Grandma Jenny's stuffed cabbage

My father's mother was a fabulous cook of the Litvak variety.   There are many recipes for stuffed cabbage (in our family, holishkes or gewicklete kroyt) out there.  What made hers so much better than the others?  I think there are three "secrets":  she put flanken and/or stew meat and soup bones in the pot, which added a lot of flavor and richness to the sauce;  she used sour salt (citric acid) and NEVER vinegar or lemon juice to make it sour since you want the pure sweet and sour flavor and not the taste of vinegar or lemon; and   she added prunes to the pot, which made the sauce richer and tastier.

My grandmother's cabbage recipe died with her.  Barbara, my cousin Lonnie's wife, sat with her one afternoon to try to learn how to make it, but didn't get too far.  My grandmother was not a great teacher, and the concept of measuring ingredients was as foreign to her as the Queen's English.   I have tinkered with the recipe over the years, and found a lot of help in Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking , particularly in getting the sweet/sour balance of the sauce right, but departed from it in significant ways, especially in the use of bones and prunes.  Making this is a labor of love, with the accent on both labor and love, but well worth the effort. 

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients

Filling

• 2 to 2 1/2 pounds ground beef (not too lean -- chuck works well)
• 1/2 cup rice, boiled for 3 minutes (I like short grain pudding or risotto rice, but Carolina will work as well;  just avoid fragrant rices like jasmine or basmati)
• 3 eggs
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs (challah crumbs from last week's bread are best, but panko or any old breadcrumbs will suffice)
• 2 onions, coarsely grated
• Salt and pepper (depending on the quantity of meat and whether it is kosher, 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon of salt and about 40 grinds of a pepper mill;  use less if you are unsure and test as below)

Sauce

• 28 ounce can tomato puree
• 1 teaspoon sour salt 
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup to 1 cup water or stock

For assembling the dish

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 heads of cabbage (you should be safe with one 4-5 pounder and one 3 pounder)
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 6 pieces flanken, about 2 pounds -OR- 1 to 1 1/2 pounds meaty soup bones and 1-2 pounds of stewing beef
• 1 pound pitted prunes

 Method:

1. Soften the cabbage leaves by your favorite method (either freezing and defrosting, blanching, or microwaving -- all are described following the recipe). I prefer freezing and defrosting.  Since you never know exactly how many usable leaves a cabbage will yield, I think it is a good idea to have two on hand.  You don't want to be caught short.
2. Set aside the larger cabbage leaves for stuffing, and the center of the cabbage and smaller leaves for the pot. You should have between 15-20 large leaves.
3. To make the filling, put the beef in a very large bowl, and make a hollow in the middle of it.  Break the eggs into the hollow and beat.  Add the remaining ingredients.  I prefer the full amount of salt and pepper, but you might want to cut down.  Mix well with your hands and set aside.  If you do not trust your instincts on seasoning, take a small piece and fry it quickly in a nonstick skillet and taste.  Adjust salt and pepper accordingly.
4. Combine the ingredients for the sauce and set aside.
5. Take a large, heavy ovenproof 6 to 8 quart casserole and oil it with the vegetable oil. 
6. Shred the reserved inner leaves of the cabbage as well as any torn leaves.
7. Set the shredded cabbage, chopped onions, prunes and meat on a cutting board in separate piles.
8. Preheat your oven to 275 degrees.
9. Put about 1/3 of the shredded cabbage and chopped onions in the bottom of the casserole.  Arrange 3 pieces of flanken (or the soup bones) on the bottom.
10. Stuff the cabbage leaves, starting with the largest leaves.  Lay a leaf on a cutting board with the top closest to you and the rib away from you.  If the rib is still very tough, cut it out.  (I find that this is less likely to happen with frozen defrosted leaves.) Take a small handful of beef and form it into a meat ingot of about 2 inches by 1 inch by 3/4 inch. Place it near the top of the cabbage leaf about 1inch from the end.  Fold the end of the cabbage over the ingot, and then fold over the two sides.  Roll the leaf up.  You should have a fairly compact roll. 
11. As each roll is done, place it in the pot to make one layer.  You will probably have about 8 rolls.  As the leaves get smaller, you will use somewhat less meat for each.
12. Scatter 1/2 of the prunes on top, and then top with 1/3 of the cabbage and chopped onions.  Put the remaining flanken or stew meat on top, and then arrange the remaining rolls on top.  If you have any meat filling left, you can either make them into meatballs and add them to the pot if there is room (they benefit from a quick browning first) or make them into old-fashioned hamburgers which are best pan-fried and served well-done. 
13. Top with the remaining prunes, cabbage and onions.
14. Pour the sauce ingredients over the stuffed cabbage.  It should come nearly to the top.  If not, add some water.
15. Place a  lightly oiled heatproof plate slightly smaller than the diameter of the pot over the cabbage.  This will weigh down the rolls slightly and improve their texture. 
16. Bring the pot slowly to the boil, cover, and then transfer to the oven.  If your pot is very full, put a pan that is larger than the casserole on a lower shelf in the oven.  Put some cold water in the pan.  This will catch boilovers and prevent you oven from smoking up and your fire alarm from going off. 
17. Cook for 3 hours. 
18. Take it out and cool off before refrigerating.
19. Reheat in the oven for a long time before serving 8 as a main course and 12-15 as an appetizer.  My grandmother would usually serve it with mashed potatoes or rice, but I think that all it needs is some challah to soak up the juices. 

