Red beans with sour plum chutney -- Lobio Tkemali

Many (okay, three) devoted readers of this blog have noted that I have not posted in the past several months.  This is because our kitchen is being renovated.  I won't go into this here because it has been much of my life for the past three months and blogging is an escape from it all.  Needless to say, our home cooking has been limited and rather uninteresting.  However, I have made a few things which can be done without an stove, oven or much prep work, so I thought I would share them here.  One of my favorite is a Georgian red bean salad with a dressing of sour plum sauce called Lobio tkemali.  Although better with home-cooked beans, it can be made with canned beans as well.  The sauce can be made in a microwave. If you have the sauce on hand, it takes a few minutes to pull it all together.

Lobio tkemali

Ingredients

• 1 large can small red beans (red kidney beans are an acceptable substitute, home-cooked beans a significant improvement
• 1 cup tkemali sauce (about 1/2 of the recipe below)
• 1 small red onion
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped coriander
• salt to taste

Method

1. Rinse the beans well to remove all of the gross liquid in the can. Drain well and put into a serving bowl.
2. Mix in the tkemali sauce.
3. Peel the onion and cut a few thin slices from the center for garnish.  Chop the rest fine.
4. Mix the chopped onion and 1/4 cup of the coriander.
5. Spread the remaining coriander on top of the beans, and garnish with onion rings.
6. Serves 6 as a side dish or appetizer.

I give a double recipe for the plum sauce because it is almost as easy to make in a double as it is in a single recipe and it is very versatile.  It goes well with the George Foreman grilled boneless chicken breast or thigh with spice rubs that have been a mainstay of our kitchen-less diet as well as with shashlik and other kebabs properly cooked over charcoal.   It is the classic accompaniment to kachapuri, the Georgian cheese-stuffed bread.

Tkemali is the name of a Georgian sour plum and a sauce from which it is made.  The great Darra Goldstein recommends using slightly underripe Santa Rosa plums.  I don't know if I have ever even seen this variety, so I make the sauce with Italian prune plums, which are nice and tart and in season in September and October.  If you can 't find these plums, you can make it with empress or any other black plum,  underripe preferred.  Taste the sauce toward the end of cooking, and if it is sweet rather than sour, add some balsamic vinegar or tamarind paste,  bit at a time, until it is nice and sour.  The seasoning is really to taste, but I find that the proportions below make a delicious, sour, garlic, slightly spicy sauce.  The time is also approximate, and will depend on such variables at the power of your microwave, shape of the container, etc.

Microwave Tkemali

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil (sunflower is more widely used in the former Soviet Union, I use canola
• 15-20 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
• 2 hot fresh chili peppers, red or green  (a variety like serrano, cayenne or bird chili is fine, keep the seeds in if you want the heat), slice 
• 2 pounds fresh prune plums, quartered lengthwise and pitted
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt, or more to taste
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander

Method

1. Heat oil is a 2 quart or larger microwave-safe casserole on high for two minutes.
2. Add garlic and chili, stir, and zap two minutes more.
3. Add plums and salt, stir, cover with a piece of paper towel, and zap for 5 minutes.
4. Stir in half the coriander, and cook for 5 minutes more.
5. Remove from oven, and taste for texture and sourness.  If too thin, return to the microwave for a few minutes until the texture of a thick compote.  The plums will lose more than 2/3 of their volume.  If it is not sour enough, add a bit of tamarind or balsamic vinegar until it is.  Return to the overn for a few minutes to blend flavors.
6. When cool, and just before serving, stir in the rest of the coriander. (The sauce will keep longer if you hold back on mixing in raw ingredients until just before serving.)
7. Makes about 2 cups of sauce.

Zucchini and za'atar dip

Here is a variation of shredded zucchini dip, this time with za'atar, which has proven the most popular version with my guests.  In an earlier recipe, Tunisian-style with caraway, I suggested skipping the salting.  I am back to salting.  I have found that doing it very lightly helps get rid of the moisture very effective and adds to the savor of the dish.  It is really up to weather or not you want to salt and drain.  If you are preparing several dishes, it works well to salt the zucchini and let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour while you do other things.  The cooking will go faster, and it will taste better.  

Za'atar  refers to a number of different Levantine herbs of the oregano family, as well as mixtures containing this herb along with sesame, sumac and other similar herbs.  I use Galil brand.  It will be good whatever you use.

