Perfect Dish for a Cold and Rainy Winter’s Night

Cakes Lamb7 March 200913 January 2019 Baroness Tapuzina

Israel depends on a rainy winter for its water supply for the rest of the year. We have had a serious drought here that no one is taking seriously. However, the last few weekends we have had a significant amount of much needed rain.

Rain and cold always demand hot and hearty dishes to keep us warm and cozy inside and out. There is a another sale at our local supermarket on lamb; this time the sale is on lamb neck. I don’t think lamb neck is readily available at supermarkets or butchers in most parts of the US and Canada, but you may be able to find it at a Halal butcher in larger cities with a Muslim population. If not, you could always use lamb shoulder. I don’t think you will have a problem finding it in Europe.

This lamb recipe was published in Haaretz newspaper a couple of weeks ago and is from a famous restaurant in Nazareth called Diana’s. It specializes in meat, especially lamb kebab that is chopped by hand, and seafood.

The seasoning of the lamb is more subtle than usual for middle eastern food: even though one tablespoon each of allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon appears to be a lot, this is for quite a large quantity of meat and none of the spices has a very strong taste to begin with. It is very important to let the meat cook on a very low flame for long enough to become really tender: in fact, if you can cook the meat (without adding the spinach) the day before and then cook it again for about 30 minutes (following the rest of the instructions) just before serving, it will be even better.

Lamb and Turkish Spinach Stew

Ingredients

4 pieces lamb neck with the bone weighing approximately 350g (3/4lb) each
1 tablespoon ground allspice
1 tablespoon grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Olive oil
8 whole shallots peeled
8 whole garlic cloves peeled
5 garlic cloves crushed
1 kg 2 lbs fresh medium size spinach leaves, stems removed, rinsed well and coarsely chopped

Instructions

Mix the spices together. Lightly salt the meat and rub the spices on both sides of the lamb neck.
Heat a little olive oil in a skillet and saute the pieces of meat until they start to brown. Transfer the meat to a large pot. Saute the whole shallots and the whole garlic cloves and add to the pot with the meat. Pour in enough water to cover and bring to a boil. Cook for about an hour over a high flame.
Lower the flame and skim off the foam that has formed on top. Simmer for an additional two hours over a low flame until the meat is very tender.
Add the spinach leaves and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
Meanwhile, add olive oil to a pan and saute the crushed garlic until golden. Add the garlic to the stew, mix and adjust seasoning to taste. Serve over rice.

For dessert, I used a new carrot cake recipe that I hadn’t tried before. This cake is spicy, but not sweet at all except for the natural sweetness of the carrot, in spite of the fact that it calls for 1-1/2 cups of icing sugar. So if you like very sweet cakes, this one might not be for you.

Carrot and Walnut Cake

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups icing sugar confectioner's sugar
1 cup crushed walnuts
1 cup grated carrots
1 cup milk or water
6 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground clove
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

Instructions

Preheat oven to 170C (350F). Grease and flour one large tube pan.
Sift the flour, baking soda, and baking powder together and set aside. Beat the eggs together with the spices for 5 minutes. Stir in the icing sugar and mix well. Beat in the vegetable oil and continue beating for 5 minutes.
Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk or water, 1 tablespoon at a time, to the egg mixture. With a spoon stir in the carrots and the walnuts. Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake at 170F (350F) for 1 hour.

Erev Yom Kippur 5769

Beef Chicken Syrian Yom Kippur11 October 200813 January 2019 Baroness Tapuzina

Erev Yom Kippur dinner at my parent’s and grandparent’s house was always a multi-course affair. It was really no different from the festive multi-course meal we had for Rosh Hashana. Since moving to Israel, I realized that these massive meals did not help with the 25 hour fast. In fact, they made it much more difficult. So, we had a two-course meal.

I deboned chicken quarters by removing the the pelvic bone, thigh bone and half of the leg bone. If you buy your meat from a butcher, you can ask them to do this in advance. Otherwise, it is really not that difficult to do. I then stuffed it with a Syrian meat and rice mixture called, Hashu. It is typically used as a filling for kubbeh or lamb shoulder. It has a lovely aroma of allspice and cinnamon with a hint of hot paprika. I used sweet paprika this time, because it is better to have blander food before you fast. It is an easy main course to prepare and would be elegant enough for a dinner party. But, to add a little more elegance to the meal, you could stuff cornish hens.

