Mushrooms with cashews and tomatoes

I met Navnita when she was working as a consultant on a research project in my old institution.  She teaches political science and international relations at University of Delhi, has a fine critical mind, and is a pleasure to work with.  She is also quite a good cook.  She prepared this dish for my family and me when we visited with her family when they were based in Washington DC when she was a fellow at Brookings. I was particularly struck by how well she got along with my mother, the two having at least on the surface so little in common. They seemed to bond over the experience of being the children of refugees, Neeta of parents who left the Punjab during partition, my mother of emigrants from the Pale fleeing anti-Semitism. And, as my mother said after we left "Neeta is not a stupid girl."  (This is a Bronx way of giving a compliment.)

Anyway,  this dish stuck in my mind, perhaps because it was also relatively easy to reproduce.  Although you could use roasted cashews and vegetable oil, I think the raw cashews really make a difference here.  It is one of those dishes where quantities are not that important, and you can adjust to your taste.  Is is possible to put too many cashews in?  Certainly not, but I usually hold myself to about 1/4 cup:

Mushrooms with cashews and tomatoes:

Ingredients

• 1-3 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil (corn for flavor, canola for health)
• 1/4 cup whole raw cashews (roasted if you can't find)
• 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon whole cumin seed, depending on taste
• 1/2 cup sliced scallions (white and light green parts only)
• 1-2 slice green chili peppers (if you can find any, add a 1 or 2 whole dried red ones after the cumin)
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 cup diced tomatoes, drained of juice (in season, use 1 cup halved fresh cherry tomatoes;  you could also use del Valle canned cherry tomatoes)
• salt to taste
• 1 pound cremini mushrooms, whole if small, otherwise cut in halves or quarters (for washing, see below)
• 1/4 teaspoons garam masala (if you absolutely can't find or make this, substitute whole cumin, roasted lightly and ground, or even ground black pepper)

Method

1. Fry the cashews in the ghee in a large skillet on medium heat until browned but not burned.  Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
2. Add cumin seeds and cook on high for about 30 seconds until they turn a shade darker.  If you are using whole dried pepppers, add  once the cumin darkens. 
3. Add scallions, salt lightly,  turn heat up to high and saute about 3 minutes until soft. Add the sliced green chilis and cook about 30 seconds.
4. Add turmeric, stir in, and add tomatoes.  Cook on high heat until the liquid evaporates.
5. Add mushrooms, more salt if desired, and cook on high heat until they give off their liquid and it evaporates.  The amount of time this takes will depend on the heat and the size of your skillet, but should take around 10 minutes.
6. Sprinkle with garam masala and serve. 

Washing mushrooms:  Life is defintely too short to wipe each mushroom individually with a damp paper towel to clean them, especially if you are clearing more that 4 mushrooms.  Here is what I do:  Dump the mushrooms into a large mixing bowl that will hold them and then some.  Fill the bowl with water, swish the mushrooms around for a few seconds, and then scoop them out into a colander to drain.  Most of the dirt and grit will be left in the water.  Dump it out, rinse the bowl, and repeat.  The mushrooms should now be clean.  Any of the few that still have any grit or dirt remained may now be wiped individually.

Soft scrambled eggs with feta, pine nuts and roasted broccoli

We had this dish at Barleyswine when we visited Austin last month. As is evident from the name, the chefs have a passion for beer and pork, but there is lots of other stuff to eat, and to drink as well. This dish was one of our favorites. Soft scrambling eggs slowly takes a little more effort than cooking them fast on high heat, but every once in a while it is worth it. They should be cooked with plenty of fat and are remind me of the bad old days when people thought that eggs were bad for you. This is a great brunch or supper dish and can be a nice main dish on Pesach during the week for those who feel that they aren't eating enough eggs.

The quantity below serves two, and it can be doubled or tripled in a larger pan. The keys to the success are almost constant stirring, low heat, and  making sure that all the toppings, the serving dish and plates are warm before combining and serving so that the eggs don't cool off.

