in the fridge. 

In a blender, combine tomatoes, ginger oil, sesame oil, tobasco, egg and mustard in a blender and blend for a minute on low then a minute on medium. S+P to taste.

In a high rimmed bowl, combine avocados, lime juice, the extra tbls of soy sauce and one clove of garlic and blend with an immersion blender.  Add cilantro and blend in well.  S+P to taste.

Turn on deep fryer and heat to 185C or 365F.  Remove from marinate, dry by patting down with paper towel and sprinkle on five-spice and S+P evenly.  Pour 1/2 cup of flour at a time onto a plate and dredge each piece of chicken individually.  Then fry in batches of 6 for about 3-4 minutes.

Sauce the plate and lay the chicken wings atop with some pomegranate seeds.

B'Teavon

Deep fried duck and beef gyoza with avocado-lime purée and radish salad

Yesterday saw the inauguration of my new deep fryer.  Alongside pizza, I could eat gyoza every day.  The newly befriended Ben came over yesterday at 5 PM to help me make gyoza.  First we went to the supermarket to buy some ground beef.  I had decided to make two types of gyoza: duck and beef.  The duck gyoza were made with orange wrappers and the beef were meant to be green.  I made the orange wrappers by combining berbere spices (an Ethiopian mixture) with flour and water.  The green wrappers were made by blending some cilantro in water, reserving water and using it to form my dough.  The orange ones came out nice and orange, the green ones did not look so green.

For my birthday dinner I had roasted a whole duck and I still had one duck breast left attached.  I removed the duck breast, chopped up some onions and a carrot, sautéed them in duck fat, then added my duck carcass stuffed with celery, leeks, thyme and lemon, deglazed the pan with a little white wine and then added about 7 liters of water.  This duck stock reduced the entire time we were cooking and eating.  Since we only finished at midnight I had a very concentrated duck stock in the end that will work its way into something today.

While limes are still not ubiquitous, I seem to have found one store at the Shuk that has them pretty frequently.  I made an avocado lime purée to be a dipping sauce for the gyoza.  The salad was simple.  The fact is that making gyoza is a very time consuming endeavour.  It took us 4 hours just to get everything wrapped up, not to mention fried.  There were 4 of us (Ben, Ilan, Moti and I), and 4 gyoza of each variety for each of us.  8 gyoza don't really suffice, but I don't have the energy to make it all over again today.

If you've got all afternoon to make these (we ate at 11 at night), I highly recommend it.  Otherwise, order from your local Japanese restaurant.

Ingredients:

For the beef mixture

500 g/1lb ground beef

2 tsp ginger oil/1" minced ginger

1 shallot, minced

1 large clove of garlic, minced

2 tbls of chopped cilantro

1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar

2 tbls soy cauce

2 tsp sesame oil

S+P

Mixture for the duck

1 cooked duck breast

3 tbls duck fat

1 tsp of ginger oil

2 tbls of crushed pecans

1 tbls yuzu juice

1 large clove of garlic, minced

1/2 shallot, minced

S+P

For the orange wrappers

1/8 cup of berbere spices

7/8 cup flour

water as necesarry (about 1/4 cup)

For the green wrappers

1/4 cup of water blended with cilantro then strained

1 cup of flour

For the avocado purée

2 ripe avocados

The juice of 1 1/2 limes

1 inch ginger

1 large clove garlic

S+P

For the salad

2 cups of radished, cut in 4

1 1/2 cups yellow cherry tomatoes, sliced in two

1 large carrot, finely grated

cilantro for garnish

1 tsp of hummus

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp rice wine vinegar

S+P

Directions:

To form the dough, leave your flour in a bowl and add a little bit of water at a time, mixing this with your fingers.  When you've reach the desire consistency, cover this in a bit of flour then plastic wrap, set aside.

In a mixing bowl, pull apart duck breast into strings with two forks.  Combine all other ingredients.  Combine all ingredients with the beef.

Unwrap your dough, save plastic wrap.  Roll the dough into a long log, then cut 1" inch pieces from the log.  With a mini rolling pin (you can also use a snapple bottle), roll each block of dough into a circle as best you can.  Place meat mixture in the centre, then grap opposite side of the dough, bring them up over the meet and press together.  The fold that excess dough on top but 1/8 inch intervals, over itself (always in the same direction).  This will ensure that your gyoza is wrapped properly and the contents wont' spill out in the deep fryer.

Combine all ingredients for the avocados in a bowl with high rims, and purée with an immersion blender until smooth.  Add S+P to taste now.

Fry your gyoza at 180C in the deep fryer, for 2-3 minutes each.  Combine salad ingredients on plate, mix ingredients for the dressing thoroughly.  Now plate everything.  The first design was mine, the second was Ilan's.  We had some left over meat, and made about 8 meat balls, one of which is in the third photo, with a second helping of salad.

B'Teavon