Moroccan brisket, fartaytscht und farbessert

I posted an earlier, somewhat easier version of this recipe here.  Sometimes, though, it you are going to take on a brisket, which can be a formidable challenge to both wallet and health, you should really do it the best way possible, so I urge you to try it this way.  It is slightly but not much more difficult and basically just adds a browning step, but it is much much better.  We had it for Shabbat dinner
over Pesach and everyone agreed that it was worth the effort, which was my effort in any case.  I make this with a smaller cut of meat, which serves 6.  You can increase the quantity as long as you have a large covered roaster that will hold it in one layer.  I cooked it in a very large dutch oven.

Moroccan-style brisket

Ingredients

• 3-4 pounds brisket, preferably second cut, or deckel
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 4 large onions, halved and sliced
• 4-6 cloves garlic, sliced
• salt, about 1 teaspoon
• pinch baking soda, optional
• Spice mix: 1 teaspoon  fine, freshly ground black pepper, 1.5 teaspoons ground ginger (fresh is very un-Moroccan), 1. teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cumin,  1 teaspoons of Aleppo or Kirmiz pepper (or a mixture of sweet and hot paprika, since the other peppers are probably not available kosher for Pesach)
• 20 pitted dates
• 2 oranges, cut into eighths
• 12 ounces merguez sausage  (available K for P)
• 1/4 cup orange juice or water
• 4-6 carrots, cleaned and cut into 2-3 inch lengths

Method 

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
2. Dry the meat, heat the oil in a large casserole, and brown the meat in the oil on both sides.  It will probably take around 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, slice the onions and garlic and make the spice mixture.
4. When the meat is brown, remove and set aside, and add the onions to the fat in the pan.  Add the salt, and the pinch of baking soda (which will help them to brown more quickly).  Cook for about 10 minutes on medium until most of the liquid evaporates and the onions begin to brown.
5. Add garlic and saute for another minute.
6. Add spice mix, turn heat to low, and cook for about two minutes.  If the onions seem try, add about 1/4 cup water and deglaze the pan to dissolve the tasty crust forming.
7. Put the brisket back in the pan, and distribute the onions so that they are more or less evenly distributed on beneath and on top of the meat.
8. Surround meat with the dates and oranges (and if you like them super tender, the carrots),  cover the casserole, and let it heat for about 5 minutes.
9. Put the casserole in the oven and cook for two hours.
10. While the meat is cooking cut the merguez sausage and brown in a skillet.
11. Set aside, pour out the fat, and deglaze with the orange juice or water  Cook until reduced by around half.  
12. Taste the brisket for salt and add a bit more if needed, remembering that the merguez will add more salt. 
13. Top the brisket with the carrots, the merguez pieces, pour in the juice, cover and bake for another 1.5 to 2 hours until the meat is tender.
14. To serve, slice the meat across the grain on the bias. Place on a large deep platter and surround with dates, carrots, merguez and orange pieces. Taste the juices for salt and add a bit if necessary. If there are lots of juices and they are very thin, reduce them a bit, and pour over the meat. 
15. Serve with rice, quinoa, couscous or mashed potatoes to around 6 people or 4 teens.  This is also nice with some harissa or even Sriracha for those who like it spicy. 

This can be made in advance, but my preference is not to slice the meat until after you reheat it. Otherwise, it just takes like leftovers.

The meat:  Best for this is a nice fatty cut, like 2nd cut brisket or deckel.  I have made it with first cut brisket to my regret-- it is really too dry.  Your cardiologist will not approve, but how often do you eat brisket?  You might as well enjoy it.  If you can find beef cheeks, they would also probably work well in this recipe, though I have never cooked with them.  If it does end up dry, which may happen if you use a first cut, be particularly careful in the slicing.  Use a very long, very sharp carving knife, hold the meat down firmly with a large fork, and carve of thin (I am talking 1/8 inch here) about 20 degrees off the horizontal,  You will end up with large thin slices.  Topped with the juices, you will be able to pretend that they are not dry.