Preparing the cabbage:  Although it takes planning, I find that freezing and defrosting the cabbage works best.  Start by removing the outer leaves of the cabbage.  I have read that the heads are so tight that this will remove any dirt, and that you actually add more contaminants by rinsing it with tap water at this point.  Who knows?  Core the cabbages carefully (you don't want to mess up too many leaves) and place in the freezer.  This takes up a lot of room, so be prepared.  Freeze for about 2 days, and then defrost in your refrigerator for about two days before proceeding with the recipe.  Alternatively, place one cored cabbage in a large pot, add boiling water, and after 5 minutes remove it and peel off those leaves which you can.  Replace the cabbage in the pot and continue until the leaves are too small to stuff.  You an also microwave the cabbage in a large microwave-safe dish for about 8 minutes, remove, peel off the leaves, and then return and zap some more.  I think that you can see why I prefer the freezing method, even if it takes up a lot of valuable freezer real estate and is a bit mafia-ish, sort of like having a head in your freezer. 

The meat:  To me, this is the key to the dish.  In addition to enhancing the flavor and texture, you have a good amount of meat that you can serve to those who claim not to like cabbage.  My grandmother would always use flanken but this was before chefs had discovered short ribs and it was considered a budget cut.  I find that meaty soup bones sold but kosher butchers are often bony flanken at less than half the price, and I use that for the bone layer.  For the meat layer, I would recommend chuck or kalechal, or even brisket if you can find it at a good price.

Sauce variations: I prefer scant, thicker sauce.  If you prefer a thinner one, substitute about 1 quart tomato juice for the puree and water.  You can use raisins if you must, but you will be missing out on the true experience.

Teiglach

I still haven't decided whether teiglach ("ei" is pronounced as a long "a") are a treat or an act of aggression.  Perhaps a bit of both.  I love the stuff and we served different versions both nights of Rosh HaShanah. But I think you have to grow up on it.  Everyone over 50 at our table devoured it, but with the exception of my 11-year old niece, Jamie, everyone under 50 politely ignored it.  Our fault for not making sure our kids were exposed to the finest parts of their heritage at a younger age.

Just after the dough hits the syrup

The name means little pieces of dough (teig is Yiddish and German for dough), which instead of being baked, are boiled in a ginger-spiced honey and sugar syrup. Although the cooking method may seem odd, it is actually very logical where reliable home ovens are scarce, as they certainly were in Eastern Europe before the great Jewish migration.  

After cooking, the teiglach are left to thicken or harden with nuts and dried or candied fruit.  There are lots of variations, but the most popular seems to be a hardened pyramid of dough balls in candied syrup that you can chip away at while you sip tea.  It may also be made in individual pieces, sometimes stuffed with nuts and rolled in coconut or other nuts, or in a thick but still liquid syrup and served in a bowl.  The fruits and nuts are up to you. I think that the texture of chopped walnuts is the best.  Some dried cranberries or cherries mixed in are nice too.  Apricots, so so.  Raisins, traditional but probably no, no.  Best of all in my opinion are the carcinogenic glazed cherries that occasionally top butter cookies and seem to have entered kosher bakeries through the very fruitful Italian-Jewish symbiosis in New York City.  (At least it was very fruitful for the Jews .  We got those cherries and rainbow cookies -- what would a shiva be without them?  I can't quite figure out what the Italians got out of the deal.)

Below is how I made them, based on a recipe from The Complete American Jewish Cookbook,

about 5 minutes from being done

published in 1952, as adapted by Frances Horowitz, who has been making teiglach during Elul for decades and shipping them as far as New Zealand!  I thank Frances for her sharing her long experience in teiglach-making during this process.

Because the dough is boiled rather than baked the preparation is out-of-the-ordinary and lots of fun since you get to see what is going on.  The dough puffs up as it boils and gets crisp, contrary to what you might expect when you boil it in syrup.  You can involve other people in rolling and dropping the dough nuggets in.    Whether you make this alone or in a group, it is not the time for multitasking.  Give it your full attention. 