This recipe is an adaptation of a recipe for zucchini with mint from Lebanese Mountain Cookery, by Mary Laird Hamady.  This is one of THE great cookbooks and is worth seeking out.  

Zucchini and za'atar dip

Ingredients

• 2 pounds zucchini
• 1-4 tablespoons olive oil, holding back a teaspoon or so (the more the better but it's up to you)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, or 1/2 teaspoon regular salt
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon za'atar
• freshly ground black pepper
• juice of one lemon, or more to taste

 Method

1. Wash the zucchini well.  Zucchini often has a lot of grit embedded in its skin, and the best way to deal with this is to soak it for about 15 minutes.  Then run it under cold water, and scrape away any parts which are still gritty.  If it is a hopeless case, just peel it, it won't hurt the dish too much.
2. Grate the zucchini on the large holes of a box grater or in a food processor.  I generally go with the grater here,  and find that the few minutes more grating is less that the effort involved in cleaning the processor.  
3. Put the  zucchini shreds in a bowl and stir in the salt.  Leave it for 30 minutes to an hour, weighted down lightly if you can.  (I use a small plate topped by a can or my mortar.)
4. Take the zucchini out by the handful, squeezing out the water, and set in another bowl.  This is more fun than it sounds.  Taste it.  If it is very salty (this is highly unlikely), you will need to rinse the shreds in a colander and drain well. 
5. Heat the olive oil on medium high in a very large nonstick skillet and add the zucchini shreds.  
6. Cook  on a high flame for about 15 minutes, until the squash is well-cooked.  You will be left with about 2 cups.
7. Meanwhile, smash the garlic, peel it, and mash to a paste with some salt using the side and edge of a broad knife.
8. Move the zucchini over to the size and add about a teaspoon more oil.  While stirring, add garlic and saute around 30 seconds, add the caraway for 30 seconds more,  then the za'atar for 30 seconds more.  Then incorporate the seasonings into the cooked squash.
9. Cook a few minutes more, stirring occasionally.  Add the lemon juice and pepper, taste for salt and correct seasoning.  Some people may like more lemon juice.
10. Makes around 2 cups. Serve with crackers, bread or raw vegetables as an appetizer spread to 4-8 people, depending on what else is being served.  It is also good eaten with a spoon.  

Korean Carrot Salad, Bukharan style

A surprising feature of the menus at kosher Bukharan (Central Asian) restaurants is the presence of kimchi and "Korean Carrot Salad."  I thought that this might have been something that they picked up in Queens, but when I asked the owner of the late, lamented Cafe Baba of Rego Park why they served kimchi he explained that in Samarkand they liked to drink vodka, the Koreans in the markets sold kimchi, and they realized that the two went very well together.  No argument there.  He was less informative, however, on what Koreans were doing in Central Asia.

As it turns out, the former Soviet Union had nearly one million ethnic Koreans, known as the Koryo-saram.  Most were descended from impoverished farmers who settled in the Russian Far East beginning in the 19th Century, accelerating after the Russo-Japanese war. In 1937, fearing that they might be Japanese spies (talk about paranoia -- try telling a Korean that his sister is dating a Japanese, and then duck) Stalin deported them to Central Asia, where most lived at the end of the Soviet Union.  There they encountered the Bukharan Jews, leading to some fruitful cultural exchange that benefits many of us today.

While kimchi is broadly available in 21st Century America, I have never seen "Korean Carrot Salad" in any Korean restaurant or grocery store.  Occasionally, you will be served shredded carrots with the banchan that begin the meal, but they tend to be simply dressed in sesame oil and vinegar and don't resemble the Bukharan version, which is strongly flavored with garlic and coriander seed.  This dish is hard to find, and I have experimented with it over the years, and with aid of numerous web recipes, I have developed this version which suits my taste, and the dressing combines coriander-seed infused oil will raw garlic.  Since most supermarkets carry pre-shredded carrots now, it is a cinch to make.  I first made it last night for my parent's 60th anniversary dinner, but had to warn my mother not to eat it since she detests garlic.  Everyone else loved it, and she enjoyed everything else:

Korean Carrot Salad

Ingredients

• 1 pound carrots, shredded 
• 1/4 cup sunflower, safflower or other vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup whole coriander seed
• 5 dried red hot pepper pods, broken up
• 3 cloves garlic
• Salt
• small onion, chopped, about 1/4 cup
• Rice wine vinegar, 2-4 tablespoons
• Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional, I like Aleppo pepper here, which is flavorful and not too hot)
• small handful fresh coriander leaves for garnish