Shad charmoulayit

Charmoula is a North African seasoning paste used for fish.  The version that I use most often is by Paula Wolfert and contains garlic, cilantro, parsely, paprika, cumin, olive oil and salt.  Typically, the fish is coated with the charmoula and  is cooked slowly  in a tagine, a kind of casserole, for a long time with vegetables and, if you are lucky, preserved lemons.  It is one of the world's great dishes, but it does take time.

This recipe is my own quick take on fish with charmoula.  I doubt that this is an authentic recipe. I also doubt that the word charmoulayit means anything in any language though it is my attempt at creating a Hebraicized  Arabic adjective.  Rather than cooking it long and slow I have used most of the charmoula seasonings in a very fast saute.  Shad is in season, ever so briefly, so I enjoy it while I can.  It is very rich but otherwise relatively mild, and though my wife claimed not to care for shad,  the spices cut through some of the richness quite nicely and she liked this.  (It is also cheap, only $9.99 per pound at Citarella's.)  I have also used  butter rather than olive oil and added capers and preserved lemon peel.   I left out the garlic since it can burn when cooked quicky on high heat, but you could add a clove or two.  Prep takes about five minutes, cooking another five. What could be bad?

This recipe serves two and you could double or triple it, but some things like shad are too good to share.

Shad charmoulayit

  

Ingredients

• 12 ounces to 1 pound boned filet of shad
• 1/2 teaspoon each sea salt, ground cumin, paprika and Aleppo pepper
• Peel of 1/2 preserved lemon, pulp removed and shredded
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon capers, rinsed.
• Small handful chopped fresh coriander, well rinsed and chopped

Method

1. Cut the filet  in half crosswise to make it easier to turn.  Pick out any bones that remain if you can.  (If you can't, don't worry about it, they will come out much more easily onces the fish is cooked.)
2. Rub both sides of the fish with the salt and spice mixture and set aside while you do the rest of the prep. 
3. Spray a medium nonstick skillet with vegetable oil spray if you want, and the heat it on medium.  Add the butter and let it melt.  (If you want garlic, I would add two crushed cloved here and let them cook in the butter on low heat for a minute or two to season it, then remove.)
4. Heat the skillet on high, and add the preserved lemon peel.  Cook for about a minute and add the fish, flesh side down.  Cook for two minutes.
5. Flip the fish and add the capers and cilantro.  Cook for three minutes skin side down.
6. If you don't trust me that the fish is done, test it with a fork or knife.  Transfer to plates with the juices and serve.  This goes very nicely with roasted fingerling potatoes, a crusty baguette, or toasted Turkish pide bread. A New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or a Sancerre are good wines to serve with this.

Moroccan carrot salad with pistachios

Moroccan salads are very different from the salads and dips that we typically associate with Middle Eastern cuisines.  Rather than hummus, baba ganoush, tabouli and similar dishes, there is a wide variety of sweet, tart, spicy and aromatic dishes of cooked and raw vegetables.  One of my favorites, and one of the easiest, is a dish of grated carrots dressed with lemon juice, sugar, and rose or orange-flower water.  After buying a jar of pistachio oil for my enhancement of Yotam Ottolenghi's Pistachio, Watercress, and Orange Blossom Salad, I was looking around for new uses.   We were going to serve a chicken tagine with artichokes for dinner on Friday, and when I woke up on Friday morning at 5 am, an hour before my alarm, I started making appetizers with whatever vegetables we had in the fridge.  Since we had both carrots and pistachio oil, I prepared this riff on the classic grated carrot salad.  It give the salad a buttery, nutty quality (I know I am repeating myself) and modesty aside, I think it is light years beyond the original. 