My recipe has two variations:  one where the syrup hardens and the teiglach stick together in a mound, the other where they are served in a thick syrup.  Most people in my family (except my father) prefer the first.  The Horowitz clan go with the second.

the finished product

Teiglach

Ingredients

Syrup:

• 1 cup honey
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ginger (see note below on spicing)

Dough

• 2 cups flour, sifted with 1/4 teaspoon ginger and 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 beaten eggs
• 2 tablespoons oil

Optional but highly desirable mix-ins  (see below)

• Chopped nuts -- walnuts, pecans, pistachios or blanched slivered almonds
• Fruit -- raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries, candied cherries, chopped apricots
• Our favorite combinations were pistachios with dried cherries and chopped walnuts with dried cranberries, both with some candied cherries mixed and and on top for garnish.

Method

• Consider making this on a dry day.  I have found that if it is very humid, the teiglach won't solidify as well.  
• Wear shoes (or sneakers) with socks.  This is not a time for cooking barefoot or in sandals.  The syrup gets very hot and you don't want to dribble any on your feet.  
• Combine honey, sugar and ginger in a large pot and bring slowly to the boil.  The sugar will dissolve and the mixture will become a syrup.
• Meanwhile, combine dry ingredients with the eggs and oil to make a very soft dough.  
• Turn up the heat under the syrup to a full boil.
• You can either roll and pinch the dough roll it out and cut it.  To pinch, pinch the dough and roll into 1/4 to 1/2 inch balls and set aside on a lightly floured surface.  When you accumulate 5-10 balls, drop them gently into the boiling syrup.  Be careful not to splash the syrup which is extremely hot.  Continue until you use up all the dough.  To roll, roll out a portion of the dough about 14-1/2 inch thick.  Cut it into strips 1/2 in ch wide, and then into 1/2 inch diamonds.  Scoop up a bunch and drop into the pot.  I used to prefer pinching, and now I prefer rolling, which I think is easier and produces better results.
• Cook the teiglach in the syrup , uncovered, on medium heat for 20-30 minutes. Every few minutes stir them so that the ones on the top are rotated to the bottom and submerged in the hot syrup.  The syrup will darken but regulate the heat so that it does not burn.
• To test for doneness, remove one ball from the syrup to a cutting board.  Be careful because it will be very hot, especially the syrup.  Cut into it with a knife.  It should be crisp and dry.  
• When the teiglach are done, proceed as follows, depending on whether you want them in a candied mound or in a thick syrup:
• For the mound:  Pour 2 tablespoons of boiling water into the pot and stir.  Immediately add whatever nuts and fruits you are using. Scoop it out of the pot onto a lightly oiled, heatproof plate and shape into a mound.  Pour the remaining syrup over the mound, covering all parts.  Garnish with some of the candied cherries if you are using them (and you should). The syrup will stiffen and harden as it cools. When cool, stick with toothpicks and cover with foil or plastic wrap.
• To serve in syrup:  Add 1/2 cup boiling water to the pot, and pour it into a bowl.  Add the fruits and nuts to the bowl as desired.  This is particularly nice served in crystal.
• In either case, if your family likes this sort of thing, be prepared to fight them off.
• This recipe serves between one and an infinite number of people.

Spicing:  Frances uses less ginger, but I found the 2 teaspoons in the syrup just about right.  Adjust to your own taste.  It would be fun to try some different spice combinations, and I may do so next year in addition to the traditional ginger.  I think that ground cardamom (about 1 teaspoon) and black pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon) would be a hit with fans of those spices.

Fruits and nuts:  The consensus at our table was that chopped walnuts were the best complement to the flavor and texture of the teiglach.  It went very nicely with dried cranberries, and raisins would go well also, though we are not such big raisin fans.  Pistachios and dried cherries were a very close runner up, and are far less traditional.  A few of the candied cherries are an essential addition.  Another good combination would be slivered almonds and chopped dried apricots.  Feel free to experiment here.

Rosh Hashanah, Filipino-Style: Mongo Guisado (Mung Bean Stew)

"You always make things because you think I should like them, not because it is something that I like."

