From Suq to Shuk

Grilled lamb chops with cilantro-mint yogurt sauce, turkish flat bread and salad

This was the last meal I prepared in Berlin and I know it's been a long time coming.  The night before making this dish, Lior, Barbara and I were looking over her book KÖSTLICHKEITEN INTERNATIONALER KOCHKUNST, which is a 1970's cookbook of strange and exotic ingredients.  We were looking over recipes that called for swallow nest, elephant trunk and a whole range of other other items that one rarely thinks of picking up at the super market.  I had planned to make Russell, Barbara and the kids dinner the next night in any event, to thank them for their tremendous hospitality in Berlin.  The one dish that looked appetising was Turkish recipe for lamb and mint sauce.  Without relying on any actual recipes from the already anachronistic though beautiful cookbook, I took a note from the theme there in and made some international food art, if you will.

I prepared this meal our second to last night in Berlin.  Lior and I went down the Bergmanstrasse to the Turkish grocery where I purchased very reasonably price produce and meat.  The rack of lamb came to 17 euros for about 18 chops.  I also picked up some cilantro, mint, a butternut squash, a black radish from Turkey, some Turkish flat bread, Turkish yoghurt as well as a tube of harissa paste I took back with me to Tel Aviv.  Russell had already done some shopping at the organic supermarket earlier in the day so the other ingredients came from there.  I frenched the bones then cut the rack into double chops which I then marinated slightly in olive oil, salt and pepper before grilling them on a grill pan.  Unfortunately, I undercooked the lamb, but the grill pan stayed hot so every one went back to cook theirs a little more.  The sauce came out brilliantly and it was very airy and light.  I made a butternut squash soup as a first course to which I added roasted tomatoes for the first time and it was really delightful.  The salad was also quite good and I think the meal was successful over all.

   

Ingredients:

For the soup

2 tbls of butter

2 small onions, diced

2 large cloves of garlic, minced

1" of ginger, grated

1 butternut squash, halved and seed

3 tbls of olive oil

12 medium-small roma tomatoes

2 tsp of madras curry powder

5 new potatoes, washed well and quartered

the juice of 1 lemon

1 cup of white wine

1 cup of milk

S+P

For the lamb and sauce

2 double chops per person

2 tbls olive oil

1/2 bunch of cilantro, stems mostly removed

1 bunch of mint, stems removed

500 grams Turkish yoghurt

S+P

For the salad

3 carrots, sliced into the 1/8" discs

2 large cucumbers, quartered lengthwise then sliced thinly

2 large bell peppers, seeded, cored then sliced thinly

1/2 a large black radish, cut into match sticks, about 1.5"x1/4"x1/4"

1/2 a bunch of cilantro, very finely chopped

the juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 cup high quality olive oil

S+P

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 190C/375F.  Coat each half of the butternut squash with olive oil and dust with salt and pepper, then place flat side down in a baking dish or on an oven sheet lined with tin foil.  Coat the tomatoes with the remaining olive oil and leave both in the oven for 50 minutes.  Heat the butter in a dutch oven over medium.  Sauté the onions for about 6 minutes, then add the garlic and ginger.  Add the curry powder, sauté for another 2 minutes then add the lemon juice.  Sauté for 1 more minute before adding the wine.  Allow the wine to reduce by half then add the potatoes.  Remove the squash from the oven, peel it then add it to the pot along with the tomatoes.  Pour over boiling water to cover the vegetables, then leave the lid on for twenty minutes and lower the heat to medium low.  Remove the lid, bring the heat back up to medium and allow to reduce for ten minutes.  Blend well with an immersion blender, add milk, salt and pepper and top with some chopped cilantro.

Combine the mint, cilantro, 1/4 of the yoghurt and 1/4 cup of cold water in a large bowl.  Blender thoroughly with an immersion blender and continue to add the yoghurt as you blend until it is all incorporated.  You can also do this with carbonated water for a great effect, make sure it's cold.