Moroccan carrot salad with pistachios

Ingredients

• about 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2-3 teaspoons of sugar, to taste
• juice of one lemon
• 1 teaspoon orange-flower water
• 1-2 tablespoons pistachio oil (see below)
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• One pound carrots
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped  unsalted pistachio meats, or more if you really like them

Method

1. Combine the salt, sugar, lemon juice, orange flower water and pistachio oil in the bottom of a serving bowl, and mix well with a fork. Add a pinch of cayenne if you want
2. Peel and grate the carrots on the large wholes of a hand grater.  ( The processor disk of a food processor would also work, but avoid the carrot shreds you can buy in the supermarket for this dish.  They do not exude the juice that hand-grated carrots do, and this becomes part of the sauce. )
3. Mix the carrots into the dressing in the serving bowl, and refrigerate until ready to serve.
4. Garnish with the chopped pistachios just before serving.
5. Serves 4-8 as part of a selection of appetizer salads.

To make the original version:  just leave out the pistachio oil and nuts.

Pistachio oil:  I am hooked, but if you don't want to spring for it, you can use olive oil.  For something more authentically Moroccan try argan oil, which I have actually never tasted but will one day.  

Chicken tagine with prunes

A tagine is a slow-cooked Moroccan stew, and also the name of the dish in which it is traditionally prepared , a sort of a flat earthenware casserole with a conical top -- very poetic, but not very practical if you are cooking for more than two adults. I make no claims as to the authenticity of the recipe for this tagine, which I have cobbled together from a variety of sources, but it works. It is like a spicy chicken tzimmes. We made it for Seder (and served it with potato kugel), but it is a good year round dish and easy enough to make on weeknights. The key is that you don't brown the chicken before stewing it, but rather glaze it after while you are thickening the sauce, which regular readers of this blog will recognize as a favorite method of mine.

Chicken tagine with prunes

Ingredients

• 1 three pound chicken, cut into eights, or 3 pounds chicken thighs (I think chicken thighs work best here, but some people like their white meat)
• 1 large grated Spanish onion
• 3-4 large sprigs of fresh coriander, washed well but left whole
• 2 cloves mashed garlic (I left these out on Pesach because my mother hates garlic)
• 1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (Moroccans use the dried spice, rather than fresh)\
• 1-2 cinnamon sticks (optional -- nice, but it depends on how the other dishes are spiced)
• large pinch of saffron, toasted in a skillet briefly and then soaked in 1/4 cup water for a few minutes
• pinch of turmeric
• salt
• 12 oz. dried pitted prunes
• 1 cup black raisins (optional)
• 1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1-2 inch pieces

Method

1. Soak prunes and raisins in warm water about 30 minutes.
2. If you want a lighter dish, you can remove the skin from the chicken, in which case you should skip step #6, broiling the chicken.
3. Put chicken in a pot with onion, coriander, garlic, spices (including saffron water) and salt. Bring to a simmer and stew about 20 minutes.
4. Drain the raisins and prunes and add to the chicken, along with the carrots, and cook about 20-25 more minutes until chicken is done.
5. Remove chicken from the pot and place skin side up in an oven and broiler safe serving dish.
6. Broil chicken until the skin in brown. Be careful that you don't burn it.
7. Meanwhile, remove the coriander sprigs and taste the sauce, especially for the balance of heat, sweet and salt. Adjust seasonings if necessary, and boil down until the sauce is thick.
8. Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve. It also keeps nicely if you hold it in a low oven, and reheats well, especially if you use the thighs. Serve with couscous, mashed potatoes, rice, kugel on Pesach, or thick Israeli-style pita.
9. Serves 4 generously.

Couscous: I use Claudia Roden's method. Combine equal amounts of couscous and salted boiling water (1 to 1.5 cups should be more than enough for 4), in an oven safe dish, covered, for about 20 minutes. Oil your hands lightly and massage the couscous to separate the grains. This makes it fluffy and is actually kind of fun. Dot with a little pareve margarine (butter if you are not fussy about these things) and heat covered in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. The temperature is flexible, and it can also sit in the oven. While I used to only prepare couscous in a couscousierre, a tall cylindrical pot with a steamer on top for the couscous and massage it twice, following Paula Wolfert's directions. It was a pain in the neck and frankly doesn't come out appreciably better than Roden's way. In her recent cookbook, Mediterranean Grains and Greens, Wolfert really goes over the top and tells people to roll their own couscous from semolina. (For a great review/appreciation/sendup of this book, see Nicholas Lemann's review "The Diva" from Slate.) However, I do agree with Wolfert that instant couscous is an abomination.