Maya is right of course.  That is what I do.  But, when you are making a Filipino Rosh Hashanah dinner based on Mechado for a large group of beef-stew lovers,  there has to be something for the family vegetarian to eat and mongo seemed like a good choice.  This is a stick-to-your ribs stew of mung beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes, lime, greens and traditionally, leftover lechon kawali, or deep-fried pork belly.  When properly made (as it was at the late, lamented Cendrillon and presumably still is at Purple Yam),  the lechon is so crisp and flaky that you don't quite know when your mouth begins to make contact with the crust.  However, I have moved beyond lechon and in any case this did not seem like an appropriate ingredient for a Jewish New Year's meal, let alone for the dish intended to please the vegetarian at the table.  So I worked out this version based on a recipe in Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan's (the owners of Purple Yam)  Memories of Philippine Kitchens .   A few departures from their recipe:  I find that  broth made from whole mung beans can have an unpleasant flavor, so in addition to soaking them, I drain them after boiling.  I also only boil them for about 15 minutes, since this preserves their texture.  At Romy and Amy's suggestion, I leave out the lechon and use coconut milk for richness.  I used light coconut milk, which was perfectly acceptable.  Regular would have been far better, but also far more fattening.  Also, for flavor and texture, I added vegetarian chorizo. If I weren't making it with a vegetarian in mind, I would have used a dry turkey kubano sausage, or looked for a kosher chorizo.  (Those who eat treyf can make it with regular Mexican or Spanish chorizo which will certainly be easier to find than Philippino lechon.)

So, did she like it?  "Ugh.  It reminds me of something they used to serve me in Uganda.  I'll pass."

Mongo Guisado  -- Mung Bean Stew

• 1 cup whole green mung beans (with the skin)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 vegetarian chorizos , cut into half inch slices (ok to substitute a meat sausage if you don't need a vegetarian or pareve dish)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, sliced
• 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
• juice of 2 limes
• 7 ounces coconut milk (light ok, use more if you want)
• 1 teaspoon or more of Bragg's aminos or soy sauce
• salt to taste
• 10 ounces to 1 pound fresh spinach, washed well, coarse stems removed, shredded if desired

Method

1. Wash mung beans and soak 8 hours or overnight.
2. Drain, rinse and drain again, and put in a medium pot with about 5-6 cups water.
3. Bring to the boil, turn heat down to simmer, and cook for 15-20 minutes until barely tender.  A few of the beans may be bursting.  Drain and discard the liquid and reserve the beans.
4. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large skillet or pot. (You will need a large utensil to accommodate the spinach later), and saute the sausage until crisp on both sides. Remove the sausage, drain on paper towels and reserve.
5. Add onion to the fat in the skillet, sprinkle lightly with salt, and saute until soft but not brown.  Add garlic and saute a few minutes.
6. Add tomatoes and their juice and cook on high about 15 minutes until much of the liquid evaporates and thickens into a sauce. Add lime juice and cook a few minutes more.
7. Add the coconut milk and cook on medium until it is absorbed and the sauce is thick. 
8. Mix the reserved mung beans into the sauce, taste and season with Bragg's or salt. Simmer about 10 minutes so that the flavors can meld.  The stew can be set ahead at this point.
9. When ready to serve, bring to the boil and add spinach.  You may need to do this in several batches to allow it to wilt into the stew.  Cover and simmer for 5 minutes until done.
10. Serve garnished with the crisp sausage slices and with additional lime wedges.
11. With rice and a salad, this is a main dish for four.  It is also a side for 8, and may be doubled.

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.  

Mexican Brisket in the Style of Syrian Jews

I am not a competitive person.  Last year, one of my birthday dinners was prepared by my friend Jay and it was the Mexican brisket recipe that I blogged on last November.  So, when they came for a birthday Shabbat dinner last Friday (his wife's birthday is the same week as mine), I had to prepare a better Mexican-style brisket.

This recipe is 100% inauthentic.  It was inspired by a broadcast in March 27, 2010 of the Splendid Table, when  Lynne Rossetto Kasper interviewed Patty Jinich about the Jewish cooking of Mexico.  Amongst other things, they discussed the happy marriage of Mexican and Jewish cooking, especially the cooking of Jews from Syria.  Mexico City has a significant Syrian Jewish community,  and I thought that it would be fun to try a brisket in this style.  So, I used tamarind, apricots and allspice, very typical of Syrian food, along with ancho and mulato chilies and other Mexican herbs and spices. The recipes in the back of my mind when I prepared this were Jennifer Abadi's Chicken with Apricots from A Fistful of Lentils, and Diane Kennedy's Pollo Enchilado from her Mexican Regional Cooking.  I don't think that cooking and serving a whole brisket is typical of either Mexican cooking or Syrian Jewish food, but it works well here and the long cooking allows the meat to absorb all the flavors. Modesty aside (blogs are not the place for modesty), it was magnificent.  Jay said that this was better than his. But then, I'm not competitive.

If anyone is actually familiar with the cooking of Mexican and/or Syrian Jews, I would love to hear your reaction. 