Soft-scrambled eggs with feta, pine nuts, and roasted broccoli

Ingredients

• Small head broccoli stem peeled and separated into long florets
• Olive oil or olive oil spray
• 5 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• Salt and pepper (ideally freshly ground white pepper, but black will do)
• 1-2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon sour cream
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts roasted lightly in a dry skillet
• 2 ounces feta cheese, diced

Method

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Beat eggs well in a bowl. Beat in cream and season with salt and pepper and leave at room temperature.
3. Toss the broccoli with oil or spray it (why would you spray it when you are already using so much saturated fat?), put on a baking pan, sprinkle with coarse salt, and bake for 10 minutes.
4. Broil until brown and slightly charred but not burnt, about another 5 minutes.. Set aside in a warm place.
5. Heat butter on low heat in a medium nonstick skillet until melted.
6. Add the beaten eggs and cook on low heat, stirring constantly. One you get the hang of holding them, two pairs of chopsticks work perfectly for this, breaking up the curds into small pieces. If you don't trust me on the chopsticks, you can use a whisk instead, a regular whisk with a conventional skillet or a plastic one in nonstick.
7. Meanwhile, set oven on the lowest setting, and put in  your serving plates, feta,  nuts and sour cream in separate heat-proof dishes.
8. Keep stirring the eggs, moving them around the skillet so they don't stick. The texture should be similar to that of a soft risotto.
9. When still very soft and slightly runny, mix in the sour cream and half of the pine nuts and feta.
10. Turn the eggs into the serving dish, and top with the remaining feta and then the pine nuts. Arrange the broccoli around the eggs, sticking the base of the florets under the eggs. If you have an extra floret, stick it in the center of the dish.  Next time I make this I will include a picture to this posting.
11. Serve immediately to two on warmed plates. Great with fresh baguette, whole grain toast, or matzah.

Eggplant with tomato-miso sauce

Last weekend Mark Bittman had a wonderful article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on non-traditional uses for miso. He went so far as to call it the Parmesan cheese of the new century.  He is not far off.  Some of the most flavorful foods that we use, those richest in umami, or a meaty flavor, are based on broken down (or less euphemistically, spoiled) proteins. Cheeses, cured meat, dried or fermented fish, soy sauce, fermented bean sauces -- all are produced by ccontrolled spoilage that preserves food by fostering the growth of helpful microorganisms that keep out the dangerous ones.  In the process, they break down the proteins and set lots of amino acids free, contributing to the flavor level in the dish. Don't trust me on the science, but trust me on the taste.

I have been toying around with the combination of Asian and Western flavors recently, each of which takes a very different approach to food preservation.  (Think of the difference between cheese, fish sauce, and miso.)  I was making a potato and cheese gratin for a vegetarian Shabbat dinner, and wanted something to go with it that would be interesting and bring some acidity and depth of flavor to the meal, but which wouldn't be garlicky.  Inspired partly by Bittman, I came up with this. The sauce is extremely simple, and the tomato/miso/butter has both an umami hit and a surprising level of creaminess, given that it has no cream and not too much butter. It tastes almost as if it were made with both cream and anchovies, or at perhaps some Parmesan, though it uses none of the above. Try this and play around with it, using different herbs and different kinds of miso.

Eggplant with tomato-miso sauce

Ingredients

• large, firm purple eggplant
• olive oil or olive oil spray
• 1 tablespoon sweet butter
• 3 shallots, chopped
• 2 tablespoons miso (I used sweet white miso -- experiment, and the results will be different but still delicious)
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme (or a large pinch dried)
• 15 ounce can tomatoes (I used del Valle cherry tomatoes, you could try another variety; in season 1 pint of fresh halved cherry tomatoes would be preferred)
• salt and black pepper to taste
• small handful chopped fresh parsley

Method

1. Quarter the eggplant lengthwise and cut each quarter into 1 inch chunks.
2. Oil or spray a flat baking dish.  Either toss the eggplant pieces with a bit of oil, or place them on the dish skin side down and spray them with oil.
3. Broil on high about 5 inches from the flame for about 10 minutes, or until brown but not blackened.  Turn off the broiler, turn oven to 425 degrees, and roast for 15 minutes or until tender.
4. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large skillet.  Add the shallots and saute on medium high  until soft but not brown, about 3 minutes.  Add the thyme and give a few stirs.
5. Turn the heat down, add the miso, and stir to combine with the shallots and butter.
6. Add the tomatoes and bring to the boil.  Squish the tomatoes if you don't like them whole.  Cook on high for about 10 minutes.
7. Add eggplant and cook for another 10 minutes on very low heat to meld flavors.  Make sure the eggplant is tender.
8. Makes 4 generous side dish servings.