Spices on Pesach:   Due to changes in the ways that spices are processed, some ground spices may contain hametz.  If this is of concern and you cannot find Kosher for Passover spices, you can leave out the turmeric and substitute a 1 tablespoon grated ginger for the dried.  The saffron should not present a problem, and black pepper is widely available K for P or may be ground fresh.  Pereg, an Israeli brand, produces many K for P spices.  Also, Penzeys spices are pure, high-quality, and prepared without any addititives that might contain hametz, such as anti-caking agents.  People far stricter than I am use them with confidence.

A Moroccan take on brisket

Sliced and ready to serve

(For an improved, albeit slightly more labor-intensive version of this dish, see here.)

We had this as the main dish at our Rosh Hashanah dinner. We were going to have the standard Ashkenazi variety at my mother's the next night, and wanted something a bit different. It is adapted from a chicken recipe that appeared in the NY Times in early 2008. The original recipe may be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/dining/201crex.html . I have made it with chicken and beef, and beef is definitely the winner -- it cooks longer and there is more time for the spices to meld and develop.  You can make it with stew but a fatty brisket is best I think.

Moroccan-style brisket

1. Make a spice mixture of 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1.5 teaspoons fine, freshly ground black pepper, 2 teaspoons ground ginger (fresh is very un-Moroccan), 1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cumin,  1.5 teaspoons of Aleppo or Kirmiz pepper, depending on your taste.  (Once I had some spice mix from Boite of cardamom, cumin and rose and added this as well.  Not too shabby. ) 
2. Rub all but about a teaspoon of the spice mix into about 4-5 pounds of brisket .  (See below on the cut to use.) You can leave it overnight if you want, though I generally don't.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Put 1 or 2 sliced onions in a roaster large enough to hold the meat and then some. Add 2 cloves sliced garlic, put the meat on top, and cover with 2 more sliced onions and 2 cloves sliced garlic. Sprinkle with the reserved spice mix. Add a bit more salt.
4. Add 2 oranges, cut into eighths, about 30 pitted dates, and 6-10 carrots, peeled and cut into thirds. Tuck them in wherever they fit.
5. Cover well (foil is ok), and put in the oven to bake for about an hour and a half.
6. While the meat is cooking take about 1.5 pounds of merguez sausage (not the precooked kind), prick with a fork, cut into two inch lengths, and brown in a skillet.
7. Set aside, pour out the fat, and deglaze with about 1 cup of orange juice.  A tablespoon of pomegranate molasses, if you like it, will add richness. Cook until reduced by around half.  
8. Top the brisket with the merguez pieces, pour in the juice, cover and back for another 1.5 to 2 hours until the meat is tender.
9. To serve, slice the meat across the grain on the bias. Place on a large deep platter and surround with dates, carrots, merguez and orange pieces. Taste the juices for salt and add a bit if necessary. If there are lots of juices and they are very thin, reduce them a bit, and pour over the meat. Garnish with a handful of toasted pine nuts.
10. Serve with couscous to around 8 people.

This can be made in advance, but my preference is not to slice the meat until after you reheat it.

The meat:  Best for this is a nice fatty cut, like 2nd cut brisket or deckel.  I have made it with first cut brisket to my regret-- it is really too dry.  Your cardiologist will not approve, but how often do you eat brisket?  You might as well enjoy it.  If you can find beef cheeks, they would also probably work well in this recipe, though I have never cooked with them.  If it does end up dry, which may happen if you use a first cut, be particularly careful in the slicing.  Use a very long, very sharp carving knife, hold the meat down firmly with a large fork, and carve of thin (I am talking 1/8 inch here) about 20 degrees off the horizontal,  You will end up with large thin slices.  Topped with the juices, you will be able to pretend that they are not dry.

