Thanksgiving’s Coming – Time for Pilgrim Cholent

In anticipation of the Thanksgiving meal I’ll be hosting at my house, I decided to plan ahead and get some food in the freezer. My husband challenged me to make baked beans in the slow cooker. I’ve never tackled home made baked beans, after all, why turn your back on Heinz? But challenge accepted, I trolled for recipes that would work with our local ingredients. I found a suitable starting point in The Vegetarian Epicure. I had to make some adjustments for what’s available in Israel, as well as some updates to cooking methods that have taken place since the early 1970s, when the book was written. But ultimately, what emerged was a rich, flavorful, comforting vegetarian dish that has an interesting connection to the Thanksgiving story, and funnily enough, to our own traditional Shabbat cooking.

Baked beans are believed to have originally been a Native American dish of beans cooked with venison, bear fat, and maple syrup, and baked in pits lined with hot stones. This dish was adapted by the Pilgrims, whose religion forbade them from cooking cook from sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday (not unlike observant Jews on Shabbat). So slow cooked baked beans made the perfect New England Saturday night supper because the leftovers could be eaten warm the next morning for breakfast. Anyone for Pilgrim Cholent?

So not only does it turn out that this dish is as appropriate for Thanksgiving as turkey (something I didn’t know when accepting my husband’s cooking challenge), but it also draws an interesting parallel between Jewish and Pilgrim culinary observance.

Beans freeze really well, so this is a great dish to put in the freezer. I made a double batch so we could freeze our beans and eat them as well. This dish can also be baked in the oven, so I have both options in the recipe. I recommend the slow cooker as you don’t have to check it once it’s in. Serve this with rice, corn bread, couscous or just plain.

I am confident that this will be a great side dish for Thanksgiving, as it certainly fits with the Thanksgiving story and just tastes wonderful.

Baked Beans Served with Couscous

BAKED BEANS

Ingredients

2 cups dried pinto or navy beans (any small bean will do)

4 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 bay leaf

2 diced onions

4 diced carrots

2 diced red peppers

2 cloves of garlic crushed

1 tablespoon chicken soup powder

¾ cup tomato paste

1 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper or chili powder

½ cup Silan (date honey) Note: If you prefer the dish to be less sweet, use 1/3 of a cup instead. You can also use molasses, syrup or honey.

1 teaspoon dried ginger

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/3 cup red wine or regular vinegar

Salt and black pepper to taste

How to do it

1. Soak the beans overnight in a large pot of water, where the water covers the beans generously (the beans will expand).

2. Pour the water off, rinse the beans and refill the pot with clean water so there is about 5 cm (2 inches) of water above the beans. Add 2 whole cloves of garlic, olive oil, bay leaf and salt. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat to low and simmer for an hour until the beans are softened. Drain the beans, saving the bean water for the cooking process. Discard the bay leaf.

3. Place the beans, onions, carrot and pepper into the slow cooker. Mix 1 cup of the bean water, chicken soup powder, garlic, tomato paste, mustard, cayenne pepper, Silan, ginger, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, salt and pepper. Pour over the vegetables and mix through. Cook on low heat for 8 hours.

For oven baking:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 150°C (300°F)

2. Pre-cook the beans as in steps 1 & 2 above.

3. In a large skillet, saute the onions, carrots and peppers in olive oil until they are just tender (do not overcook – they will continue to soften in the oven). Mix into the drained beans.

4. Mix 1 cup of the bean water, chicken soup powder, garlic, tomato paste, mustard, cayenne pepper, Silan, ginger, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, salt and pepper and pour over the beans and vegetables, mixing well. Place in a large, heavy casserole dish and cover tightly. Bake in the oven for 7-8 hours, checking to make sure the beans aren’t drying out. If they are, add some of the bean broth to moisten.

Serves 10-12 as a side dish. Service with rice, corn bread or couscous.