Chicken cacciatore with a whiff of Asia

"Do you want the chicken Italian or Indonesian tonight?"
"Italian."
So, I tried to do both. I was going to make an Indonesian-Chinese chicken stew with a garlic and yellow bean sauce. I eliminated out the other Asian flavors, but kept the bean sauce, which disappeared into the background but added some umami depth to the dish. I would also have put in some porcini mushrooms but we had none So I used dried shitakes. My only mistake was that I should have used more.
"This doesn't taste Asian at all.  Not one bit."
Here is the dish. Try it and decide for yourself. Leave out the bean sauce if you must, but you will be missing something.

Chicken cacciatore with a whiff of Asia

Ingredients

• 8-16 dried shitake mushrooms
• 2 medium onions, chopped fine
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons yellow bean sauce (tauco, see below)
• 8 chicken thighs, skinned
• 1/2 pound fresh cremini mushrooms  washed and sliced(or omit and use more shitakes)
• 2-3 chopped canned tomatoes (about 1/2 cup)
• large pinch ground rosemary
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1 teaspoon-1 tablespoon soy sauce or Bragg's aminos (depending on saltiness of tauco)

Method

1. Soak the shitakes in boiling water to cover for about 1/2 hour while you proceed with the rest of the recipe. (You can also zap them for a minute in a covered dish in the microwave, but I find they soften more evenly using conventional soaking.)
2. Saute the onion in olive oil on high in a large nonstick skillet until just starting to brown.
3. Meanwhile, pound the tauco and garlic to a paste. This is most easily done in a mortar and pestle.  However, they can also be smashed together with the side of a knife.
4. Add the paste to the skillet and saute for a few minutes until the garlic no longer smells raw.
5. Add the chicken thighs, and stir fry them until they have browned a bit.
6. Add remaining ingredients except mushrooms and their liquid.
7. Drain mushrooms reserving the liquid, rinse, remove the hard woody stem, slice and add to the stew.
8. Strain the liquid through a sieve lined with a coffee filter or paper towel, and add to the stew.
9. Partly cover, bring to a simmer, can cook on low for 1/2 hour to 40 minutes until done, turning once.
10. For a thicker sauce, remove the chicken to a serving dish and boil down the liquid until thick, and pour over the chicken.
11. Serve with rice, pasta or best of all, polenta (see below).

Why thighs?  They are the best cut for stew.  The meat to bone ration is relatively high and the shape is compact, so they take up less valuable pan real estate.  The skin adds nothing other than fat and is rather unappetizing when stewed.  It is easy to slip off and you can sometimes buy them already skinned.  Thighs are also very forgiving.  Something about the musculature makes them very difficult to overcook. Use a whole chicken if you must.

Tauco?  This is a whole yellow (actually light brown) bean sauce popular in Southeast Asia.  I used Yeo's.  It is generally pounded to a miso-like paste, but also good with the beans left whole.

What about the polenta?  Here you have two choices.  You can use firm polenta cut into slices and browned in a skillet or under the broiler.  The precooked logs from the supermarket are actually fine here.  I often like like softer polenta, and have recently discovered an ultra easy method.  It takes an hour or a little more, so put this up before you do anything else and it should be ready when the rest of dinner is. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take 1 cup of medium or coarse yellow corn meal and mix it with 4 cups of water and a about  teaspoon of salt in a 2 quart or larger ovenproof casserole. Put it in the oven and leave it for an hour, stirring after 45 minutes.  If it is still too soft, cook 10 minutes longer.  This keeps well for a while in a turned off oven.

Flaming apples with dates

Flaming food brings out the middle brow philistine in everyone.  I remember being mesmerized by a picture in the World Book Encyclopedia of the Pump Room in Chicago, which used to flame just about everything.  I also recall the classic Peter Cook and Dudley Moore skit, the Frog and the Peach, where the most revolting food was served flamed in boiling Cointreau.  It is an easy way to impress your guests, but it also has legitimate culinary functions.  Flaming is a quick way of burning off excess alcohol that can give food (as opposed to drink an unpleasant taste, and in dishes made with sauteed meats, it is a very efficient way of deglazing the pan.  But, mostly, it is just cool.