For those of you who fasted, I hope it was an easy one for you.

Chicken Quarters stuffed with Hashu

Ingredients

For the chicken:

4 chicken/thigh quarters deboned by removing the pelvic bone, thigh bone and 1/2 of the leg bone
2-4 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
String to tie chicken

For the filling:

500 g 1 pound lean ground beef
1/3 cup short-grain rice white or brown
2 teaspoons ground allspice
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon hot paprika
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 onion finely chopped (1/2 cup)
1 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup water

Instructions

Soak rice in cool water, enough to cover, for 30 minutes. Drain.
Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix well with your hands. Add the meat mixture to a frying pan, add water and start breaking the meat in to small pieces. Cover until the rice is cooked through for approximately 10 minutes. Let cool.
Fill the chicken with approximately 1/4 cup of the meat mixture and fold the chicken meat over the mixture and tie with cooking twine (I used silicone ties) to enclose the stuffing. Put seam side down and drizzle each chicken quarter with pomegranate molasses.
Bake at 180C (350F) for 1 hour.

Rosh Hashana 5768

Appetizers Cakes Chicken Duck Rosh Hashana15 September 200712 January 2019 Baroness Tapuzina

Chag Sameach everyone! I hope you had a nice meal with your family. We went to my cousin’s house for the first night of Rosh Hashana and had a lovely time.

We invited some friends of ours for dinner last night. My husband made a Rosh Hashana favourite and I introduced several new surprises to our repertoire. Everything was delicious.

The cake calls for sour cream and one of my guests has a dairy allergy and can only tolerate butter in baked goods, so I substituted a non-dairy yogurt in its place. It worked fine.

And in case you are wondering about why I served a dairy cake, we keep kashrut according to the Italian tradition which is one hour between meat and dairy.

Our menu was:

Cocktails

Provence des Papes Savoury Biscuits

Recipe from Restaurant: La Garbure (Châteauneuf du Pape) Chef: Jean Louis Giansilly

Servings: 24 biscuits

Ingredients

5 garlic cloves
3 sprigs of basil
5 tbsp olive oil
50 g 3.5 tbsp pine nuts
300 g 1.3 cups flour
10 cl .4 cup warm water
10 cl .4 cup olive oil
2 tsp salt
25 g 1.7 tablespoons baking powder
4 egg yolks
Ground pepper

Instructions

Prepare a pesto by crushing the garlic cloves with the basil, olive oil, and pine nuts.
Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, virgin olive oil, egg yolks, warm water, and some ground pepper. Add the pesto and blend well to obtain a smooth dough.
Roll into a long snake and slice the into 1/4 inch (6mm) wafers and bake at 180C (350F) for about 10 minutes (depending on size).

Rosemary Cashews
Cocktails

First Course
Apples with honey
Pomegranate seeds

Ducklava with Chestnut Honey

Main Course

Clay Pot Festival of Fruits Chicken
Couscous
Green beans

Clay Pot Festival of Fruits Chicken

This recipe was created by my husband for the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashana. It is a fruity, but not an overly sweet dish.

Ingredients

1 chicken cut into eighths
1 onion thinly sliced
4-5 whole garlic cloves
2 cm fresh ginger grated or chopped finely
1 quince cored and cut into eighths
10-20 majhoul dates pitted and cut into quarters
10 dried figs stem removed and cut into eighths
10-20 dried sour apricots cut into quarters
20 walnut halves
Couple of pinches of black pepper
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp cloves
1 tsp. ground allspice
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 cup dry red wine
1 cup water
½ c pomegranate molasses
½ tbsp balsamic vinegar
Olive oil

Instructions

On a low heat, place the olive oil in the clay pot, just to cover the surface. Add the onions when the oil is hot, but not sizzling. When the onion is soft, add the garlic. When the onion is lightly brown, turn up the heat and add the chicken pieces, stirring constantly until browned, approximately 10 minutes.
Reduce the heat and add the rest of the ingredients. Cook on a low flame for approximately 1 ½ hours, stirring every 15 minutes and checking that there is enough remaining liquid for a nice sauce.
Server with nut-studded rice or couscous.