Method

1. Put carrots in a bowl and salt very lightly.  This helps the carrots to soften, and you can always add more later.
2. Heat oil and coriander seen on medium low in a small pot, like a butter warmer, or skillet over medium-low heat.  Cook for about 5 minutes until the seeds turn several shades darker.  Don't rush it and be careful not to burn them.  
3. Put in the pepper pods, cook for about 30 seconds more, and strain into a small skillet. 
4. Add the onion to the skillet and cook on medium heat until soft but not brown, for about 3-5 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, mash/crush/chop the garlic to a paste with some salt and mix with the carrots.  If you are lazy you can just chop the garlic but it won't be as good.
6. When the onions are soft, pour it with the oil over the carrots.  Add the vinegar  starting with 2 tablespoons and adding more to taste.  
7. Taste for balance of salt, heat and tartness.  Add more salt, vinegar and red pepper if needed.  Set aside overnight, stirring occasionally if you remember.
8. Garnish with fresh coriander and serve.  It is particularly nice mounded in the center of a plate with the coriander leaves around the rim.  
9. Serves 4-14 as an appetizer, depending on how many other dishes you are serving.

Zucchini and caraway dip

Caraway and harissa are classic Tunisian seasonings and pair well with zucchini in an appetizer salad.  However, the classic way of preparing this dish is to boil and mash the zucchini which leads to the water problem. (See my earlier post in connection with a zucchini and tomato salad.)   While you are left with a lovely light green puree, you are also left with something of a soggy, bland mess that seems not to hold and highlight the spices.  The better alternative was to grate, salt and then saute the squash.  The water was eliminated and the flavors concentrated. (My theory is that many flavors are fat, rather than water soluble and that vegetables are almost always bettter sauteed than boiled or steamed.)

Here is a less refined, easier and spicier version of the salad.  Rather than salting the squash after grating and letting it drain, I found that you can just saute it a few minutes longer.  It eliminates a step, a lot of mess, makes the saltiness of the dish easier to control and really doesn't take much more cooking.  By sauteing the squash with garlic, harissa and ground caraway, you are left with an extremely tasty puree that is a welcome relief from the usual appetizer salads. This is a good way to use up some of those large zucchini clubs that people seem to accumulate in July and August, but it is even better made with tasty, small, tender squash. 

Zucchini and caraway dip

Ingredients

• 2 pounds zucchini
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
• salt
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon harissa (preferably one with a good hit of garlic)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground caraway seeds
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

 Method

1. Wash the zucchini well.  Zucchini often has a lot of grit embedded in its skin, and the best way to deal with this is to soak it for about 15 minutes.  Then run it under cold water, and scrape away any parts which are still gritty.  If it is a hopeless case, just peel it, it won't hurt the dish too much.
2. Grate the zucchini on the large holes of a box grater.
3. Heat the olive oil, reserving one teaspoon,  on medium high in a very large nonstick skillet and add the zucchini shreds.  Salt lightly.  
4. Cook  on a high flame for about 15 minutes, until the squash is well-cooked and lightly browned.  You will be left with about 2 cups.
5. Meanwhile, smash the garlic, peel it, and mash to a paste with some salt using the side and edge of a broad knife.
6. Move the zucchini over to the size and add about a teaspoon more oil.  While stirring, add garlic and saute around 30 seconds, add the caraway for 30 seconds more,  then the harissa for 30 seconds more.  Then incorporate the seasonings into the cooked squash.
7. Turn off the heat,
8. Makes around 2 cups. Serve with crackers, bread or raw vegetables as an appetizer spread to 4-8 people, depending on what else is on the table.  It also makes a nice sandwich spread on whole grain bread and topped with pitted oil cured olives, sliced feta cheese and tomatoes.

Spiced candied pecans

I know this is my first recipe in a while.  Excuses will follow, but I feel particularly bad for my niece who spend most of her summer in the Ukraine (in a place she insists on calling L'viv) and Poland.  (Does she write Warsvawa in her blog, or whatever they call it?  I don't think so.)