A few weeks ago we ran into two friends at a jazz concert near our house.  They gave us a ride home and we asked them in for dessert.  We didn't have much in the house, sothis is what we made:

Flaming apples and dates:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter (substitute neutral vegetable oil or margarine for a pareve dessert)
• 4 apples peeled, cored and sliced lengthwise
• 5-10 pitted dates
• 1 tablespoon date honey or brown sugar
• Cinnamon -- about 1/4 teaspoon
• 2 tablespoons ice cider 
• 1/4 cup Calvados, apple jack or rum
• Vanilla ice cream or coconut sorbet to serve

Method

• Heat butter in a medium skillet.
• Add apples and saute on medium high heat until they begin to brown and are tender but not falling apart.
• Add dates and saute a minute more, stirring.
• Add the sweetener, cinnamon and ice cider and bring to the boil.
• Put all but one tablespoon of the calvados in the skillet, and put the remainder in a LONG HANDLED metal spoon.  Touch the metal spoon with the liquor to the flame of your stove, and it will ignite.  (Do not hover while you do this.  The smell of burnt hair is not pleasant.)  Pour it into your skillet, and the entire skillet should flame up.  It should die down fairly quickly, but keep a cover nearby in case it doesn't -- covering it will extinguish the flame.  Stir the contents of the skillet around, and serve.  For full dramatic effect, shut the lights when you flame the dish. 
• Serve at once over ice cream or sorbet to 4.

The apples:  More than the liquor, this is the key to the dish.  I used a combination of Golden Russets and Crispins.  The best choice are flavorful apples that will hold their shape.  Farmers' markets have a much wider variety of apples than most supermarkets.  You can always use Granny Smiths as a backup though I find that they take a long time to get tender and their flavor is too unidimensional.

The liquor:  Ice cider is roughly the equivalent of ice wine, a sweet relatively low alcohol dessert beverage, but it is made from cider apples rather than grapes.  It is a relatively new product, and was developed in Quebec in the past twenty years.  It is a nice end to a meal, and goes especially well with cheeses and apple desserts.  We happened to have a bottle open so we used some.  If you do not have any, you could use a little regular cider or apple juice.  For flaming, the hard liquor is the key.  An apple brandy, whether calvados or applejack is ideal.  We used Michel Jodoin's wonderful Brandy des Pommes from Quebec.   (I am surprised that the word brandy survived the provincial language police.)  You could substitute rum or cognac if you don't have an apple brandy. 

A kinder, gentler chocolate tofu pudding with lavender

Or, at least a lower calorie one.  A few years ago I posted a chocolate tofu pudding based on one published by Mark Bittman.  His was seasoned with chili and cinnamon.  I used lavender instead since I consider chocolate and lavender to be one of the great taste combinations.  While this is a great dessert in its own right, it is by no means slenderizing.  I have been following Weight Watchers for the past few months (with some success, I might add, not that anyone asked)  and the original recipe clocked in at a pretty hefty 9 PointsPlus (the controversial new WW points system) per serving. While no chocolate mousse or cheesecake, it is still over 25% of my points allowance per day, and could be nearly 50% for some women (God being a man in matters of weight loss).

The Weight Watchers site had an adaptation of the recipe that cut down on the sugar and substitute cocoa powder for some of the chocolate, cutting the serving cost to 4 PointsPlus if you serve it in appropriate portin sizes. I tweaked the recipe further to work in lavender, and here is my

Lower-cal chocolate tofu pudding with lavender

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons dried lavender buds
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 pound silken tofu
• 2-3 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate (I like Scharffenberger's, which is pareve)

 Method:

• Make a lavender infusion:  Bring the water to a boil in a small pot, and add the lavender buds.  Boil rapidly for a minute and then let them cool as if you were making a tea.
• Mix the cocoa and sugar in a bowl.  Strain the lavender infusion into the bowl, drizzling it in slowly until you have a paste, as if you were making hot cocoa.
• Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for about a minute on low, stirring so that it doesn't scorch.
• Puree the tofu in a blender.
• Add the cocoa mixture and puree again.
• Melt the chocolate either in a double boiler or in the microwave.  If doing it in the microwave, melt it in 20 second increments, stirring in between, so that it doesn't scorch.
• Add chocolate to the mixture in the blender and blend again.
• Pour into a single glass serving dish or into individual serving dishes and chill.  It cools and sets much more quickly in individual portions.  Wine glasses are especially nice.  Top with a coarse sea salt, ideally Maldon, before serving.
• Makes 6-7 servings.

