Knock, Knock

Knock, knock...









is there anyone still there?



I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't many of you dear readers left, seeing as how abandoning a blog for over four months is poor form. Very poor indeed. I will not bore you with excuses, about months of traveling and poor internet connections and the like; I will only say thank to those who sent me kind messages asking where I had disappeared to, wondering if I was ever coming back.

And to the three readers I have left (hi Kathy!), hello. How are you? It's good to be back.



We did indeed do a lot of traveling, eating tiny chicken dumplings stuffed with pistachios and chicken jus, cream-filled baklava at Ramadan, and enough felafel, schwarma, and hummus to feed an army. The highlight culinarily was Istanbul, the marvelous walkable city, which we visited at the height of hamsi season, hamsi being the gorgeous fresh anchovies from the Black Sea. We had lightly fried hamsi and hamsi pilaf and hamsi stew. We had fantastic caramelized quinces and delicious Turkish wine and the best roast chicken I've ever had (roasted in a salt crust and set aflame at the table). We have two recommendations for the next time you're in Istanbul: buy the Istanbul Eats book or app and make all your eating decisions based on it, and be sure to stay in Beyoglu.



I gave a lot of thought as to whether I wanted to continue this blog after such a long absence. Perhaps, I thought, I had moved into a new phase, lost momentum, I thought that all the reasons I started this blog for were no longer resonant with me. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this blog has always been just for me. A place to record things that I enjoy eating, it's as simple as that.



It should be clear to any reader that I don't write this blog for fame or fortune, I don't post often enough and I don't take advertising or sponsors. So this space is really just a space for me, a space for recipes and reflections and thoughts, and anyone who wants to come along for the ride is welcome.

We are moving abroad in the spring and so I hope to keep posting, chronicling the recipes we like , the new foods we try, and our adventures in the kitchen and out. Maybe you'd like to come along.

Eggplants Stuffed with Cheese and Walnuts

(We are currently traveling, and apparently in a country that randomly blocks blogging sites. It took me awhile, but I eventually figured out why I couldn't access anything. I've got a work around for the time being, here's hoping it continues to work. Cheers to free speech everyone!)

I couldn't resist buying these eggplants the other day, they were so firm and slender and fresh looking. But then I came home and got busy, and realized that most of the things I'd do with them- making stuffed eggplants with rice and meat, or makdous, or fettat makdous, were all pretty labor intensive, and I was quite a bit lazy.



So instead, inspired by the most popular of Lebanese bloggers, I made this simplified version. First, you fry the eggplants lightly in olive oil until their outsides are well seared. Then you saute a diced onion in the same pan. While the onion is softening you slit the eggplants and stuff them with a mixture of seasoned goat cheese and walnuts. You add tomatoes to the pan, making a simple tomato sauce, and then you nestle the eggplants in the pan, cover and cook until done.

It sounds like it has quite a few steps, but really all you need is one cutting board, one bowl, and one pan to do this whole thing. Plus it's a one dish meal, some rice or bread and you're good to go.


Eggplants Stuffed with Cheese and Walnuts

6-12 small slim eggplants, peeled in stripes
6 oz goat cheese
1/2 cup walnut pieces
1 pinch each cumin and cinnamon
1 small onion, diced
3 cups chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned)
1 small garlic clove, sliced
salt, black pepper, olive oil

1.Mix together the goat cheese, walnuts, cumin, cinnamon, and black pepper in a bowl.
2. In a large wide sauce pan, heat a generous amount of olive oil (around 1/2 to 1 cup). Saute the eggplants until browned on all sides - they will not be cooked all the way through. Remove the eggplants to paper towels.
3. Add the onion to the pan with the remaining oil and saute until softened and translucent. Add the tomatoes and sliced garlic to the pan and season with salt. Bring tomatoes to a simmer.
4. Meanwhile, cut a slit lengthwise down each eggplant. Stuff each eggplant with the goat cheese mixture.
5. When the tomatoes are no longer watery, nestle the eggplants in the tomato mixture, with the slit facing up so the stuffing does not spill out. Cover the pan and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes. Check on the pan occasionally to make sure the tomato sauce does not become too dry. The dish is done when the eggplants are tender all the way through. Season again with salt and pepper.

Corn, Poblano, and Black Eyed Pea Sauté

It seems that, like the rest of the Middle East, the blog has taken a little bit of a Ramadan break. Perhaps I've gotten a case of what people call "Ramadan brain," a general blurriness that comes not from lack of food, but from the complete lack of sleep people endure during Ramadan. Thanks to everyone for all the comments and questions in my absence, I hope you all had plenty of time to dig into some frozen yogurt. Here's a few things that have caught my eye over the past few weeks:

--Overnight cooking star Ghalia Mahmoud in Egypt. (Watch a full episode here, if you're like me Egyptian Arabic always takes some getting used to :)

--The best kunafe for Ramadan, or anytime.