This recipe is based very closely on Julie Sanhi's cookbook Moghul Microwave, which adapts Indian recipes for microwave use.  I have been using it intensively for years, and have actually reverse engineered many of her recipes, (such as her mattar paneer) which are quite good, for the stove top since I find that many are both easier and come out better using conventional methods.  I have continued to make a few in the microwave.  I find that it does really well with fish dishes and eggplant (less stirring means less breaking up), and makes okra far better than other methods -- crisp and with no slime.  I tried making these candied pecans on the stovetop and it was a disaster, so it was back to the microwave.  I vary the spice mixture considerably from what she uses, and you can vary it further still.

Spiced candied pecans

Ingredients

• 8 ounces shelled pecan halves, roasted (toast for about 5 minutes in a 250 degree oven if not yet toasted)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon pareve margarine (substitute butter if you don't care whether or not these are pareve)
• spice mixture (see below), about 2-4 teaspoons
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Method

1. Stir together the sugar, water and margerine in a microwave-save casserole, cover with paper towel, and zap on high for 4 minutes (until it is a syrup.)
2. Immediately add the spice mixture and the baking soda and stir well to combine.
3. Stir in the pecans and coat well with the mixture, and immediately pour out onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.  Separate the nuts as much as you can.
4. Let cool and break apart any clumps.  Stored in a covered container, it keeps for a few weeks at room temperature and ages in the freezer.
5. These make a great snack with drinks, and are really nice in a number of salads -- a Vietnamese red cabbage slaw recipe  to follow soon.
6. Makes about three cups.

Spice mixture:  I generally take 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns, 1 teaspoon whole cuminseed, 1/2 teaspoon whole fennel seed,  1/2 teaspoon ajwain, and 1-4 dried red chilies and whirl them in a coffee grinder reserved for spices until they are ground.  I use the entire amount in the recipe.  Decrease the peppercorns and omit the chilies if you don't want it spicy. You can use the equivalent amount of ground spices, but you will find it hard to find ground ajwain, which adds a nice funky thyme-like aroma.  You could try using garam masala, a Northern Indian spice mix used to finish off dishes, or ras al hanout, a Moroccan equivalent.  For pastrami pecans, you can try equal amounts of peppercorns, coriander seed, and mustard seed, though dry roast these in a skillet first. 

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.  

Roasted Cauliflower and black vinegar, or with harissa vinaigrette

When I was growing up, the only dietary laws that we observed was "no lamb" and "no garlic."  When my parents got married, my mother asked my father's parents if she should keep a kosher kitchen for them, a very typical decision for this generation.  Although my grandmother was a confirmed atheist (of the "What has God done for me lately" variety so perhaps she just thought that he wasn't up to the job) she kept an impeccably kosher kitchen for my grandfather's sake. However, they said that it wasn't necessary, and we had pretty much everything in our house.  (My grandmother ate what my mother prepared, and my grandfather brought his own food, particularly as he got older.)  Everything, that is, except for lamb and garlic which my mother detested. Of course, both my brother and I adore lamb and especially garlic, but that is how life works.

When my parents came for dinner a few weeks ago I was going to make a roasted cauliflower salad with preserved lemon and harissa vinaigrette as one of the appetizers.  But, our harissa is full of garlic -- you can really smell it when you open the jar-- so I decided to try something else.  I had read an online review of Marcus Samuelsson's new restaurant Red Rooster, that mentioned a roasted cauliflower with black Chinese vinegar and sumac, so I tried this.  Not bad....


Roasted cauliflower with black vinegar and Mediterranean seasonings

To see how I prepare roasted cauliflower, click here.  Then, all you do is drizzle the cauliflower with about 2 tablespoons of good, strong olive oil, and season it with large pinches of za'atar, sumac, Maldon sea salt (go light, depending on how much you cooked it with) and Aleppo pepper.  Toss. Sprinkle with about 1 teaspoon of Chinese black vinegar (if you can't find this, Worcestershire sauce is a barely acceptable substitute, but don't use the salt then) and some roasted sesame seeds.  You can substitute roasted pine nuts for the sesame if you want, or use both. Toss again and serve as an appetizer or side dish.

Roasted cauliflower with harissa vinaigrette  

This is what I would have made had my mother not been coming to dinner.  It is really good and a very nice dressing for other roasted vegetables. Remove the pulp from a small preserved lemon, and remove the seeds from the pulp.  Chop the pulp into a paste, put it in a small dish, and mix in a teaspoon or more of harissa. If you want a very Tunisian flavor, mix in 1/2 teaspoon ground caraway seeds.  Drizzle in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar.  Toss with the cauliflower.  Shred the preserved lemon skin and toss it in, along with a handful of chopped coriander leaves.  That's it.