Mexican Brisket in the Style of Syrian Jews

Ingredients

• 3-4 pound brisket, top-of-rib roast or similar cut (fatty second cut brisket is probably best -- this is soul food, not health food)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 6 dried chiles, a combination of ancho and mulato
• 25 almonds with the skin on
• 4 cloves
• 8 black peppercorns
• 1 stick Mexican cinnamon (see below)
• 1 large or 2 medium onions, chopped
• salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (if unavailable, substitute a teaspoon of paprika and a pinch of cayenne)
• 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes (I use Muir Glen fire roasted)
• 3/4 cup tamarind paste (or substitute 1-2 tablespoons concentrate -- see below)
• 1-2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 cup dried apricots
• 6-8 whole medium potatoes, peeled (medium starchy rather than waxy or russet is what I used)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet or roasting pan, and brown the meat on high.  Since the shape will be irregular, it will not become uniformly brown.  Don't sweat it.
3. Meanwhile, toast the chilies lightly on a cast iron skillet.  Snip them open with kitchen scissors and remove as many of the seeds and veins as you can.  
4. Remove the meat from the skillet to a roasting pan or a plate, and saute the chilies in the fat remaining on medium heat.  They will become slightly crisp.  Be careful not to burn or they will become bitter. Remove to a blender.  
5. Add the almond, cloves, peppercorns and cinnamon to the skillet and saute gently until they swell and the spices become aromatic.  Add to the blender.
6. Add the onions to the skillet, salt lightly and saute until soft but not brown. Add the allspice, oregano, thyme and Aleppo pepper and saute a few minutes until aromatic.
7. Add the tomatoes, tamarind, brown sugar, Worcestershire and a teaspoon of salt and simmer about 3 minutes to combine.  Taste the sauce which should be balanced between sweet, sour and salty, with the sour notes dominating since the apricots and chilies will add additional sweetness.  Correct seasonings with more tamarind, salt, brown sugar or Worcestershire to taste.  Add to the blender.
8. Blend until well pureed.  It may take a few minutes and  need a little coaxing, but you should do OK if you work your way up from a slow to high speed.  I find that a good blender does a much better job than a food processor at breaking down the chilies and cinnamon stick.
9. Put a little sauce on the bottom of a large flattish roasting pan.  Put the meat on top and the potatoes around.  Top with the apricots and pour the rest of the sauce over it.  Cover the dish with foil or a cover if it comes with one.
10. Put the dish in the oven, turn the heat down to 325, and bake for 3-4 hours until the meat is very tender.  Check about an hour before done and add a bit of boiling water if the sauce looks like it is starting to scorch.
11. Slice meat against the grain and on an angle, and  return to the sauce, and keep warm until you serve.  This is nice served with just challah and the potatoes which absorb lots of flavor from the sauce.  If you don't make it on Shabbat, corn tortillas would be very welcome.  It would also go well with rice or with sliced grilled polenta.  This quantity will serve 6 people generously.

Caution:  The sauce is delicious but dangerous to all kinds of fabrics.  It is similar to a class of moles called manchamanteles which  are made with chilies and fruit and translates literally as "table cloth stainers."  Believe it. My wife and I honeymooned in Mexico (Mexico City, Oaxaca and San Miguel D'Allende) and we ruined an article of clothing every day of our trip because of the chili sauces.  Perhaps the future of indelible inks lies in the combination of chilies and lipids.

Make ahead notes:  Unless you want to spend all day in the kitchen, this dish is best made in advance. Add a bit of boiling water before you reheat it to thin the sauce a bit and prevent scorching. Leave the meat whole.  I find that when people prepare a brisket in advance and slice it before letting it sit and reheating it, it tastes like leftovers and is a waste of effort.  You can also cook it for 2 hours the first day and another two the day you plan to serve it. However, it takes a long time for the meat to come up to cooking temperature if it has spent the night in the refrigerator.    The leftovers are great with soft corn tortillas.

Cinnamon: Mexicans are very particular about their cinnamon, which they call canela and is also known as true cinnamon or Ceylon cinnamon.  What we generally call cinnamon is actually cassia.   (Who knew?) True cinnamon is milder, sweeter, and much softer.  Cassia is harder and sharper.  Almost all ground cinnamon sold in American groceries is cassia, unless it is labeled otherwise.  If you cannot find true cinnamon, I would use 1 teaspoon of ground regular cinnamon (cassia) and add it with the other ground spices to the sauteed onions.