Varying the spices:  Next time I am going to try this iwith an infusino of Sichuan peppeprcorns.  I will keep you posted. 

Roasted celery root salad

Last week Mark Bittman published a bunch of root vegetable recipes in the Sunday Times Magazine. (I would link to them but the Times has blocked access, even though we are subscribers.) We tried the roasted celery root which couldn't be easier or tastier. You clean a whole root, rub it or spray it with olive oil, sprinkle with coarse salt, and roast in a 350 degree oven for two hours. I cut of the squiggly parts that have a lot of what looks like the vegetal equivalent of belly button lint jammed between them. Slice into wedges with the skin to serve.

This is the salad that I made with the half that was left over. It is a nice lower carb alternative to potato salad, if you are looking for one. most celery root salads that I have had are remoulade-style, and combine raw shredded celery root with a mustard vinaigrette.  I think this is much better:

Roasted celery root salad

Ingredients 

• Leftover roasted celery root with skin  (we used a little more than half of a two pound root)
• 1/2 cup chopped diced pickles (see below)
• 1/4 cup capers, rinsed
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise or more to taste
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• salt (if needed) and pepper

Method

1. Cut the celery root into 1/2 to 3/4 inch dice.
2. Combine with pickles, capers and dill.
3. Combine the mustard, mayonnaise and vinegar and mix into the salad.
4. Add salt if needed (it may not be, since the pickles and capers are salty) andpepper.
5. Serves 4 as a side dish.

What kind of pickles to use? We used the slightly spicy Israeli pickles that you get in a can.  You could also use French-style cornichons, half sours, or sour dill pickles.  Each will alter the character of the dish, and each will be good. 

Hashed Brussels sprouts with za'atar and pine nuts

We are Brussels sprouts addicts.  My wife used to hate them, but then we started roasting them (see several recipes here) and she was converted.  There are only two issues (I use this word because I don't really consider them to be problems although some people, like the one to whom I am married, do) with roasted Brussels sprouts.  They can take a long time to cook -- 30 minutes or so, and the timing is unpredictable.  Ircan be difficult to get them just right, and if you cook them too long, they can get too "cabbagey." (Again, this is in quotation marks because I don't really see it as a problem, but other people eat the food I cook as well.)

Shredding the sprouts prior to cooking resolves these issues.  (We even buy pre-shredded sprouts.) They cook quickly, in under 10 minutes.  Also, the doneness is easy to control, so they come out brown but still a bit crunchy and nutty tasting.  They are not much more work to prepare than whole or halved sprouts, especially if your knife is nice and sharp.  We have been making them with za'atar, a Middle Eastern spice blent of thyme, marjoram, sesame and sumac that is available both in stores that stock Middle Eastern and kosher ingredients, and even in many supermarkets.  If you can't find it, mix together 1/2 tablespoon each of crumbled thyme and oregano.  Add a few sesame seeds and about 1/2 teaspoon sumac.  If you don't have sumac, use a bit more lemon juice.

Hashed Brussel Sprouts with Za'atar and Pine Nuts

Ingredients

• 1 to 1.5 pounds Brussels sprouts
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3-5 cloves garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
• 1 tablespoon za'atar
• 2 tablepoons roasted pine nuts (we buy them pre-roasted)
• 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method

1. Cut the Brussels sprouts into fine shreds, no more than 1/4 inch thick, leaving the stem behind. Peel and slice the garlic.
2. Heat the olive oil on medium in a large nonstick skillet. Add the garlic and saute about 1 minute until soft but not brown.
3. Add the shredded Brussels sprouts and salt, and turn the heat to high.  Stir and fry for about 5 minutes until some of the shreds are browned.  Taste, and cook a bit more if desired. 
4. Add za'atar, pine nuts and lemon juice.  Serve hot to 4 people as a side dish.

Leftovers for breakfast:  heat 1/2 to 1 cup leftover sprouts in a small nonstick skillet, sprayed with oil spray.  When warm, push to the side to make a nest in the center.  Crack in an egg, cover the skillet and cook on medium until white is set and the yolk is still soft. Serve on toast if you want.

Brussels sprouts and eggs for dinner:  Use between 12 ounces and one pound of shredded sprouts.  Cook as above, but crack 4 eggs onto the cooked, shredded sprouts.  Sprinkle a handful of grated parmesan or grana Padano on the eggs, and cover and cook until done.