Monitoring blogs, and squash with tahini.

I am still trying to get my hands around the kind of monitoring and analytics that you can do with a blog, and I continue to be intrigued.  Part of this is being a data and information junkie.  Part may just be nosiness. After all, I spent much of my professional career as a archivist, which includes reading other peoples correspondence. (It's really nothing like The Lives of Others.  Really.)  It is more the thrill of human connection.

In the past few weeks, I saw that a reader from Austin, Texas spent a considerable amount of time on the site, most likely reading my post on Mexican/Syrian-Jewish style brisked in response to a query looking for "mexican brisket."  I hope that this reader tried this recipe and was not disappointed, since, although I am very proud of it, it is not a typical Mexican dish.  I have also noticed, for example, that someone, or some people from Glasgow, Scotland visit my blog with some regularity.   They must be disappointed that I haven't posted anything new for over three weeks. At least I hope that they are.

I have lots of reasons.  Life got busy.  Cooking got monotonous in an effort to fight the Thanksgiving to New Year bulge.  Most importantly, I have found myself cooking from recipes already on the blog or using cookbook recipes and not modifying them enough to make them worth posting.  (If I substitute short ribs for lamb shanks in a stew with quince, chestnuts and pomegranate juice, add some Indian spices, etc., should I really bother posting?)   One new dish that  I did make was a room temperature appetizer of pan-roasted winter squash with tahini.  I used to a be a confirmed squash hater, and the one day a number of years ago I made a spicy Bengali squash dish with chili, mustard seeds, and coconut from Bharti Kirchner's (tragically out-of-print) The Healthy Cuisine of India: Recipes from the Bengal Region, and I was a convert.  It was a revelation when the squash wasn't drowned in maple syrup or brown sugar. 

So, for my Glaswegian readers, and anyone else waiting on the other end of the ether for a recipe, here is;

Winter squash with tahini

Ingredients

• 2 cups winter squash cut into 1/2 inch cubes (I like butternut, red kuri, or kabocha here)
• olive oil
• salt
• sugar if needed
• tahini sauce:  1/4 cup tahini, 1 clove garlic, coarse salt, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, up to about 1/4 cup water
• handful chopped flat leaf parsley, to taste

Method

1. Heat olive oil, a spoon or so, in  medium nonstick skillet, on medium heat.  Add squash cubes and salt lightly. 
2. Cook on medium-high heat, tossing or stirring occasionally, until the squash is tender and well caramelized.  If it doesn't have a nice, rich taste, sprinkle a little sugar on it, less than  a teaspoon, toward the end of cooking. Remove to a bowl when done.
3. Meanwhile, make the tahini sauce:  Make the tahini sauce: smash the garlic with coarse salt to make a puree, and stir in the tahini.  Stir in the lemon juice.  The tahini will become very stiff.  Dribble in the water, a few drops at the time.  The sauce will stiffen some more, and then loosen to the texture of a thick cream. It is hard to tell exactly how much water you will use, but it is usually approximately equal to the amount of tahini, or a little more. The sauce should be on the thicker side, but still pourable.
4. Pour the sauce over the squash.  Mix in parsley when cool.
5. Serve with warm pita bread.

Khachapuri: Georgian cheese bread

Back in June I was delegated with cooking a Father's Day dinner, and I made this cheese bread, sort of a flat Georgian (as in Tiblisi, not Atlanta) calzone.  I ran into Naomi on the street and was bragging/complaining about having to cook my own dinner that day and I told her what I was making.  She said that I had to send her the recipe for the khachapuri.  I said I would soon, five months have passed, and since today is her birthday, I thought I should finally get around to posting it.

This is lightly adapted from the recipe in Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, which consists mostly of recipes from Greece and Macedonia, Syria, Southeastern Turkey (especially Gaziantep), and Georgia.  Many of Wolfert's later books have been justly criticized for being a pastiche of recipes from magazine articles, and Georgia doesn't really qualify as Mediterranean, but most of the recipes in this book are REALLY good, so who cares.  Believe it or not, I have tried a lot of khachapuri recipes in my day, and this one works the best.  I have modified it by making the crust a bit softer, and the filling a tangier, cheesier (American cheese consumption has tripled since 1970 so this would seem to be consonant with contemporary tastes) and more custardy.