Allow the lamb to sit in the olive oil for at least 5 minutes with a bit of salt and pepper atop.  Heat the grill pan to medium and grill each chop for 3 minutes on each side (I only did two and they were undercooked). 

combine all the ingredients for the salad in a bowl and toss well

Combine everything on a plate with some turkish flatbread and enjoy.  B'Teavon!

A Moroccan dinner for 12

I've just taken the longest break from posting since having created the blog but with good reason.  I'm in California visiting my brother and the days have been busy.  Busy enough for me to get some cooking in there too, but there just hasn't been time to sit down and write a post.  I've done a bunch of cooking however, and visited a few markets, so I presently have bountiful new material.

Saturday morning my brother, parents, grandmother and I visited the local Santa Cruz organic farmer's market.  There will be a post to follow about that market with pictures of all the beautiful produce available.  We purchased some herbs, some tokyo turnips, watermelon radishes, some mixed greens and nasturtium for a salad, and some meyer lemons, which are undoubtedly my favourite type of lemon.  While on the plane my mother and I watched a Bobby Flay show on the Food Network in which he prepared a Moroccan meal in a tagine.  We had gone the day prior to a huge outlet centre at which we made a number of kitchen purchases, including a tagine that we later left with my brother.  

We proceeded to make our purchases at three other locations - Whole Foods, Safeway and finally New Leaf, a local organic supermarket in Santa Cruz where we purchased our meat and I later found some very exciting items that will be featured in future posts.

That afternoon I made dinner for 12: the four members of my immediate family, three of my brother's friends, my Bubbie who came down from Vancouver, my grandma and grandpa who came from Sacramento, and my friend Cecile who came down from San Francisco.  My mother wanted a Moroccan dinner after having seen Bobby Flay make such delicious looking food and so I made a dinner with those flavour profiles.  The result was a great number of dishes, all of which were scrumptious if I do say so myself.

My mother prepared the carrots and salad so I shall not include recipes for those, but the rest of it was prepared by me, so enjoy.  Start by making an all purpose spice mixture that I used for all of the dishes with some additions.

2 tbls coriander seeds

2 tbls cumin seeds

1 tbls mustard seeds

1 tbls fennel seed

Toast the seeds and then grind them in a spice grinder.

For the lamb

2 tbls olive oil

1 spanish onion diced

2" of ginger, peeled and sliced into thin discs

3 lbs of boneless leg of lamb, cut into 1" cubes

2 tbls of spice mixture

2 tsp paprika

1/4 cup of dried cranberries

1/4 cup of almonds

the juice of 2 oranges

about 20 min leaves

For the Chicken

2 tbls olive oil

8 thighs and 2 legs, bone in, skin on

4 leeks, white part only, sliced in 4

3 cloves of garlic, minced

10 dried apricots, roughly sliced

1/4 cup of almonds

4 meyer lemons, quartered and seeded

1/2 cup of Moroccan oil cured black olives

1.5 tbls of the spice mixture

10 stalks of cilantro

For the potatoes

3 lbs of fingerling potatoes, sliced in half

12 shallots, peeled, ends cut off

2 bunches of tokyo turnips, cleaned and greens discarded

1 bunch of parsley, chopped

1 tbls of spice mixture

1 tbls of ground turmeric

3 tbls of olive oil

For the squash

2 tbls olive oil

1 tbls rendered chicken fat (see directions)

1 large butternut squash, peeled and 1" dice

1 spanish onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbls of the spice mixture

1 tbls cinnamon

1/2 cup boiling water

Directions:

In a dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat, then when hot, sautee the onion for 10 minutes until golden.  In a separate bowl, mix the lamb with the spice mixture and salt and pepper, then mix well with your hands.  Add the ginger to the onions, and sautee for two more minutes.  In batches, sear the lamb in a caphalon or teflon frying pan over high heat, and add each batch to the pot with the onions and ginger.  When all the meat has been browned, add paprika to the pot.  Add the orange juice to the frying pan, then immediately pour that liquid into the dutch oven.  Add the cranberries and almonds, cover, lower the heat to low and allow to simmer for 2 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F.  Heat the bottom section of a tagine over medium heat on the burner, add the olive oil and then the leeks.  When the leeks have softened, lower to medium low, add the spice mixture, and stir occasionally. Add the apricots, lemons and olives.  In a separate frying pan, heat over medium, and add the chicken skin skide down.  Brown in batches and removed chicken from pan when the skin is brown and a lot of fat has been rendered.  After each batch has been browned, remove the chicken fat to a small bowl and place the pieces of chicken on top of the mixture in the tagine.  Add 1/4 cup of water to the tagine, cover it and leave in the oven for an hour.

Combine all of the ingredients of the potatoes in a large bowl, add S+P, mix well making sure that all of the ingredients are covered with both olive oil and spices.  Transfer to a baking dish with a lid, or if there's no lid, cover with tinfoild, and place in the oven with the tagine for 45 minutes.

Combine the oil and chicken fat in a large pot and heat over medium heat.  Add onions, sautée for ten minutes, then add garlic, spice mixture, cinnamon and squash.  After about 5 minutes, add the water, put the lid on and allow to simmer for 30 mutes.  Remove lid and purée with an immersion blender.

Before serving, toss the lamb with the mint and the chicken with cilantro.

B'Teavon!

        

A Greek Dinner for Roxanne

Yesterday was a delicious day of a large breakfast and a large dinner.  My friend Elijah is in town on his way back home after a semester in Cairo.  He brought with him his girlfriend, Roxanne, and another friend Reed.  Today is Roxanne's birthday and she is from Thessaloniki, Greece.  She's been doing aid work for the UN in Egypt, Uganda and India, and hadn't had much Greek food in quite a while.  For her birthday, we bought a leg of lamb, that I prepared with sautéed eggplant, caramelised carrots, french fries and aioli.

Unfortunately the only lamb we could find was frozen, and we bought it after our big New Years day breakfast of bacon and eggs.  So at 3 o'clock I started defrosting the lamb in my oven, meaning that it was ready to roast only at 7 or so.  We ate at 11:30.

There were left overs of the lamb and a bit of the eggplant, so let's say it serves 6 rather than 4. It's a great thing to make for a special occasion, whether it be a new decade, or a birthday.

Ingredients:

For the lamb

1 leg of lamb, 5-6 lbs, bones in

10 sprigs of thyme

5 leaves of sage

1 cup Riesling

1/2 cup duck stock (or lamb or veal, not chicken)

2 meyer lemons, quartered and seeded

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 medium onion, peeled and quartered

1 large carrots, sliced into 1/8" discs

For the eggplant

1 large eggplant/aubergine, peeled and diced

3 tbls olive oil

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seed

1 tsp mace

1/2 meyer lemon

2 cups chicken stock

For the carrots

2 tbls of butter

1 tsp pepperoncino flakes

3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces

2 sprigs of thyme, leaves removed, stems discarded

2 tbls of honey

1/2 cup of chicken stock

French fries

3 lbs of potatoes, peeled, and cut into fries

A deep fryer filled according the specification of the device

For the aioli

1 egg

1 tsp sherry vinegar

1 cup of olive oil

1 clove of garlic

S+P

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 150C/300F.  Either on a grill or a grill pan, sear the cleaned leg of lamb over medium heat for about 3-4 minutes on each side.  Combine with all other ingredients in a roasting pan, then pour in about 2 cups of boiling water.  Cover the pan with tinfoil, puncturing a small hole about the size of your pinky in one of the corners.  Place in the oven for 4 hours.

Heat 1 tbls of olive oil in a sauce pan over medium heat, then slowly add the eggplant in handfuls stiring rapidly to make sure the eggplant is cover in olive oil.  With each hand full add another bit of olive oil until all the eggplant all the olive oil are in the pan.  Sautée for 5 minutes.  Combine the spices in a spice grinder and pulverise, then pour one half that mixture into the pan and mix.  Add one cup of chicken stock, allow to reduce, then add the second.  Finally add the juice of 1/2 meyer lemon.