 

Getting Crazy with Rosh Hashana Tzimmes

Rosh Hashana Tzimmes Pie

When you grow up in an Ashkenazi home with strong Lithuanian roots, tzimmes is the bread and butter of “yontif” food. In my house, we had our traditional tzimmes, which consisted of lots of sweet carrots on the outside and a large lump of kneidel on the inside. My husband and his family love this dish, but personally, I started getting a little tired of it, especially when Rosh Hashana seems to come so quickly after Pesach. So I few years ago I decided to get crazy with tzimmes, and come up with my own version.

In this case, “getting crazy” stayed very firmly in the Ashkenazi Lithuanian ingredient wheelhouse, but everyone was happy with the result. I wanted to moderate the sweetness, so I added a potato base, and put the sweet carrots on top, which in effect turned this into a kind of tzimmes pie. This is what I serve every Rosh Hashana now.

As with so many of these traditional recipes, the amounts are approximate, and you can really adjust them to suit your tastes and quantities very easily.

ROSH HASHANA TZIMMES PIE

Ingredients

Potato Base

2-3 large potatoes peeled and grated (medium-size grater) – you will need about 3-4 cups grated potato.

1 small onion finely grated

1 large beaten egg (2 if they’re small)

¼ cup flour

Salt and pepper

1 teaspoon oil

Carrot topping

About 750g (1.5 lbs) carrots peeled and evenly sliced

3 tablespoons flour

About ¼-½ cup honey or silan – date honey (I don’t measure this one. Add more if you prefer it sweeter and less if you don’t – it will taste good no matter what.)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ginger powder

2 tablespoons oil

Salt and pepper

How to do it

1. Place the grated raw potatoes in a metal strainer, sprinkle with salt, and allow to sit for about half an hour so the liquid can drain out. Squeeze the potatoes well to get as much liquid out as possible. (You can also gather the potato up in a large piece of cheese cloth, and squeeze the water out that way.)

2. Pre-heat oven to 200°C (400°F)

3. In a medium-sized bowl, mix the potatoes with the onion, egg, flour, salt and pepper.

4. Grease a medium-sized oven-proof or Pyrex dish, and flatten the potato mixture onto the bottom of the dish evenly (it should be at least 1cm thick).

5. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the potato starts to brown. Then brush the surface of the crust with the oil and return to the oven for another 5 minutes (no not allow to get too dark but make sure the potato is cook through).

6. Meanwhile…cook the carrots in a large pot of water until soft.  Drain the carrots and return to the pot.

7. In a small dish, mix the flour with a little water to make a runny,smooth mixture, and add it to the carrots and mix. Add the honey/silan, cinnamon, ginger, oil, salt and pepper and mix together.

8. When the potato crust is baked, turn the oven down to 190°C (375°F). Spread the carrots onto the crust and return to the oven for about 30-40 minutes, or until the carrots start getting slightly dark.

Serves about 10 as a side dish

Outdoor cooking – for vegetarians too

When we think of outdoor cooking, thick steaks and juicy hamburgers on the BBQ usually come to mind. But what about the vegetarians? In my family, we have a few, and I always like to make sure that when I have them over, they don’t feel that they have been left out with a few salads and some bread as their main course.

At a recent BBQ, I made these vegetable skewers that not only made the vegetarians happy, but also had the carnivores dipping their fingers into the veggie dish when they thought no-one was looking. The prep took me about 10 minutes, and they were really delicious. I used eggplant, peppers and zucchini, but you can also add tofu, mushrooms or onions if you wish. I usually avoid putting raw onions on skewers as they usually aren’t cooked enough when everything else is done (including meat). So if you want onions on your skewers, I suggest par boiling them for a few minutes before you marinade them.