Pulled Barbeque, Farkashert

The Jewish prohibition on pork goes deep.  This is not to say that there are no fans of the meat amongst the tribe.  But archeological excavations in ancient Canaan turned up pork bones in all settlements except for those of the Israelites. (For an interesting take on the Jewish taboo on pork and its possible origins, see this Smell Test by Shmarya Rosenberg in Tablet Magazine, where he discusses some insights inspired by Christopher Hitchens.  Don't read this near meal time.)  However, pork has numerous distinctive characteristics that make it a wonderful cooking medium -- witness the spread of pork belly to almost every high-end menu in the civilitzed world.  There is discussion in the tradition about whether pork is prohibted because it is disgusting or because it is delicious and the prohibition tests the faithful.  I definitely hold with the latter.

Pork is ultimately irreplaceable, but Jews have tried for centuries to substitute.  The most noble efforts were those of the Jews of Germany, represented in the US by the late and much lamented Bloch und Falk which made kosher cold cuts that tasted like treyfe cold cuts but out of veal, goose and who knows what.  In many recipes on this blog, I substitute vegetarian or turkey sausage for pork products.  However, it is more difficult to substitute for uncured fresh port.

A few years ago on Christmas day we went to a Kosher Gospel concert and brunch featuring Joshua Nelson. At the brunch, they served a creditable pulled barbeque made out of chicken thighs. This was in a spicy tomato sauce, and a classic pulled pork would be much less saucy. But, given the substitution of the main ingredient it is more than not made.  I have been playing around with this dish for a few years and found that a spice rub of vinegar, garlic, and smoky chili and paprika worked well in a home oven. Although I started making it with chicken, I have recently switched to turkey.  Although I prefer the taste of chicken in general, it makes no difference in this dish and the turkey is far easier, since  instead of needing two to three thighs to serve each person, one turkey thigh serves two to three. 

The following recipe serves 4 generously.  It can be multiplied -- I have made it with up to 10 thighs. It is mildly spicy, so increase the quantity of chitpotle chili if you want it spicier, though this is not always a great idea if you are serving a crowd.

Pulled Turkey Barbeque

Ingredients

• 2 turkey thighs, about 1 pound each

  Marinade

•  8 cloves peeled garlic
• 1 teaspoon chitpotle powder
• 2 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika
• 2 teaspoons ancho chili powder
• 1 tablespoon  mustard
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

  Remaining ingredients

• 8-10 cloves peeled garlic
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, quartered and sliced
• 1 medium sweet red pepper, quartered and sliced
• 1/4 sweet green pepper, sliced
• 1 jalapeno chili , quartered and sliced (optional, and remove seeds and ribs if you want it milder)
• 1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce (from a can is fine)
• 2 tablespoons smokey barbecue sauce (any good commercial sauce is fine)

 Method

1. Drop the garlic cloves for the marinade into a food processor or blender with the motor running to chop finely.
2. Add remaining marinade ingredients and process to have a smooth paste.  Add a bit more vinegar or water if you need to.
3. Rub the marinade into the thighs and set aside in the refridgerator for a day or two.
4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
5. Flatten 8 of remaining garlic cloves and slip under the turkey skin.  Put the thighs in a roasting pan in which they will fit rather snugly, and roast until tender, about 1 hour 15 minutes.  Particularly if the pan is large, the fat may begin to smoke, so after a half hour, pour some boiling water into the pan so that it doesn't.
6. Meanwhile, saute the peppers and onions on medium high in the oil in a nonstick skillet until soft and just beginning to brown.
7. Add the garlic, saute another minute, and then turn heat down to medium low and add the paprika. Saute another minute or so.
8. Add the tomato sauce and barbeque sauce, bring to a boil, turn heat down and simmer about 5 minutes.  Set aside until the turkey is done.
9. Check the turkey to see if it is tender and the meat pulls easily from the bones. Otherwise, cook about 10 minutes longer.  Remove from the oven and set aside for about 10-15 minutes until cool enough to handle.  Removed the skin, scrape off the garlic cloves, mash them and mix into the sauce.  Set the skin aside for other uses. (See below)
10. Pour off the juices from the turkey roasting pan and skim off the fat.  The easiest way to do this is to pour them into a Pyrex measuring cup and put it in the refrigerator or freezer until the fat rises to the top and can be removed more easily with a spoon.  If you can wait long enough, it will solidify. Discard the fat.  Unlike other rendered poultry fats, turkey fat is of little gastromic interest.   Add the juices to the sauce.
11. Deglaze the turkey pan.  If it is heatproof, add a little water to it and bring to the boil, scrapping up the juices that have stuck to the pan.  (If the dish is not heatproof, you can do this in the microwave.)
12. Shred the turkey.  This is ideally done by hand, which I consider to be kind of fun.  Cut the meat off the bones with a knife, which will allow it to cool more rapidly.  Separate it according to the musculature, and then pull the meat into long shreds with the grain.  As an alternative, you can hold the thighs down with a  fork, and to shred off the meat with another fork.  It works best it you use large sturdy serving forks here.   Don't be tempted to just cut it with a knife.  Proper shredding is one of the keys to success. 
13. Add the turkey to the sauce, and reheat either on top of the stove, or in an ovenproof serving dish.  You can either heat it on 350, or go for the long haul and leave it in a slow oven.  One of the beauty of poultry thighs is that their flesh stays moist long after the point where breasts would be like so much sawdust. 
14. Serves 4 generously.  Goes well with coleslaw, cornbread (I may post a pareve corn bread recipe soon) or garlic bread, and baked beans.  Serve with a variety of hot sauces. It can also be served on Kaiser rolls or hamburger buns as a sandwhich. 