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat with the pepperoncino flakes, once hot, add each piece of carrot, flat side down in the pan.  Allow to sit like this for about 5-7 minutes, or until caramelised, then add thyme and honey.  After about 1 minutes, add 1/4 cup of chicken stock and cover the skillet with a large lid.  Once the liquid has evaporated, check the tenderness of the carrots on top, and if necessary, add the second 1/4 cup of chicken stock.

Combine 2 tbls spoons of olive oil with the rest of the ingredients for the aioli in a high rimmed bowl and blend well with and immersion blender.  Once the garlic is completely incorporated, slowly add the rest of the olive oil, continuing blending while pouring.

Fry the french fries in a deepfryer at 190C, from 2-6 minutes depending on the thickness of the fries.  Then plate everything and enjoy

B'Teavon!

Lamb tagine with plums, leeks and zucchini.

So after many moths of waiting I received a call yesterday that my gas would finally be delivered.  I was too hungry to wait for that, however, and decided to make one last meal entirely in the oven.  There were certainly some mishaps but they lead to a better meal.

Although the last lamb tagine was very enjoyable indeed, I felt dissatisfied with the amount of food.  I wanted more.  I went to my butcher and thus bought a loin of lamb and cut it up into 1 inch stew pieces.  I went to the Shuk to buy my produce, and as I often do, I walked to the very end without buying a thing.  I do this because while many stands get the produce fresh every morning, many of the items they sell throughout are the same and I like to get a look at the whole variety before I make any purchases.  As it is many of the best stocked merchants are at the end of the shuk.  I bought some plums, leeks, thyme, candied orange rind, zucchini, shallots, a red cabbage and some walnuts.

I came home and assemble my ingredients in the tagine after the appropriate mise-en-place.  Made a spice mixture, covered my meat, set it in the tagine, poured in water placed it in the oven.  I had poured in too much water into the tagine, not foreseeing all the juices that my fresh product would release.  As a result liquid began to leak over sides of the tagine, spilling onto the oven floor and burning.  It was only after an hour that the liquids began to over flow and I scrambled for a solution.  I quickly peeled half a head of garlic and ten shallots and tossed them into a small baking pan with some left over raw leaks, olive oil and some basil-cilantro salt I had made a few weeks earlier.  Placed the pan underneath the tagine on the oven floor and allowed it collect the over flowing juices.  These juices suddenly stopped flowing!  Now the heat from the oven floor was carmelising (not yet burning) the bottom of my vegetables.  I quickly poured in some water which immediately began to sizzle.  I added some more and removed the the mixture about 15 minutes later.  I started tasting the garlic, a shallot - "This is good!" I though to myself.

I had been anxious about serving a very liquid main course with no starch.  I decided to incorporate my braised vegetables into a pilaf, so for the 18 minutes in which I let my tagine rest and let off steem, I poured rice and some more water into my baking pan, cover it with tin foil and made a pilaf.  The result was frankly delicious, and I am much enamoured of the texture cooking rice in an oven provides.  I removed the lid of the tagine meat looked like rocks.  At first touch I was so disappointed, but I took a bite, and only the exterior was tough, the inside was perfectly tender and delicious.  I served it with a simple cabage salad with walnuts.

During dinner I received a call from the man delivering my canisters of gas.  He told me that he'd be delivering the gas at 5 am and requested the I post a note on the canisters he was to replace, as well as leave the money underneath the canister.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  I obliged and this morning I found my receipt dutifully underneath my new canisters.

I was so excited that I pulled out my roasted chicken carcass from the freezer, chopped up some mirpoix am currently simmering a much needed stock on the stove.  For now though, here's the recipe for lamb tagine.