BBQ vegetables skewers

VEGETARIAN BBQ SKEWERS

Ingredients

1 medium-sized eggplant, peeled

2 large zucchinis

2 red peppers

For the marinade

½ cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce

3 tablespoons silan (date honey) or 2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

A few drops sesame oil

2 cloves of garlic crushed

About 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

How to do it

1. Cut the vegetables into similar-sized cubes.

2. Mix all marinade ingredients together in a bowl. Add the vegetables and mix around so they get coated with the marinade. Allow to sit for about half an hour, but if you’re in a hurry, you can leave them for about 15 minutes, and they will soak up the marinade too. (If you don’t have enough liquid, then add a little extra soy sauce)

3. Soak wooden skewers in water for about half and hour (this stops them from burning on the BBQ).

4. Thread the pieces of vegetable on the skewers, alternating the different vegetables for a cheerful look (I put 6 pieces per skewer)

5. Cook on the BBQ until the pepper starts softening – make sure the eggplant doesn’t burn.

Makes about 20 skewers.

Cauliflower can be Delicious

I love cauliflower. It’s one of those vegetables that I am happy to eat steamed with no seasoning – I just love the flavor and the texture, and I don’t care that cooking it means stinking up the house. But for those of you who don’t share my strange love of smelly vegetables (I also loved plain cooked cabbage and I adore brussel sprouts) here’s a recipe that takes cauliflower to a whole new level, infusing it with some amazing Indian flavors that will have the biggest anti-cauliflowerites coming back for seconds.

The original recipe is from Marlena Spieler’s “Complete Guide to Traditional Jewish Cooking”, and the recipe originates with the Bene Israel Jewish community of Mumbai. I have made some adjustments so that you can easily find all the ingredients – the original has some obscure ingredients that aren’t readily available in supermarkets.

After I made this for the first time, I realized that the sauce would be just as delicious with potatoes. So the next time I prepared this dish, I added cubed, roasted potatoes, and it worked beautifully. It’s a yummy optional extra if you want the dish to stretch a little further.

CAULIFLOWER IN INDIAN SPICED COCONUT SAUCE

Ingredients 

Cauliflower in Indian Spiced Coconut Sauce

1 head cauliflower, broken up into small florets

1 tablespoon flour

½ cup water

½ teaspoon chili powder or 1 small green chili finely chopped (adjust the chili according to your taste – use 1 teaspoon chili powder if you like things hot!)

1 tablespoon chopped coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon mustard powder or mustard seeds or Dijon mustard (smooth)

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

4 tablespoons oil

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 can coconut cream

Juice of 2 lemons

Salt

(Optional) 2 medium potatoes cut into small cubes and oil for roasting

How to do it

1. (Optional – potatoes) Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Place the cubed potatoes in a roasting pan lined with baking paper. Toss the potatoes with oil, and sprinkle salt over them. Roast for about 45 minutes or until they are cooked through and starting to get golden, tossing them occasionally. Set aside.

2. Mix the flour with a little water until you get a smooth paste. Add the chili, coriander, cumin, mustard, turmeric, curry powder, salt and the rest of the water, and mix well to create a spice paste.

3. Heat the oil in a large wok or skillet. Add the spice paste and fry for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Add the cauliflower, and stir, letting the spices coat all the florets. Add the coconut cream, mix  and bring to the boil. Reduce the flame and simmer until the cauliflower is tender but not overcooked (about 10 minutes). Optional – add the potatoes, and stir the mixture thoroughly so they are coated with the sauce. Allow to simmer for a few minutes more.

4. Remove from heat and add the juice of the lemons. Serve hot.

Eggplant Made Simple

The way I see it, eggplant is to Israeli cuisine what herring is to Eastern European Jewish cooking. What am I on about? When I was growing up, my mother was the queen of herring, and prepared this salty fish in so many different ways: Pickled herring, Danish Herring (in a mustardy sauce), Russian Herring (in tomato sauce), pineapple herring (yes indeed, in a cream sauce!), chopped herring (that Jewish party favorite, served with kichel), and, horror of horrors, baked herring, or as it was known in our house “gebakte herring” – an awful herring-based meat loaf that couldn’t easy double as an instrument of torture. Baked herring was without doubt one of the main culprits in Eastern European Jewish cooking never quite making it as one the the world’s great cuisines. I can still smell the stench of the baking herring permeating through the house…