So happy birthday Naomi -- maybe Tabitha will like this.  Most people do:

Kachapuri (Georgian Cheese Bread)

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup plain yogurt (lowfat is ok, nonfat isn't, nor is the thick Greek yogurt)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• large pinch salt
• 6 ounces pound Greek or Bulgarian feta, or a bit more if you want, crumbled
• 8 ounces fresh salted mozzarella
• Salt and pepper to season
• 3 eggs, beaten well
• 1 tablespoon or a bit more of butter or oil to cook

Method

1. Set aside 1/4 cup of flour for dusting when you roll out the dough (you may need more). Put another 1/4 cup of flour in a mixing bowl,  blend in the oil and then the yogurt, stirring in the same direction. 
2. With a fork, mix the remainder of the flour with the cornstarch, baking soda and salt.  Add to the mixture in the other bowl a bit at a time, continuing to stir in the same direction.  When the dough being to adhere, dust with the flour that you set aside cover with a towel and set aside for 2 hours.  You can also put the dough in a plastic bag in the fridge overnight at this point.
3. Mix the cheeses, salt and pepper (I like it peppery, about 15 turns of the grinder) and the eggs.
4. Divide the dough in 2 even pieces, and pat one into a flat dish on a floured surface where you can roll it out.  Roll the dough to a circle about 10 inches, flouring the dough and the rolling pin and being careful not to break it.  If you can't get it quite this big, that is OK, just plan on using a bit less of the cheese filling.  
5. Put half the cheese filling in a disk in the center, leaving a large border around, about 5 inches.  
6. Bring the four edges of the dough together like an envelope to cover the filling and pinch with your fingers.  Pat into a 7 inch disk. Don't worry if it is not perfectly round. 
7. Repeat with the remaining dough and cheese.
8. Heat the butter on low in two 8 or 9 inch nonstick or cast iron skillets and transfer the pies to them, flat bottom side down. 
9. Cover and cook the pies about 15 minutes,  flip, cover and cook 15 minutes more.  By cooking the seamless side down first the top side will cook lightly, making it less likely that the cheese will leak.  Even if it does when you flip it, don't worry, it will just turn into tasty crusty cheese.
10. Ideally, these should be served at once, piping hot, but they can also be made in advance, wrapped in foil, and reheated in the oven.  They will even last for a few days in the fridge.  I have never tried freezing them.  
11. They are traditionally served with tkemali, a Georgian sour plum sauce.  Since this is not readily available, I have served it with prune or rhubarb sauce or a sour Indian chutney out of a jar. It is also just fine by itself. See the recipes below.

One large pie: You can also make a single large pie by rolling the dough into a 14 inch circle and using a large 12-inch skillet to cook it. You will have a pie about 10 inches round. It will look much more impressive, but also be more difficult to  handle, so you are better off making the two pies the first time you try it.

Sauces:  Saute about 3 cloves of sliced garlic in oil until soft but not brown.  Add a sliced fresh red or green chili with the seeds, or 1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes.  Add a cup or two of sliced rhubarb (in the spring) or pitted sliced Italian prune plums (in the fall) , 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and if you want it a bit sweet, 1 tablespoon of brown or white sugar.  Cook for about 10 minutes until it becomes a sauce.  Add a handful of chopped fresh coriander and cook a few minutes more.  This chutney also goes nicely with roast chicken. I have never tried it with cranberries in the late fall or winter, but I don't see why it wouldn't work, though I would add more sugar.

Avocado with fish

Avocado with fish, especially smoked fish or canned sardines, is a great food combo, and one which you don't encounter all that frequently. You may be served a ceviche with avocado, and Mary Feinberg often bring a wonderful sandwich of baguette with avocado and smoked salmon to shul potlucks. But there are a wide variety of easy dishes that you can make for yourself or company. You can cut avocado into wedges and wrap it in smoked salmon and fasten it with a toothpick. Try Mary's sandwich with or without butter. Or spread mashed avocado on whole grain toast and top with smoked trout and eat it as an open faced sandwich. Try avocado instead of cream cheese on your bagel and lox, or top pumpernickel with whitefish salad, avocado and tomato. Here are two easy recipes worth trying.

Smoked salmon with Scandinavian guacamole

I am sure they could do something with this on Prairie Home Companion along the lines of Ajua hot sauce. In any case, it is a very easy and delicious appetizer.