--Did you say challapeno?

--Anissa gives an awesome version of hummus (with pomegranate and red pepper)

I was making a bunch of these summer sautés this past month. They are almost always based on sweet summer corn sliced off the cob and sauteed with onion and beans and whatever else strikes my fancy. One week it's onion, corn, baby lima beans, cherry tomatoes, and chives. Another week it's black beans instead of limas and some very finely chopped turnips. Basically, it's whatever you think looks good at the market.

Corn, Poblano, and Black Eyed Pea Sauté
The staples here are onion, corn, and some sort of legume, other than that you can substitute vegetables as desired. Make sure to cut your vegetables into relatively similar size pieces so that they cook evenly.

1 small onion, finely diced
1 large poblano pepper
1 cup cooked black eyed peas
1 cup very finely sliced and diced carrots
3 ears of sweet white corn, corn cut from the cob
salt to taste
pinch of Aleppo pepper or black pepper
squeeze of lime juice, optional

1. Roast poblano pepper over gas flame or grill until blackened on all sides. Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, let steam 10-15 minutes. Scrape blackened skin off pepper, remove the core of the pepper and dice the flesh. Reserve some of the poblano seeds if you want your saute to be spicy.
2. Heat a good glug of olive oil in a wide skilled. Add diced onion and a bit of salt and cook over medium heat until very soft and starting to caramelize, 15 minutes.
2. Add in the carrots and poblano and allow to cook until carrots are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the corn and black eyed peas, season with salt and pepper and cook until the corn is tender, about 3 minutes.
3. Taste for seasoning, adjust salt/pepper/add lime, serve warm.

Frozen Yogurt with Sour Cherry Compote

The title of this post should really be, "the easiest thing you will make all summer." Because it is. I have a thing for frozen yogurt, I always have. It's cold, it's tangy, it's light, and it satisfies my continual obsession with ice cream. The proliferation of frozen yogurt places in the U.S. (Sweetgreen, Yogenfruz, Pinkberry, etc) is great in my book because the frozen yogurt is tart and tangy and not overly sweet. There is one such place between my house and my yoga studio, and it taunts me every time I walk past, trudging home sweaty and tired. I have a rule limiting myself to one visit per week.

A few weeks ago I made the vanilla ice cream from David Leibovitz's ice cream book. (PS- For ice cream makers, this is the best ice cream recipe, and it even stays perfectly in the fridge for weeks without getting icy or anything, virtually unheard of in the land of homemade ice cream). Anyway, as I'm flipping though the book I alight (alighted? alot? ugh, you know what I mean) upon a recipe for tangy frozen yogurt. The recipe said stir together yogurt and sugar, process though ice cream machine.



With some amount of skepticism as to the simplicity of this endeavor, I whipped up a batch. The unfrozen mixture tasted exactly as delicious as I'd hoped it would. Surely, I thought, it couldn't be this easy? But it was, delicious, homemade frozen yogurt in literally a matter of minutes. My only qualm is that it does get rock hard and icy in the freezer after a few days, which is good news for my local frozen yogurt shop, because I'll still be keeping them in business.

P.S. Ramadan Kareem to all those observing!




Frozen Yogurt
It's optional if you want to add a splash of vanilla extract or other flavoring (Cointreau, orange flower water, almond extract, etc). I used good quality low-fat local yogurt for this. You can make a richer version by using thick Greek yogurt, but really whatever kind of yogurt you'd like, so long as it's plain, will work.

3 cups plain yogurt, cold
3/4 cup sugar

1. Stir together yogurt and sugar. Process through an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Transfer to the freezer to harden for about 1 hour. Best served fresh.

Sour Cherry Compote
1 1/2 cups pitted sour cherries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

1. Combine in a saucepan. Boil until mixture is thick and syrupy and cherries have collapsed. Set aside to cool.

Adana Kebab

I was thinking I wanted to get a good summer grilling recipe up here, but the ones that came to mind--my favorite Aleppo-style kebabs with the spicy tomato sauce, and the kebabs with the sour cherries, well I've already told you about them. And then I thought, of course, Adana kebabs!

Now, there are all kinds of kebabs named for different regions of Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey - Urfa kebabs, Sulimaniya kebabs, Iskander kebabs, and I admit I've always been a bit fuzzy about what all these regional distinctions specify. But Adana kebabs, named for the Southern Turkish city in the region of Anatolia, are the most popular of all and you're likely to find them at many Middle Eastern places in the U.S. and Europe. My friend Adam likes to tell a joke about one time he ordered Adana kebabs in a restaurant, and the older Turkish waiter said, "you know in Adana, we just call it 'kebab.' " This joke only works when told with a thick Turkish accent.