While my folk spent many an hour dreaming up new and exciting ways with herring, here in Israel, the eggplant seems to have taken on a similar role, only, in my humble opinion, the results are much tastier. Any trip to an Israeli supermarket or local eatery will present you with an array of different eggplant salads – eggplant in tehina, eggplant in mayonaise, roasted eggplant salad, spicy eggplant, and then there’s fried eggplant slices, and more. One of my favorite ways to serve eggplant is the locally popular half eggplant with tehina. This is one of the most elegant ways to serve Israeli “herring”, and is extremely easy to prepare. It’s a great side dish for a BBQ or any other meal. It’s parev and of course, vegetarian, so it ticks many boxes.

I recommend looking for smaller eggplants so that you can give a half an eggplant per serving instead of having to cut them in half at the table.

For this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut, why don’t you give this simple dish a try, and watch your guests be very impressed.

ROASTED EGGPLANT SERVED WITH TEHINA

Ingredients 

Roasted Eggplant Served with Tehina

6 small eggplants

Olive oil

2/3 cup of raw tehina

About 2/3 cup of cold water

2 small cloves of garlic crushed

The juice of half a lemon (or more, to taste)

½ cup chopped fresh parsley (about half is for garnish)

Salt to taste

How to do it

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (350°F)

2. Wash the eggplants, snip off the spikey part of the stem leaves and slice them length-ways down the middle. Brush the cut side of each half with some olive oil (the oil will be absorbed into the eggplant and it will not seem oily, but don’t add more.)

3. Place the eggplant halves cut side down directly onto a clean oven rack. (Tip: Place an oven tray below the rack covered with a piece of baking paper or foil to collect the drippings and keep your oven clean.) Bake for about 40 minutes or until the cut sides are brown and the flesh is soft. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

4. Prepare the tehina: In a bowl, mix the raw tehina, lemon juice and crushed garlic. Slowly add the water, mixing until you get a thick, but slightly runny consistency (runnier than hummus). Add the chopped parsley and salt to taste.

5. Serve each eggplant half with some tehina sauce drizzled over the top. Sprinkle with some more chopped parsley to garnish.

Makes 12 servings

Keeping it Light with Artichokes

I don’t know about you, but following Purim, I’m feeling the need to detox (from sugar) and focus on light foods, especially veggies. One of the vegetables that goes down really well in my house is artichokes.

I remember the first time I ate an artichoke. I was about 8-years-old and was at a friend, whose mother had cooked them whole. They taught me how to pull off the leaves, dip the ends in sauce and eat their meaty tips. At the time, this was the most exotic food I’d ever eaten, and my memories of that first artichoke are burned into my mind.

I’ve raised my kids in an artichoke-eating home, so for them, they’re not very exotic, but they are well received. In general, I find that kids love them.

Artichokes Trimmed and Ready for Cooking

More and more, I get asked how I cook them, so I’ve decided that even though this isn’t the most complex recipe, I’d post how I cook my artichokes. And I’ve added my tips for sauces. What’s important is to trim the artichokes so you don’t have any sharp tips left on top – they can be nasty. This also reduces their size so you can fit them in a pot more easily. Once they’re cooked, I serve them whole, but I have also served them cut in half as starters to great success. I slice them carefully down the middle, cutting through the heart, place them inside up on a platter and drizzle them with vinaigrette dressing. Make sure to put an empty bowl on the table for the leftover leaves. For a starter, you can estimate a half per person.

So simple as can be, here’s my recipe for artichokes.