Tamarind:  Syrian Jews would generally use a sauce of tamarind and sugar that you prepare yourself or buy in a few stores in Brooklyn or Mexico City.  You can also use prepared tamarind paste, which is even available heckshered now, or make your own which is not that hard.  Take a block of tamarind (available in Indian and Southeast Asian groceries) about the size of an egg and put in in a container with 1 cup of water, cover and zap in the microwave for 5 minutes.  Let it sit until cool, and the press the liquid and paste though a wire strainer, leaving the seeds and other debris behind.  This doesn't take long and is rather therapeutic, and should give you the right amount for this recipe.  You can always add more Worcestershire, which is tamarind based.  A concentrate like Tamcom would be a last resort for me.

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.

Chicken with sumac : one of the world's best chicken dishes

Penny for penny, minute of effort for minute of effort, chicken with sumac is probably the best dish in the world. It takes almost no time to prepare, bakes in less than an hour, and uses simple, easy to find ingredients (provided you have a source for sumac).

For some, sumac is a stumbling block. Even hearing the name of the dish gives some people a rash in their throat, but be assured that the spice sumac is a completely different species from poison sumac. It is an essential spice in the Middle east, at least from the Levant through Iran, and adds a rich lemony acidity but is not quite as sour. The color is also beautiful. There is also a traditional American use. American non-poisonous sumac I think is related. Have you ever had pink lemonade? Why would anyone dye lemonade pink? The reason is that in previous centuries, when lemons were scarce to unobtainable, a sweet and sour drink was made with red sumac berries and a sweetener, either sugar or honey: sumac lemonade. My guess is that people were in the habit of drinking a pink lemonade-like concoction, and when real lemons were more readily available, were in the habit of coloring the drink pink. Don't pick your own sumac berries for this dish, though.

The recipe I offer is very slightly adapated from Mary Laird Hamady's luminous Lebanese Mountain Cookery, one of the great books devoted to a micro-cuisine, rural, Druze cooking from Lebanon, and its transmutations in Michigan. It is out-of-print, but still around and worth looking for. You know that you are dealing with the real thing when there is a chapter lovingly devoted to dehen (rendered lamb tail fat), along with adaptations for the American kitchen. This fat is specifically forbidden in Leviticus as an act of asceticism. Remember, our ancestors come from a part of the world where much erotic poetry revolves around the image of the fat tailed sheep and giving it up must have been quite a sacrifice. (Sabbetai Zevi shocked many of his contemporaries by consuming lamb kidney fat, also forbidden, and suggested by Hamady as a substitute for the tail.)

Many of the recipes in the book are worth making (appetizers, pastries, fish, stews, meatballs), but this is our favorite. You will note it is much shorter than most of my recipes, since there is not way to make it longer. I made up for it with excessive commentary:

Ingredients

• olive oil
• 4-6 loaves pita bread, stale ok, white or whole wheat ok
• 1 large spanish onion, peeled, halved, and cut into thin slices
• 4-5 tablespoons ground sumac
• 3 1/2 pound chicken, cut into 10 pieces (halve the breasts which tend to be very large)
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Lightly oil a large baking dish that is 1 or two inches deep.
3. Split the pitas, rip into large pieces, and place in the baking dish. Top with the onions.
4. Season with salt, fresh pepper, and 2-3 tablespoons of sumac. Mix lightly if you are not lazy, but this is not absolutely necessary.
5. Top with the chicken, which ideally should cover all the bread.
6. Season the chicken with salt, pepper and 2 more tablespoons of sumac. It looks nicer if the sumac is spread evenly, so you may sprinkle it on through a sieve.
7. If the chicken looks like is doesn't have enough skin and fat, drizzle with a little olive oil (or actually as much as you feel like).
8. Bake 50 minutes to one hour. That's it. Serves 4 - 6 people.

Finding sumac: It is actually not that hard. Any store that stocks middle eastern groceries should have it. Fairway even carries it now. It is also available mail order from Penzey's spices. You can even follow Paula Wolfert's suggestion and call a local Lebanese or Syrian church and ask the priest where the women in his congregation do their shopping. Don't make excuses, you will regret it. It keeps nearly forever in your freezer. Don't keep it, or any other spices, on a rack near your stove. Sumac is also very nice in a chopped salad or fattoush, and can also be rubbed on a plain roasted or broiled chicken.

The key to success: is the right balance between chicken and bread. Be sure the chicken covers the bread, and add olive oil if necessary. Some people think that in this dish the chicken is beside the point and it is all about the bread, onions and sumac. They are right, but don't be tempted to just put in more bread, since there won't be enough chicken fat to moisten it. The best solution if you want more bread is to get a package of chicken backs and increase the seasonings. They will add plenty of fat, and to my taste, more of the best meat on the chicken. Another key to success is salt, and kosher chickens are really good at keeping the sodium levels up. We have friends who live in a low-sodium household (not that any of them have particularly high blood pressure). We on the other hand eat more salt than we do rice, especially since Amy is on her current low-carb regime. Whenever we make this dish for these friends they remark on how much better our version is than their's. It's because we use salt, and aren't shy about it.