Round Challah with dried fruits and nuts
Golan Winery Sion Creek red wine

Dessert

Beekeeper’s Honey Cake
Mango-Nectarine sorbet

Mango and Nectarine Sorbet

Ingredients

3 medium size mangoes cut into chunks
3 large nectarines peeled and cut into chunks
Juice of one medium size lemon
1/2 cup simple syrup or to taste

Instructions

Place the mango and nectarine chunks in a food processor and process until the mixture is a puree. Add the simple syrup and lemon; mix for one to two minutes. Put in an ice cream maker, following manufacturer's instructions.
Take the sorbet out of the freezer 15 minutes prior to serving.

Sumac and Spice Makes Everything Nice

Chicken Middle Eastern1 September 200712 January 2019 Baroness Tapuzina

I guess I am on a spice kick right now, but then spices are the key ingredient in Middle Eastern food. I bought some sumac a while ago and have been meaning to make something with it and today is the day.

Sumac has a sour and vaguely lemony taste and grows wild in the Mediterranean and in much of the Middle East. It is a popular condiment in Turkey and Iran, where it’s liberally sprinkled on kebabs and rice, or mixed with onions as an appetizer or salad. The Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Egyptians add water and other spices to sumac to form a paste, and add it to meat, chicken and vegetable dishes. I only recently learned that sumac is related to poison ivy.

I decided to make a popular Palestinian dish, called Musakhan (which means ‘something that is heated’), that is typically made in a taboun oven, but I will have to make due with my regular oven. My dream is to have an outdoor wood-fired oven someday so I can do some real slow cooking and baking.

As with all Middle Eastern dishes, there are numerous variations of this dish. Some are only with sumac, others with sumac and a combination of several different spices. I have chosen to make the dish with sumac, allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Because the dish is cooked on top of flat bread, it is typically eaten with your hands, using the bread as a base to pick up the moist chicken and sauteed onions.

I got the flat bread above, called Saluf, at a Yemenite bakery around the corner from my house. They sell this flat bread that they made right in front of my eyes and they also sell Yemenite Shabbat bread called Kubaneh. It was very tempting to tear off some of the hot bread, but I behaved myself.

The dish was delicious. My husband I thought that I could have added a couple more tablespoons of sumac and next time I will cover the dish with foil before I put it in the oven. The bread was a little too crunchy on the top.

We did taste all of the spices and they gave off such a wonderful perfume in the house. I forgot about the pine nuts. Oh well.

This dish was even better the next day and the bread on the bottom was very soft and was infused with all of the juices and flavour from the chicken and spices. I am definitely making this again.

Musakhan

Adapted from recipes by Clifford A. Wright and Paula Wolfert

Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1 1/2kg or 3lb frying chicken, quartered
2 tablespoons ground sumac
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt optional for kosher chicken
Juice of 1 lemon
1 kg 2lbs red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
Olive oil
2 large Saluf Yemenite flat bread, Lafa (Iraqi flat bread), khubz 'arabi (Arabic flat bread) or 1/4 kg (1/2 lb) of pita, split in half
1/4 cup pine nuts toasted
2 heads of garlic roasted

Instructions

Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Trim off excess fat.
Combine the sumac, spices, salt and pepper. Set aside 2 teaspoons and mix the rest with the lemon juice. Rub into the chicken and marinate up to 1 day.
Place the onions in a large skillet, toss with 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, reserved spices, and a pinch of salt. Cover and cook gently 30 minutes. Set aside in a bowl. (Up to this point, the dish can be prepared 1 day in advance.)
Bring the chicken to room temperature and preheat the oven to 180C (350F). In the same skillet as used for the onions, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil, then lightly brown the chicken on all sides over a medium heat. Remove and set aside.
Cover a baking dish with two overlapping halves of the flat bread or several pita halves. Spoon half the onions over each, then arrange the chicken on top of the onions and cover with the remaining onions and the juices from the skillet.
Cover with the two remaining half leaves of flat bread or pita, tucking in the sides, crusty side up, and spray with water. Bake until the chicken is very tender and almost falling off the bone, approximately 1-1/ 2 hours. Check the chicken occasionally and cover the baking dish with aluminum foil before the top cover of the flat bread begins to burn.
Serve at once with a sprinkling of the pine nuts and roasted garlic.