WHOLE COOKED ARTICHOKES 

Ingredients

6 large washed artichokes (when you’re buying them, make sure they’re not discolored)

4-6 cloves of garlic bashed with a knife or sliced in half (just to let the flavor out more easily)

1 teaspoon of dried basil

1 teaspoon of dried oregano

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and black pepper

Water (enough to go halfway up the artichokes)

How to do it

1. In a large pot, pour the olive oil, drop the herbs and garlic.

2. Trim the artichokes. Most online guides to trimming artichokes have you getting rid of most of the artichoke and leaving no leaves. SO here’s what I do…

a. With a sharp knife, slice the long part of the stem off just below the base of the artichoke.

b. Pull off any small, straggly leaves that are right at the base. Then with a good pair of kitchen scissors, and starting from the bottom layer of leaves, start cutting the tops of the leaves off, trying to cut them up to halfway down the leaf. Keep trimming around the artichoke, until you get to the top. The last few layers will be more difficult as they are clustered tightly together, so I just muster up some upper body strength and cut the very top bunch of leaves down all at once!

3. Fill a large bowl with water and squeeze some lemon juice and salt into it. Allow the artichokes to soak in the water for about 5 minutes. This will get rid of any bugs that may be hiding in the artichokes. I have found that in the last few years, the artichokes in Israel are clean of bugs, which makes cooking them less stressful.

3. Place the trimmed artichokes in the pot, heart side down. Add cold water, making sure that the water comes at least halfway up each artichoke. Cover and bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about an hour. Test to see if they are cooked by taking tongs and removing one of the outer leaves. If it comes off very easily, then they’re cooked. If you have to tug at it a little, then leave them to cook a little longer.

4. Serve with a dipping sauce for dipping the meaty bottoms of the leaves in. Here are a few very easy options:

a. Take about 3 heaped tablespoons of mayonnaise (I use low fat) and mix it with 2 tablespoons of hot chutney.

b. Take about 3 heaped tablespoons of mayonnaise (I use low fat) and mix it with 2 tablespoons of sweet chili sauce

c. Serve it with a vinaigrette sauce: ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil; 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar; 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar; ½ teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice; ½ teaspoon sugar; 1 teaspoon grainy Dijon mustard; a sprinkle of granulated garlic powder; salt and ground black pepper. Shake together.

d. Any other sauce that you like!

Serves 6. You can serve this hot or cold.

Note: When you’re done eating the tips off the leaves, make sure to remove the hairs in the base of the heart. They come off easily with a spoon. Dip the heart in your sauce.

A Jewish Risotto Recipe from Pitigliano via Grosetto

I am so excited to share this recipe. My wonderful friend Cristina, who I met last year in Grosetto, Tuscany, sent me this recipe a while ago.

Pitigliano, Tuscany

Cristina’s roots are in a beautiful little hilltop town, which is off the tourist track in the Etruscan hills of the Maremma, in southern  Tuscany. Pitigliano is nicknamed “Little Jerusalem” because in the mid-16th century, Jews fleeing neighboring states found sanctuary and flourished in the town. Today there are a handful of Jews left in Pitigliano, but their impact remains, and there is a beautifully restored Jewish center in the town that’s worth a visit.

Cristina sent me this recipe, and told me that it’s a traditional Jewish risotto recipe from Pitigliano. The recipe calls for artichoke hearts, and so I decided to wait until ours were in season to try this out. I used fresh artichokes and cleaned them so I was only left with the hearts. I was concerned that this would be a very painful process, but it is actually not that difficult and doesn’t take very long  - a few minutes per artichoke. Here’s a good and simple guide to how to go about getting to the heart of the artichoke. Alternatively, you can buy frozen artichoke hearts, which will eliminate this step. But I loved the taste of the fresh, creamy artichoke hearts. I think it was well worth the effort.

Once the artichokes are cleaned, the rest is extremely simple. The result was one of the most delicious dishes I’ve made. My kids absolutely loved it and are waiting for its next appearance. Clearly, this has to be a dairy dish – for risotto, butter and Parmesan cheese are irreplaceable, so wait to make this when you’re making a dairy meal, and prepare to wow your guests.

Thanks, Cristina, for a perfect recipe!

ARTICHOKE RISOTTO

Ingredients 

Artichoke Risotto

6 artichoke hearts

2 cups risotto rice (short grain, Arborio)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh  parsley

2 cloves of garlic crushed

salt and pepper to taste

6 cups parev chicken stock

¼ cup (or more) grated Parmesan cheese

How to do it

1. Clean the artichokes leaving the hearts only. Place the cleaned hearts in water with lemon so they don’t turn black. Slice the hearts thinly and halve the slices.