Adana kebabs are made of ground meat (lamb or beef) heavily seasoned with spicy chili. The meat is molded around a thick flat skewer, and Adana kebab is almost always served over flat bread with grilled spicy peppers and tomatoes on top or alongside of the meat. Remember the pide bread we talked about a few weeks ago? Here's where you want to use it.

The number one rule to making Adana kebab is season, season, season, and then... season some more. Ground meat can take a lot of seasoning (the same applies when making burgers, and if you think about it, this is really like a burger on a stick). And you want these kebabs to be spicy. You want rich fatty ground meat, something to make the grill flare up and give the meat a nice char. Other than that it's pretty simple- grilled ground meat, grilled vegetables, bread soaked with the meat juices. An easy summer meal.



Adana Kebab
It is important that you do not use lean meat- you may have to ask your butcher to grind a fattier cut for you, or you can add in fat (like chilled butter or preserved lamb fat). Whatever types of dried or fresh chilis you use, it is only important that they are spicy!

1 1/2 lbs ground lamb or beef, preferably 80% lean
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper OR 4 small Thai bird chilis, ground to a paste
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
salt to taste

plum tomatoes, peppers, for grilling
pide bread, chopped parsley, and sumac, for serving

1. Knead together the meat with the seasonings until well combined and sticky. Chill one hour. Form the mixture around kebab sticks (preferably flat ones) making one long oblong kebab, or several smaller oblong oval shapes.
2. Prepare your grill. Thread the plum tomatoes and peppers on skewers for grilling if using.
3. Grill the kebabs over the flame. Place the tomatoes and peppers just to the side of the kebabs, slightly off the direct flame. Beware, the kebabs will flare up, that is desired. Grill until nicely browned on both sides.
4. Immediately place kebabs over pide bread. Place grilled vegetables on the side. Garnish with chopped parsley and sumac. Serve.

What To Do with Summer

Well, first you eat it. All the summer peaches and corn on the cob and tomatoes and the last of the lettuce in your garden that is wilting in the heat, you eat all that you can. And then when you're done with that, when you've abundantly bought too many things at the market, when your table groans with berries about to go bad, then you preserve it.

You look up every Christine Ferber strawberry jam recipe (here, here) and decide they are all too complicated and you don't have two days to spend making jam, and instead you improvise your own version. Skimming, skimming, skimming the foam off the jam as it cooks ever so slowly. Then canning and preserving for winter.



You shuck fava beans and freeze them, you make tomato sauce out of those pricey beautiful huge heirloom tomatoes, peeling them, seeding them, chopping, using an old Marcella Hazan recipe. And in the end you discover it tastes like .... tomato sauce.



Sour cherries are available about 4% of the year (yes, I calculated) and so you buy up all you can, and then you spend so long pitting sour cherries and listening to pod casts that you get a neck cramp. Paul would advise you that sour cherry pie is the "the best thing ever," but I also like sour cherries in savory things like rice pilaf and kebabs.



And speaking of preserving, this little piece via the New Yorker just lit up my day. The title alone is great: Suicide in the Garden, Murder in the Kitchen.

It's funny how some of the things I've been making are so vibrantly flavored that they almost taste fake--the strawberries so intense they almost taste like imitation flavoring, tomatoes so naturally sweet without any added sugar. Has anyone else noticed this? Back soon with a recipe....

Turkish Pide Bread

Pide bread is the Turkish version of flatbread. It is puffier and richer than other flatbreads in the region, and totally delicious. Traditionally shaped in a long flat oval, it can also serve as a bed for toppings, such as roast eggplant or tomato and cheese, the Turkish version of pizza. Pide bread can also serve as a vehicle for kebabs, placing the long kebab over the long pide bread and topping the whole thing with grilled tomatoes and peppers and chopped parsley.



The plain pide bread is either roughly dimpled with your fingers or scored with a knife in a cross hatch design. My pide shaping skills still need some work. Like most flatbreads, these are best the first day they are made, but they keep well and can refresh nicely when reheated in the oven or toaster.



Pide Bread
Adapted from Annisa Helou.

2 1/4 teaspoon yeast (1 package)
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
warm water

optional: egg wash, sesame seeds

1. Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, sugar, salt, and oil. Gradually add 2/3 cup warm water to form a dough. Knead the dough to form a smooth elastic ball of dough, about 10 minutes.
2. Rinse out the bowl, oil it, and cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and allow the dough to rise in a warm place for 1 hour. Punch down the dough and let rise another 45 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 425 F. Grease a baking sheet, divide the dough into long oval loaves (you can make one very long loaf or several smaller ones). Place on the baking sheet, cover with a damp towel until the dough is slightly puffed, 10 minutes. Dimple the dough with your fingers. If desired, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake 20 minutes for smaller loaves, 30 minutes for one large loaf, or until golden and firm. Eat fresh.