Upper Galilee – Beautiful Place, Beautiful Food, Beautiful Drink

Chicken Middle Eastern25 March 200714 January 2019 Baroness Tapuzina

The Upper Galilee is one of my favourite areas to visit in Israel. Most of our delicious fruit comes from this area: apples, pears, plums, cherries, raspberries and grapes….Ah! the grapes. It is chockful of vineyards producing some delicious wines. Yes, Israel is producing some very nice wines thanks to a number of boutique wineries (not all of them in the Galilee) that have popped up over the years. Some of my favourite wineries are Flam, Gito, La Terra Promessa, Chillag, Amphorae, Galil Mountain, Dalton, Recanati, Margalit, Castel and Carmel’s (click on Carmel Fine Wines) new line of single vineyard and private collection wines.

There are also boutique dairies producing some top class cheeses and yogurts, boutique olive oil producers and delicious honey.

I am always relaxed when I go to the North and there are a number of zimmers or cabins that you can stay at for the weekend. Most of the zimmers include a homemade Israeli breakfast with omelets, homemade jams, assorted bread, Israeli salad, olives and cheeses. I find the zimmers a perfect way to getaway for a romantic weekend. Most of them have a jacuzzi for two!

If you want luxury, then I recommend staying at Israel’s only Relais & Chateau hotel, Mitzpe Hayamim. It is a beautiful spa-hotel with a great view of the Hula valley, the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) and even the Mediterranean to the west.

The scenery is breathtaking and it is a great place to go on long nature walks and hikes in the mountains.

The Upper Galilee always makes me think of wonderful Middle Eastern dishes. I love kubbeh, grilled meats and all the different mezzes, such as roasted cauliflower and aubergine, hummous, red pepper salad, etc.

Usually when I serve a Middle Eastern dish, I buy the salads from a very sweet Druze woman who has a restaurant in Dalyit al Karmel and comes to the a shopping mall near my house to sell her delicious salads, lamb kubbeh and baklawa. I like to buy her hoummous, cauliflower puree, red pepper hummous and her kubbeh. Shown in the two photos above. The fourth salad on the bottom right is made of courgettes.

One of my favourite dishes is Makloubeh, which means “Upside Down”. It is the Palestinian national dish and is also made in Jordan and a few other Middle Eastern countries. This dish can also be made with lamb or a mixture of chicken and lamb.

Don’t be shocked by the amounts of oil. You do not have to use that much.

If you are using kosher chicken do not add any extra salt. You get enough salt from the chicken and the salted eggplant. I would add a little more of the spices to the dish, but I like fragrant dishes.

Makloubeh

Ingredients

2 whole chickens skinned and quartered (or 8 chicken thighs)
3-1/2 cups canola oil plus 3 tablespoons
1 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cumin powder
Salt to taste
4 saffron threads
2 cinnamon sticks
5 whole cardamom pods
3 peppercorns
5 cups water
Freshly ground black pepper
2 large heads of cauliflower separated in to florets
2 large eggplant peeled, cubed and salted; place in a colander so the water can drain
2 large onions halved through the root end, thinly sliced, core still attached
5 cups medium grain rice
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon allspice
4 saffron threads
1/2 teaspoon fresh nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts for garnish

Instructions

In a large saucepan, brown both sides of the chicken in 1/2 cup canola oil. Once browned, add nutmeg, allspice, cumin powder, salt, saffron, cinnamon sticks, cardamom seeds, and peppercorns.
Add approximately 5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add freshly ground pepper. Cover and cook over low-medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the meat begins to pull away from the bone. Set the chicken and 2 cups of broth aside.
Fry the cauliflower in a large pot with 3 cups of canola oil until golden brown. Remove and let drain on paper towels. Drain the eggplant and fry as you did the cauliflower. Set both the fried cauliflower and eggplant aside. Heat 3 tablespoons of canola oil in very large pot. When the oil is hot, not smoking, add the onions and saute them for approximately 10 minutes. Place the chicken pieces on top of the onions and cook together for a few minutes then cover and let sit for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, rinse the rice about 5 or 6 times until the water runs clear. Put the rice in a bowl, add the spices and mix well.
Place the fried eggplant and cauliflower on top of the chicken and then put the rice on top of the vegetables. Add the 2 cups of reserved chicken broth (make sure the whole spices are not in the broth) and water to just barely cover the rice. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cover. When the water has been absorbed, the dish is done, approximately 25 minutes.
Remove the pot from the heat and let rest for about 10 to 15 minutes. Place a large serving plate on top of the dish and flip the pot and plate over. Carefully lift the pot off the plate and sprinkle with toasted pine nuts.