2. In a large pot, add the oil and butter and heat over a medium flame. Add the artichoke hearts, parsley, salt and pepper and saute until the hearts have softened and golden brown (this doesn’t take too long). Add the garlic and stir around quickly.

3. Add the rice and stir into the ingredients in the pot. Add the stock. Bring to a boil and turn down the heat. Simmer the rice, stirring well every few minutes (you don’t have to stir constantly), for about 15-20 minutes.

4. When the rice is cooked and most of the liquid is absorbed, turn off the flame and stir in the Parmesan. You can also add another tablespoon of butter and stir it in for a little extra creaminess.

Serves about 6.

Brynn’s East Meets East Noodle Salad

This past Shabbat, I ate the most delicious Asian-style noodle salad I’ve eaten in a long time. My sister-in-law Brynn had added her own twist to an Asian recipe by adding, of all things, tehina, to the sauce. It’s a combination that really works and gives the salad a wonderful depth. I suppose if you don’t want to use the tehina or can’t be bothered to make it, then you can use about 4 tablespoons of peanut butter instead. But I highly recommend this version, which I have dubbed East Meets East Noodle Salad, as it brings together ingredients from the Far and Middle East into one dish.

I am so glad that Brynn agreed to share this recipe with all of us! It will certainly become a regular on my table and I’m sure it will on yours too. It works beautifully as a first course as well as a side dish. And the tehina raises the nutrition bar on this dish. It’s also easy to remember as you’ll see by the quantities.

Thanks Brynn!

EAST MEETS EAST NOODLE SALAD 

Ingredients 

East Meets East Noodle Salad

500 g (1 lb) spaghetti (I recommend #3 but use what you prefer)

Dressing

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

6 tablespoons soy sauce

6 tablespoons white, apple, or rice vinegar

6 tablespoons white sugar

2 tablespoons sesame oil

A splash of chili oil

Tehina

1 cup of raw tehina (sesame paste)

About ¾ cup water

2 large crushed garlic cloves

salt and pepper to taste

About 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Spring onion or toasted sesame seeds to garnish.

How to do it

1. Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions, till al dente

2. Mix all the dressing ingredients together in a jar

3. Prepare the tehina (do not add parsley)

4. Mix the dressing, tehina and spaghetti together.

5. Garnish with chopped spring onions, or roasted sesame seeds or both!

Serve cold or room temperature.

Real (Wo)men Bake Quiche

My quiche recipe has evolved over the years. I can’t even attribute it to any one source any more because it’s now a combination of various aspects of various recipes and some of my own ideas. Admittedly, there is work involved, but even though this is a meatless dish, it’s hearty and can easily be served as a main course of a light meal, naturally accompanied by a large, fresh green salad.

This particular recipe for an antipasti quiche came about after I bought an antipasti quiche a few years ago and in spite of its attractive appearance, it tasted dreadful. So I sprung into action and created my own. The advantages of this recipe is that it doesn’t require cream, so it’s not very heavy and it freezes really well, so you can make it in advance and reheat it before serving.

While the filling for this version is antipasti, I also make the same quiche using other fillings – peppers, onions or both. You can have fun and experiment with any fillings you like. Also, you can play with the vegetables you use in the antipasti – exclude veggies you don’t like, add what you do like. Just make sure they’re all cooked before you bake the quiche.