Ingredients

• 1 ripe avocado
• 3 finely chopped scallions
• small handful of finely chopped dill
• juice of 1/4 lemon
• Salt
• 4 ounces smoked salmon
• large whole grain crackers like Ryvita or Wasa, or sliced whole grain bread or toast, cut into smallish pieces

Method

1. Mash the avocado with the next four ingredients. Do this shortly before serving. Put in a bowl.
2. Arrange salmon on a plate. Top with a little more fresh dill if you would like.
3. Put the crackers or bread in a serving basket.
4. To serve, everyone spreads some guacamole on the crackers or bread, tops with salmon, and that's it.

Sardine and Avocado Sandwich

This is based on a recipe from Paula Wolfert's The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. I am not sure what makes it slow or Mediterranean. It is based on a Canary Islands recipe, with sounds more African and Atlantic. It was adapted from a far more complicated recipe by Ferran Adria of El Bulli fame, so I guess that is the Mediterranean connection. It reminds me of a comment I heard once that most of her books, particularly the later ones, are a pastiche of recipes that Wolfert picked up doing research for travel articles. That having been said, most of her recipes are really good. I have simplified it still further so that it is a lunch sandwich rather than an appetizer. One of the joys of working at home is that you can have things like this for lunch. Just don't eat it before a business meeting, unless your meeting is with a cat food company.

Ingredients (for one largish slice of bread -- multiply as you will; I have 2 slices for lunch, some may only eat one)

• 1 slice whole grain bread
• 1 clove garlic (optional)
• butter (optional)
• 1/2 can sardines packed in olive oil (2 sardines)
• 1/8 - 1/4 ripe avocado
• a few shreds of red onion or scallion
• drizzle of sherry (preferred) or red wine vinegar

Method

1. Toast the bread. Rub it with the clove of garlic and spread lightly with butter if desired.
2. Spread with the sliced avocado.
3. Top with the sardines, filleted if you wish.
4. Top with onion or scallion and drizzle very lightly with vinegar.
5. Eat as an open faced sandwich.

Grilled summer squash with mint and cheese

This dish is a cinch. It is also a bit of a misnomer, since we don't have a grill, even an indoor one, and we cooked the squash in a nonstick skillet, and it was still good. I made this with avocado squash, which looks sort of like a large, light green avocado, is firmer than zucchini, grills well, and has a nutty flavor. Three things to remember to make this dish a success: use young squash and not the overgrown baseball bats that you sometimes get late in the summer; don't sprinkle on the mint and cheese until the squash has cooled to room temperature (you don't want the cheese to melt or the mint to turn dark), and don't dress the dish until shortly before serving. It serves 6 as a one of a few antipasti or side dishes, but could also make a light lunch for 2:

Grilled summer squash with mint and cheese

Ingredients:

1. 2 avocado squash or 1 pound or more other summer squash
2. olive oil (and olive oil spray for cooking if you want)
3. salt and pepper
4. ricotta salata cheese (a pressed firm ricotta), about 2-3 ounces, coarsely grated
5. fresh mint, about a handful, washed, stemmed and shreeded
6. red wine vinegar

Method:

1. Wash the squash well: soak it in cold water for 10-15 minutes, and rinse to remove all grit. Scrape any gritty section that remain or peel lightly if necessary. Cut into 1/2 inch slices. (If using thin small zucchini, you could halve them or cut them on a diagonal.)
2. Brush the grill lightly with oil, or spray a nonstick skillet with olive oil spray, and heat on high. If using the spray, you should spray it on a cold grill or skillet and then heat it. For oil, you can just brush it on once the grill or skillet is hot.
   
3. Cook the squash for 5-7 minutes on each side, until browned and tender. (The time varies widely with the head of your skillet or grill. Don't overcook ,since it will continue to soften after you remove it.
4. Arrange the squash nicely on a serving plate and season with salt and pepper.
5. When it has cooled to room temperature, sprinkle with the cheese and then the mint. Set aside up to an hour or two until ready to serve, but ideally, don't refrigerate it.
6. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar shortly before serving.

Variation: This could also be made with grilled eggplant, or eggplant cut into cubes, sprayed or tossed with oil, and roasted on 450 degrees for about 20 minutes and then broiled until tender. I find that eggplant does better than squash if cooked the day before, but don't garnish or dress until serving.

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.