How long does it cook? How many does it serve? These are the eternal questions for which there is really no answer, only, in the Jewish style, questions. How hot is your oven? How tightly is the chicken placed? Was the chicken cold or at room temperature when you put it in? How big is the chicken? How big are the pieces (I find that breasts can run so large that they take longer to cook now than the nearly vestigial legs and thighs of our poor chickens, so I then to cut the breasts up)? How hungry is everyone? What else are you serving? Just bake it for an hour and don't worry about it. There will be plenty for at least 4 people.

Chicken with sumac and mussakhan: There is a similar, more elaborate, and more difficult Palestinian dish called mussakhan. To my taste, it's not worth the time and effort -- you get more bang for your precious time with this version of chicken with sumac, which has all the flavor elements and is easy enough to be a weeknight dinner.

Copyright and recipes: One day, as I have long promised, I will write about intellectual property and recipes. My version makes some slight changes from Hamady's (she puts bread on top which just burns) , but I really justify my publicizing her recipe as a way of making her wonderful cookbook better known. Look for it and buy it if you can.

Comfort food: Krupnik (Hubagrits suppe) , in the style of Pruzhane

I was really bummed by the election in Massachusetts last night. It was like a mini-1994. Tomorrow is the time for action, whatever that might be. Today called for comfort food so I tried to reconstruct my grandmother's recipe for krupnik aka hubagrits suppe, or soup made with steel cut oats. Krupnik I believe is used to denote a liquid-y grain preparation and can be used for soups, porridges and even liquor.  This krupnik is similar to a beef barley soup, but steel cut oats (NOT rolled oats, the conventional oatmeal) are used as the grain and thickener. I haven't had it for about 30 years, but for me, it was comfort food par excellence.

There was a very lengthy discussion about the use of steel-cut oats in savory dishes on Elisheva Urbas' facebook page a few weeks ago, and I posted a suggested method for this soup. I couldn't find a recipe but one Anglo-Jewish cookbook had something that provided a starting point, and my father and others in his generation (70s-80s, sorry dad) described it to me in more detail than I remembered. Cooking, smelling and eating it, I felt myself back in my grandmother's immaculate (as in "Since I turned 85 I can't clean like I used to. I only pull out the stove to clean behind it once a week.") kitchen on Barnes Ave. in the Bronx, eating hot soup at her table with its plastic tablecloth. Just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, Amy is on a low-carb regime, Maya is a vegetarian and Harry seems to think that soup violates the inherent order of the cosmos (it is sort of his "tohu v'vohu") so I was the only who ate it. Their loss, but I think our guests on Friday evening will enjoy it.

My father's side of the family came from Pruzhane (we are of course Litvaks) in Belarus, and the other relatives remembered it in a similar manner, so here is:

Krupnik like in Pruzhane

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound small dried white lima beans
• 1 pound beef soup meat (I used kalechel, which is boneless chuck meat, which I cut into 1 inch slices)
• 1 pound beef soup bones with some meat on them
  
• 2 quarts water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1-3 tablespoons schmaltz, or if you must, oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 6 tablespoons steel cut oats (like McCann's not quick cooking kind)
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• 1 parsnip, finely diced
• 2 stalks celery, stringed and finely diced
• 5 sprigs parsley
• 1 large russet potato, like an Idaho
  
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. The night before, pick over the limas for stones, rinse them, and soak overnight. (As I think Barbara Kafka points out, beans are legumes and not phantoms. It doesn't have to be overnight, just 6 to 8 hours depending on their age. You can also use the quick-soak method. Cover the beans with water in a pot and bring to the boil. Boil vigorously for a minute, cover tightly and then leave to soak for an hour.) Drain and rinse before using.
2. Put the meat and bones in a medium pot with the water and bay leaf and bring to the boil.
3. Turn heat down and skim off the scum as it rises.
4. Meanwhile saute the onion in the schmaltz in a skillet until soft but not brown. Add garlic and saute a few minutes more, and add to the pot. (Swish around some of the broth in the skillet and add liquid to the pot to get all the flavor.)
5. Simmer slowly for one hour.
6. Add 4 tablespoons of the oats, and simmer slowly for another hour.
7. Add the lima beans, carrot, parsnip and celery and the remaining two tablespoons of oats and simmer slowly for about 45 minutes.
8. Peel the potato and cut into medium chunks, about half an inch. Taste the soup for salt and add salt and pepper to taste. (Be careful if you are using kosher meat since it is often already quite salty.) Simmer slowly 45 minutes more until creamy and delicious.
9. If you wish, remove the meat from the bones, cut the large chunks of meat into bite size pieces, return to the soup, heat through and serve.