Ingredients:

1 leek, white part only, cut in two lengthwise

2 large plums, cut into 12 slices each

1/2 cup morrocan oil cured olives

1/4 cup candied orange rind

2 zuchini, cut into 1/2 inch discs

1.2 kilos cubed lamb loin

1 tsp black peppercorns

1 tsp whole corriander

1 tsp whole cumin

1 tsp mace

1 tsp fennel seed

4 tsp kosher salt

Directions:

1.  Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees C or 300 F.  2.  Place your leeks at the bottom of the tagine, then pile on olives, orange rind, plums and finally zucchini.  Sprinkle with a little olive oil.  3.  Grind up all spices in a spice grinder mixing the salt in after the others have been ground.  Throw in a bag with your cubed lamb, shake until evenly coated.  4.  Piled lamb on top of your vegetables, making sure everything is compact enough to snugly fit your the lid of the tagine on.  Pour in only enough water that half the vegetable are submerged (I had the fully submerged).  5. Place in oven and let sit for  2 hours and 45 minutes.  Remove from the oven and allow to sit about 15 minutes before removing the top.

Pilaf

Ingredients:

10 shallots, peeled

1/2 head of garlic, peeled

1/2 a leek, cut lengthwise in two

olive oil to cover

2 cups of long-grain persian rice

4 cups of water

Directions:

1. In a 150 C oven, roast for 15 minutes, add 1 cup of water, allow to sit another 15 minutes, then remove and cool.  2.  Raise the temperature on the oven to 175 C (350 F).  3.  Add rice directly to cooled pan, add 3 cups of water, cover with tinfoil.  Leave in over for 20 minutes, remove from oven and serve.

The cabbage salad was very very simple, I'll let you all figure out how to compose it.

B'Teavon!

From Suq to Shuk

Welcome to my blog.  "From Suq to Shuk" is an endeavor to document the many meals I prepare, whether for friends or clients.  The name is inspired by the place in which I acquire the majority of my ingredients - "Shuk" is Hebrew and "Suq" is Arabic for "Market".  The Israeli market provides impossibly fresh and mostly seasonal fruits and vegetables, and is home to a variety of cheese, meat, spices, olives and cured goods, and cooking supplies establishments.  The lack of adequate refrigeration for meat leads me to buy  my proteins elsewhere, but for pretty much everything else, I go to the shuk. 

For my first post, I'll give you all the recipe for the lunch I made yesterday for my parents best friends who are visiting Tel Aviv for the first time from London.  I'm awaiting the arrival of new canisters from the gas company and for the mean time am making due with my oven.  Here it is, lamb and butternut squash tagine.

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

1/2 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, medium dice

1 medium red onion, medium dice

3 tbls chopped parsley or cilantro

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

5 cherry tomatoes

4 lamb chops

2 tsp corriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seed

3 cloves

1 small allspice berry

1 tbls whole black pepper corns

2 tsp ground paprika (sweet or spicy depending on your taste)

1 1/2 tbls olive oil

Directions:  1.  Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees C. 2.  Combine squash, onion, garlic parsley and tomatoes in a mixing bowl, cover with olive oil, salt and pepper and mix until all vegetables are coated in oil.  Transfer to tagine. 3.  In a coffee grinder, combine dry spices and pulverize until a fine powder is achieved.  Add one tbls of salt to mixture and combine with lamb chops in a plastic bag.  Hold the bag closed at the the top but with a significant amount of air inside.  Shake until lamb chops are coated in spice mixture.  4.  Place lamb chops over vegetables in the bottom section of the tagine.  Pour in enough boiling water on the side of the dish to barely submerge the vegetables without the lamb sitting in liquid.  Cover and place in oven for 2 hour and 45 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit for 15 minutes with lid still on.Serve immediately.

To accompany this I made a fig salad.

Ing:

5 ripe figs, cut in 4 lengthwise

1/2 head red boston lettuce, ripped by hand

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

1/4 cup toasted marcona almonds

1 tablespoon pear vinegar (you can also use white balsamic or white wine vinegar)

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tbls extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp mustard

salt and pepper

Directions: Combine first four ingredients in a salad bowl.  In a separate bowl whisk together ingredients for dressing.  Pour dressing, freshly whisked, over salad right before serving and toss.

B'Teavon!