As a stew:  Use a comparable quantity of chuck cut into 1-2 inch pieces.  The ingredients are the same, but the order and cooking time are different.  Fry the sausage first and remove.  Brown the beef in the fat and remove.  Saute the onions (chopped instead of sliced) in the fat until light brown, add the garlic and saute another few minutes.   Add the spices and saute another few minutes to remove the raw aroma.  Deglaze with the orange pomegranate mixture, and return the beef and sausage to the pot.  Stir in the carrots and dates, and top with the oranges.  Bake about 2 hours until tender.  Taste about half way through for salt and add more if necessary.

Zucchini salad and the water problem

The surprise hit at our Erev Rosh Hashanah dinner was a zucchini and tomato salad. My wife generally dislikes zucchini, especially when it is boiled, and I have made a number of salads in the past that have left her completely cold. No amount of harissa, garlic and caraway in a Tunisian style zucchini salad could make up for the water that the vegetable kept exuding after it was mashed, no matter how long and how well we tried to drain it.

One of Claudia Roden's more recent cookbooks, Arabesque, contains an intriguing sounding Moroccan recipe for a salad of zucchini and tomatoes, but it called for the zucchini to be boiled and I knew that it would not go over too well. So, I adapted it with grated, salted and drained and sauteed squash: the process concentrated the flavors, kept the zucchini from oozing water, and ended being the most popular dish at the table. (It does require quite a bit of salt, which is a major staple in our house, so one of our guests was not able to eat it, but we were able to set aside some low-sodium versions of the other salads for him.) The recipe:

Moroccan Zucchini and Tomato Salad:

1. Wash 1 to 1.5 pounds of zucchini well. (To get out the grit I use Marcella Hazan's method: soak them in water about 10 minutes, rinse, and use your fingernail to scrape off any grit that remains.)
2. Grate the zucchini and salt well -- use about 1 teaspoon. Leave for 30 minutes to an hour to sweat. It will give off lots of water.
3. Put the grated zucchini in a colander to drain off the salty water, rinse and drain again, and squeeze out as much moisture as you can with your hands. (Believe me, plenty of salt will still remain.)
4. Saute the zucchini in about 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a nonstick skillet on medium heat for 10-15 minutes until tender. When almost done, add a mashed clove of garlic, cook a bit more, and set aside.
5. Halve about 12 ounces of large cherry tomatoes.
6. Heat 2-3 tablespoons olive oil in a nonstick or impeccably well-seasoned cast iron skillet (mine never seem to achieve the requisite impeccability of seasoning). Place the tomatoes cut side down in the skillet, and cook on medium high heat until they soften and the undersides begin to caramelize. (You have to peek).
7. Turn down the heat to low and add 4-6 cloves of slice garlic, and saute until the garlic is cooked but not browned, which should take 5 minutes of less. Watch it carefully at this stage.
8. Combine the zucchini and the tomato and garlic mixture, add a little pepper and taste for salt, just in case.
9. Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold with bread. You could garnish it with chopped parsley or cilantro, but we forgot to and nobody complained. They were too busy trying to wipe every last bit of the oil out of the serving dish with their challah.
10. Without the cilantro, which I forgot anyway, there is nothing about the flavors that would prevent you from serving it hot with pasta, perhaps with some chopped fresh basil. Try it and let me know how it turns out.

The water problem:
Just a little food for thought, which applies not only to zucchini but to other foods as well. I maintain, based on no particular scientific evidence, that many flavors are fat soluble rather than water soluble. Spices generally taste better after being sauteed in fat. And, while steamed and boiled veggies have their place, I am not always sure what it is, and there are few, that too my taste, are not better when sauteed or roasted, even using minimal low-fat cooking spray. The fat and dry heat concentrate the flavors, while the water carries them away. The sauteed grated zucchini in this recipe makes a far better side dish than steamed or boiled zucchini, no matter how much butter you put on the latter.
This works for meats as well. In general, a boiled chicken tastes less juicy than a roasted or sauteed one. I think that it is Harold McGee, in his first book, who writes that the sensation of juiciness comes when the fat (or salt or sugar) in food causes us to salivate, and not necessarily from the moisture content of the food itself.