Passover Desserts

Cakes Pesach21 March 200712 January 2019 Baroness Tapuzina

As Pesach is fast approaching, I have decided on what desserts I am going to make to make this year: Chocolate-Pistachio Cake and the Orange-Ginger Cake (See Passover Preparations).

This pistachio cake is based on a recipe from Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, Italian Easy: Recipes from the River Cafe. It is a very easy cake to make. I would prefer to make it with butter, but I must make a parve cake for Passover.

Normally, I do not like Passover cakes made with matza meal, but this cake only calls for 1/2 cup and you really don’t notice it. Substitute with flour when it is not Passover.

Since the Passover hostess is a chocoholic, I am covering the cake with a bittersweet chocolate glaze, but the original recipe is served plain with a lemon glaze.

Chocolate Pistachio Cake

Ingredients

For the cake:

250 g 2-1/4 sticks unsalted butter or margarine
1 lemon
1 vanilla bean or equivalent of vanilla paste
150 g 2/3 cup blanched almonds
170 g 3/4 cup pistachios
1-1/4 cups superfine sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup matza cake flour

For the lemon topping:

1 lemon
113 g 1/2 cup pistachios
1/4 cup superfine sugar

For the chocolate glaze:

85 g 3 oz fine-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
85 g 3/4 stick margarine or butter, cut into pieces
57 g 1/4 cup ground pistachios

Instructions

Make the cake

Heat the oven to 300°F (150°C). Grease a 9-inch (22cm) springform pan with 4 teaspoons of the butter and line with baking parchment.
Soften the remaining margarine or butter. Finely grate the lemon peel. Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds. Finely grind the almonds and pistachios together.
Beat the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the lemon peel and vanilla seeds, then fold in the nuts and sift in the flour.
Spoon the batter into the pan and bake for 45-60 minutes. The cake is ready when a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the pan, then turn out.

Make the lemon topping

Grate the lemon peel and squeeze the juice. Halve the pistachios.
Mix the lemon juice with the sugar, boil until reduced to a syrup, then add the peel. Stir in the pistachios and pour over the cake.

Make the chocolate glaze

Melt chocolate with 1 tablespoon butter in a small heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirring. Remove from heat and add remaining 5 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring until smooth.
Transfer the glaze to a bowl and chill, covered, until slightly thickened and spreadable, about 30 minutes.
Spread the glaze over cake with a small metal spatula. Sprinkle pistachios on the top and sides of the cake.

The other cake I considered making this year is another favourite of mine. It is a spice cake with a chocolate glaze. Simple and delicious. I do not remember where I got this recipe.

Chocolate Almond Torte

Ingredients

For the cake:

1/2 cup sugar plus additional for dusting
400 g 1-3/4 cups finely ground almonds
85 g 3 oz fine-quality bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, coarsely grated
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
5 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon zest
4 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the chocolate icing:

85 g 3 oz fine-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
85 g 3/4 stick margarine or butter, cut into pieces
75 g 1/3 cup sliced almonds
22 cm 9-inch cake pan or springform pan ( I use a springform)

Instructions

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 180C (350°F). Butter pan and dust with sugar, knocking out excess.
Stir together ground almonds, chocolate, and spices in a bowl. Beat yolks with 1/4 cup sugar in another bowl with an electric mixer until thick and pale, then beat in zest.
Beat whites with salt with cleaned beaters in a large bowl until they just hold soft peaks. Gradually beat in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until whites just hold stiff peaks.
Stir one third of whites into yolk mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whites in 2 more batches. Fold in ground almond mixture.
Pour batter into mold and bake in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool cake in mold on a rack 10 minutes, then invert onto rack and cool completely.

For the chocolate icing:

Melt chocolate with 1 tablespoon margarine in a small heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirring. Remove from heat and add remaining 5 tablespoons margarine, 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring until smooth. Transfer icing to a bowl and chill, covered, until slightly thickened and spreadable, about 30 minutes.
Spread icing over cake with a small metal spatula. Sprinkle almonds on the top and sides of the cake. Chill cake until icing is set, at least 1 hour. Transfer cake to a platter and bring to room temperature before serving.