Notes:

The meat: Since Jews were not peasants (my family lived in a shtetl, or small city), this is not peasant food. But it is the food of the poor, or at least the very frugal. Who else would make a soup out of a grain used primarily as animal feed? My grandmother made this with flanken which is the logical choice for any dish like this. But at $14 a pound minimum for kosher flanken (boneless -- with the bones it was $15 -- figure that one out!) there was no way I could derive the comfort that I needed from making the soup with it. So I used kalechel (about $9 boneless) and meaty soup bones (about $3 per pound). The ideal cut would be shank if you can find it. The results were great and I felt duly comforted. The important thing is to use a tough meat with lots of gelatin that will dissolve in the long slow cooking along with some bones. If I made the soup with flanken, I would probably leave the pieces whole, use 3 pounds, and serve it as a separate course afterward with horseradish, which is often what my grandmother often did. But not at these prices. Flanken has become so expensive in the past few years as chefs have discovered short ribs which is the same meat, just cut differently.

Making it in advance: Your mother should have taught you never to freeze cooked potatoes, especially when they are boiled. Their texture will be ruined completely. If you want to make a larger quantity of the soup, set aside some and freeze it before adding the potatoes, and then add them and cook until tender the day you serve. You can refrigerate this soup for a few days, but add a little boiling water and reheat it very slowly or it may scorch.

Pre-Halloween Dinner, and Salmon with Wasabi Peas

I really wanted to make something that would fit in with a Halloween theme for the Friday dinner the night before, something like sweet potatoes with hijiki seaweed. The color scheme is right -- orange and black, and the hijiki looks like some kind of mysterious vermin. (The guest to whom we ultimately did not serve it said that she loved it, because it looks like worms and tastes like dirt.) At least it seemed like the perfect idea until I picked up a package of dried hijiki and saw the price: $18.94. It seemed like a lot for something that I was sure most of the people at the table wouldn't eat, so I decided to spend the money on better fish. For the seasonal touch, we had monster eyeballs for dessert. (Basically sugared peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate with M&Ms for irises -- the recipe was from Epicurious at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Monster-Eyeballs-355109 which were lots of fun. We sent Maya (now in Wisconsin) a picture, and she was very upset that we made them without her. She taked Halloween very seriously.

For the main dish, we had Salmon with Wasabi Peas, which is always a big hit. This is my adaptation of a dish that some friends of ours serve pretty frequently, which is baked salmon topped with mustard and black sesame seeds, but, as they say in Yiddish without any modesty whatsoever, "fartaytsht un farbesert," or adapted (literally translated into a Germanic language) and improved:

Salmon with Wasabi Peas

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Take a salmon fillet and season it with salt. I usually use a roasted Sichuan peppercorn and salt mix by Penzey's spices, but sea, kosher or even plain salt is fine.
3. Take 1 tablespoon sweet white miso and mash it up well so that it is almost smooth. Mix in 1 tablespoon mayonnaise until smooth. (This amount is sufficient for 1.5 to 2 pounds of salmon.
4. If you want (and you should) wash a small knob of ginger, less than 1 inch -- no need to peel. Grate it on the coarse side of a grater, take the grated ginger in you hand, and squeeze the juice into the miso-mayo mixture. Mix until smooth.
5. Spread a thin layer over the salmon. Don't overdo it, a little is plenty, and even though we are in a recession, you can afford to throw what is left away.
6. Take a handful of wasabi peas and whirl in a food processor (a smaller one works better here) or blender until the texture of bread crumbs.
7. Sprinkle evenly over the salmon -- not to thickly.
8. Bake the salmon for 10-15 minutes. Broil briefly at the end if you want it browner.
9. Serve hot, warm, or room temperature.

Notes

• The better the salmon, the better the dish. Wild Alaskan salmon is in season, inexpensive and was really good. This can also be made with arctic char. You can also use farmed salmon.
• How long does it cook? One day I will devote a blog posting to this question, but the answer is simple. It depends. In this case, on how cold the fish was when it went in the oven, the thickness of the fish, how much coating you put on, and the kind of fish. In my experience, wild salmon cooks faster and is usually somewhat less forgiving than farmed, but tastes better anyway even if it is a little overcooked.
• The inspiration for the miso topping in dengaku, a Japanese grilled tofu dish. To prepare the dish authentically, you make a sort of custard with miso, sake, eggs, dashi and seasonings. I just use miso, mayo and ginger juice and no one notices.
• One variation worth trying (I haven't done it yet) would be to broil the fish with the miso-mayo but without the peas.

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.