ANTIPASTI QUICHE

Ingredients

Filling*

2 tablespoons olive oil

Antipasti vegetables

2 red peppers cut into quarters (I slice the cheeks off the core of the pepper to avoid using the white bits)

1 medium-sized sweet potato peeled and sliced into 2 cm (½ inch slices)

1 very small eggplant or 3-4 mini-eggplants peeled and sliced into 2 cm (½ inch slices)

1 red onion peeled and cut into 8 segments (cut the onion in half then with the round side down, slice from the middle outwards at an angle so you get 4 crescents from each half)

3 small zucchinis halved

3-4 large mushrooms washed and stemmed (leave whole to roast)

1 whole head of garlic (remove the loose papery skins on the outside by hand but leave the inner layers on)

Salt

Crust

1½ cups flour

¾ cup butter cut into pieces

¼ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cold water

½ cup grated cheddar or any other hard cheese (for after the crust has baked)

Custard

4 eggs

1½ cups milk

3 tablespoons flour

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon dried basil

¼ teaspoon dried oregano

How to do it

Antipasti

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (350°F)

Roasted antipasti

2. On an oven tray lined with baking paper, sprinkle the olive oil and place all the cut vegetables in an even layer, turning them through the olive oil so their tops are lightly oiled. Make sure the peppers are skin side down. Sprinkle lightly with salt.

3. Place in the upper part of the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Then, using tongs, turn over all the vegetables except for the onions. Bake for another 20-25 minutes, or until the pepper skins start blackening.

4. Remove from the oven and place the peppers in a small plastic bag and seal. Leave the peppers for about 15 minutes while the rest of the veggies cool. Then remove the pepper skins – they should slide off easily.

5. Slice the roasted mushrooms, zucchini, peppers and eggplant (if using mini-eggplant, you don’t have to cut them further). Separate the layers of the onion, removing any dry outside layers. Squeeze out the roasted garlic from each clove (it comes out like toothpaste). Set all aside.

Pre-baked Crust

1. Sift together the flour and the salt.

Combine butter into the flour to get coarse crumbs

2. Using a pastry blender (worth buying if you regularly make crusts) or two knives, cut the butter into the flour until you have a mixture that looks like coarse crumbs.  Add enough of the water to make the dough stick together, using your hands to create a ball.

3. Generally, it’s recommended to wrap in plastic and chill the dough for 30 minutes. I usually don’t and rather immediately press the dough into a pie pan using my hands. I first pat the dough out to form a circle then I work the dough over the bottom of a 9 inch ungreased pie pan, trying to keep the dough even, and working it as far up the sides as possible. When using a pie pan, you can them crimp the dough, using a knife handle or your finger to make a fluted pattern. Or you can just use a sharp knife and cut the top to even it out. Prick the surface of the dough with a fork.

Trim uneven edges with a sharp knife

4. Place in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. This is a great tip to prevent the dough from shrinking down too much when you pre-bake it.

5. Pre-heat your oven to 200°C (400°F). Line the dough with baking paper that come up the sides and place either baking weights or dry beans on the paper. This prevents the dough from rising as it bakes. Bake for 15 minutes. Then remove the paper and weights and bake for another 5 minutes. As soon as it come out of the oven, sprinkle the cheese evenly over the bottom of the crust and allow to melt.

Custard and assembly

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C (375°F)

2. Beat together well all the custard ingredients.

3. Arrange the antipasti vegetables in the pre-baked crust evenly. I keep the sweet potato and the red peppers for the top as they have the most color.

Pour custard into the dish when it's already in the oven to prevent spilling

4. Place on your oven rack and carefully pour the custard mixture into the dish, making sure you only fill to the top of the crust, no further, so it doesn’t overflow into the dish (if it does, it’s not the end of the world). You may not have to use all the custard mixture, depending on how many vegetables are in the crust.

5. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the filing is solid.

You can freeze this and reheat covered with foil for about 20 minutes in a medium oven.