What to do with the turkey skin?  Just eat it.  It will come out of the oven crisp, spicy and wonderul, but it won't be so appetizing for long.  So, after you scrape off the garlic for the sauce, eat as many skins as you want while they are still warm and crisp, and share the rest with people who you like if they are around.

Israeli omelet

I am not sure if this is an "authentic" recipe for an Israeli omelet or even if it is a recipe at all.  It is more a series of choices and  is just how we make what we call Israeli omelets.  My son asserts that it is nothing like the omelets that he ate in Israel, but no matter.   It is related to a variety of Middle Eastern omelets and pancakes, but I think that this is by far the simplest and the best.  It leaves out the flour and other vegetables that sometimes find their way in, and is better as a result.  It is similar to an Italian frittata or Spanish tortilla, but thinner, crisper, and altogether more fun and makes a super-quick light dinner.  It is great served with pita bread, chopped Israeli salad,   and either a tahini or yogurt sauce-- recipes for both follow.  I have given directions to serve two, but you can easily halve or double it as needed. 

Israeli omelet

Scramble some eggs, or a combination of eggs and whites.  Mix in a handful of washed chopped flat-leaf parsley and a few chopped scallions, the whites and some of the greens. Season with salt and pepper.  Spray a non-stick skillet with some olive oil spray and heat on high.  Add a little olive oil if you want.  (The more oil you use, the crisper but more fattening the omelet.)  Make either many small pancakes (use a 6 inch skillet for this), with a scant ladleful of egg mixture for each, or one large one in a 10-12 inch skillet.  Cook about 3-5 minutes until the bottom is set and the edges a bit crisp.  Flip the small omelets, or put the large one under the broiler until the top is set and a bit brown.  Serve either whole or cut into wedges, hot, warm, or room temperature, with warm pita, chopped salad, and yogurt or tahini sauce. 

What about quantities?:  They are really very approximate, but for two people, two eggs and two whites, or three eggs will do it.  About 1/2 cup chopped parsley and 3 scallions.

Yogurt sauce:  Basically, any plain yogurt that you like will do it here.  If you want it a little more interesting, smash a clove of garlic with the side of a broad knife and peel.  Sprinkle with coarse salt and puree the garlic by working it with the side of the knife and the edge as well.  Put it in a bowl and stir in 1/2 cup to 1 cup of yogurt.  Add more salt if needed, and if you feel like it, some ground dried spearmint and either Aleppo or cayenne pepper (a 1/2 teaspoon of the former, a small pinch of the latter).

Tahini sauce:  Puree the garlic as above.  Put in a bowl and add 1 tablespoon tahini and the juice of 1/2 lemon.  Stir and drizzle in a little water.  The ingredients will seize up.  Slowly drizzle in between 1/2 cup and a cup of water, stirring all the while with a fork..  The tahini will thin out to a smooth sauce.  Stop adding water when it is the texture you want, which should be somewhere between a bechamel and heavy cream