Antipasti Quiche

*Alternative fillings (For these fillings, omit the basil and oregano from the custard mixture and instead add ¼ teaspoon mustard powder or ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard)

• Onion filling: Peel and slice 3 large onions and saute in olive oil until they are golden brown. Add 3 cloves of crushed garlic and saute for another 1 minute while stirring the garlic around. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper.
• Leek and Onion filling: Use one large leek with the outer layer removed, wash and slice into think slices, and saute with one large onion in olive oil until all soft. Add 3 cloves of crushed garlic and saute for another 1 minute while stirring the garlic around. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper.
• Pepper filling: Slice 3-4 peppers (any combination of red, yellow and orange) and saute in olive oil until they are soft. Add 3 cloves of crushed garlic and saute for another 1 minute while stirring the garlic around. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper.
• Mushroom filling: Saute one medium-sized onion in olive oil until soft. Add 250g (¼ lb) fresh, washed and sliced mushrooms and saute until soft. Add salt, pepper and a sprinkle of dried thyme.
• You can also use any salty cheese or goats cheese  - about ½ cup in any of these fillings will give it extra flavor.

Cooking or Science: Chicken in Salt

Years ago a friend of mine told me about this insane way to make roast chicken only using coarse salt. She was shocked that I had never heard of it before. Many of you may already know this method, but for those of you who don’t, this is really a must-have recipe/method to add to your cooking arsenal. I really believe that anyone who cooks in any way should know how to cook chicken like this because it’s the chicken you’ll make when you have absolutely no time to cook.

I decided to post this following a conversation I had last Shabbat at shul with one of the women in my community. She told me that she reads all my recipes, with the emphasis on “reads”. “I won’t make anything that takes more than one bowl to prepare,” she answered when I asked her why she doesn’t take the next step and cook the recipes. So this chicken is for her – if she doesn’t make this one, then I admit defeat!

This is less of a recipe and more of a method as there’s nothing to it. Clearly, science is at work here, as the evaporating salt interacts with the chicken and does its magic. With absolutely no ingredients besides the chicken and the salt, you end up with a succulent, golden brown, very tasty roast chicken. An added bonus is that the salt draws the fat of the chicken out, so the chicken isn’t sitting in oily goo at the end of the cooking process.

I serve this with roast potatoes (recipe below) but you can serve it with anything you want.

ROAST CHICKEN IN SALT

Ingredients

1 whole chicken (about 1.5 kg / 3 lbs)

About 500 g (1 lb) coarse salt (“melach mitbach ragil” in Hebrew)

Line the roasting pan with coarse salt

How to do it

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (350°F)

2. In a roasting pan lined with baking paper or a disposable roasting dish, line all the sides with about 2-3 cm (1 inch) of coarse salt. Leave enough room for the chicken to be placed in the center without touching the salt.

3. Place the chicken breast side down in the middle of the pan and cook for 1 – 1¼ hours. You can test to see if the chicken is cooked by pricking the thigh with a fork. If clear juice runs out then the chicken is cooked. It should also be a golden brown color.

Place the chicken in the middle of the salt

Roast chicken - done and golden brown

ROAST POTATOES

1. Peel and rinse about 2-3 potatoes per person (when I make this, no matter how many I make, there are never leftovers.)

2. Cut the potatoes into either bite sized pieces or cut in quarters for larger roast potatoes.

3. For quartered potatoes, par boil the potatoes first (Israeli potatoes are very hard and require par boiling. If your potatoes are softer, you may not need this step). Place potatoes in a large pot of cold water. bring to the boil and allow to cook for about 5 minutes – make sure the potatoes don’t cook, they just need to get to a stage where a fork can start piercing them. Drain till dry.

4. For par boiled potatoes and bite sized pieces (which you need to pat dry with paper towels): Line a large roasting pan with baking paper. Pour a good layer of oil into the pan (make sure that the whole surface of the pan is covered). Add the potatoes and toss them in the oil until all sides of all the potatoes are coated in oil – if necessary, add more oil. Sprinkle a little salt and finely ground pepper and toss around.

5. Place the pan in a pre-heated 180°C (350°F) oven and bake for about 40 minutes. Then stir the potatoes around and bake for another 20 minutes. Stir again, and keep going until all sides of the potatoes are rich golden brown. Be careful not to tear the baking paper when you are stirring the potatoes or to break the potatoes – I recommend using a rubber spoon or lifter and only stirring once in a while.

Salt roasted chicken served with roast potatoes