Arab Delights with Real Beets

 [photo: Clifford A. Wright]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who discovered at some point in their lives that a real roasted red beet root is a far cry from anything popped from a can.  In fact, as far as I'm concerned they are two separate foods. 

A favorite food of mine is an Arab dish of red beets popular in Lebanon and Palestine called Shamandar bi’l-Laban in Arabic.

Red Beets with Yogurt

When I first encountered this Lebanese preparation, called shamandar bi’l-laban, I was quite taken with the appetizing color.  But upon tasting it I couldn’t believe how good it was--how natural beets, yogurt, and mint seemed even though I’m not sure it would have occurred to me.  This dish can also be made with silq, that is, “white beets” more commonly known as chard.

2 pounds beets, with their leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 large garlic cloves, pounded in a mortar with 1/2 teaspoon salt until mushy

2 heaping tablespoons strained yogurt (called labna or lubny) (see Note below)

1 1/2 cups whole plain yogurt

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint leaves

1. Steam or boil the beet leaves over high heat until wilted, about 10 minutes.  Remove and drain.  Steam the roots until easily pierced by a skewer, about 30 minutes.  Drain and let cool.  Cut the leaves into strips and arrange by spreading them on a serving plate.  Peel the beets and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices.  Arrange the beetroot slices on top of the leaves.  Season with salt and pepper.

2. Stir the garlic paste and labna into the yogurt and beat for 1 minute with a fork.  Spread the yogurt over the beets and garnish the top with the mint.

Makes 6 serving 

Note:  Strained yogurt (labna or lubny) is sold in Middle Eastern markets and better supermarkets such as Whole Foods.  You can make it at home easily enough: place a good quality whole plain yogurt in a cheesecloth-lined strainer and let rest over a deep bowl to drain overnight.  The resulting yogurt in the strainer is called labna.

Fava Beans with Mediterranean Jews

Anyone steeped in Mediterranean culinary cultures, especially that of Sephardic Jews in the Eastern
Mediterranean, will note, for example, around the time of Passover, the complete unfamiliarity of this food with the food of Eastern Europe whence most of the Jews in Western Europe and North America hail.  May and June is a time for fresh fava beans and among Sephardic Jews “fava beans are one of the foods the Jews hankered for during their Exodus from Egypt,"Claudia Roden, author of The Book of Jewish Food: an Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, who Roden grew up in Egypt, tells us.

[photo: Clifford A. Wright]


Among Greek Jews a favorite dish this time of year is simply called koukia, fava beans.

Koukia

Fava Beans with Dill

In the Ladino language spoken by the Jews of Greece in the seventeenth century, fava beans were called avas while today in Greece they are called koukia.  This is a delightful springtime dish that can also be served as a meze at room temperature.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter or extra-virgin olive oil

1 pound double-peeled fava beans (see Note)

5 small spring onions, white and light green parts, chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

5 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

Juice of 2 lemons

1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat, then cook, stirring, the fava beans, springs onions, salt, and pepper for 5 minutes.  Add water to cover the beans, about 3/4 cup, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the dill and lemon juice and stir then simmer until soft, about another 10 minutes.  Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.

Makes 4 servings

Note: Double-peeled means the fava beans are taken out of their pods (first peel) and then skinned of their tough light green skin (second peel) that surrounds the bean.

Making Pasta

My electric Imperia pasta roller and cutter just broke after 25 years of superlative service.  It had the decency not to break until I finished cutting my very last sheet of tajarill, a short 3-inch long fettuccine used in the province of Teramo in Abruzzo made of semolina and whole wheat flour.  I'm going to replace it with the pasta attachments KitchenAid sells for their stand mixers.

I've been making pasta a lot lately, partly because I'm writing a big book that requires everything to be homemade and partly because it just isn't that hard and it's head and shoulders above store bought, noticeably so.  My favorite pasta I cut by hand, the pappardelle which I love to make with a rich duck sauce. 

It's easy as I said.  Pour 3 cups of semolina flour on a work surface and make a well in the middle, like a volcanic crater.  Pour in 1 cup water, a teaspoon of salt and 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Using your index finger stir and incorporate the flour on the walls of the crater and once it is absorbed form the dough into a ball and knead for 8 minutes, then let rest 1 hour.  Roll it out and use a pasta cutter roller or cut by hand.  It's up to you.  Lay the pasta on a table covered with a sheet, or in a 11 x 13 inch baking sheet sprinkled with flour so the pasta doesn't stick hopelessly together and let dry 4 hours to 2 days.

If you need more hand holding than that you'll find my detailed instructions here.

[photo: Clifford A. Wright

Octopus Pie from Sète

The fishing of octopus has always been a secondary activity on the Golfe du Lion where Sète is a small but important port.  We know that octopus was caught on this coast and shipped to Toulouse in the fourteenth century.  There are a few extant octopus recipes from the Middle Ages, and one I’m familiar with is an octopus stuffed with mint, parsley, and other herbs found in the anonymous fourteenth-century Catalan cookbook Libre de sent soví.

            This recipe from Sète called Tielle de Poulpe Sètoise I first tasted in Cap d’Agde, a small, rather pleasant seaside resort in the Hérault department of the Languedoc.  Today it is notable as the site of the Quartier Naturisme, a nudist city of about 10,000 people. This delicious tielle, made in an earthenware pan about five inches in diameter of the same name, is a spicy octopus ragoût clothed in a sweet wine-flavored pastry dough.  The wine-colored crust glistens with a golden aura because of an egg yolk-and-tomato paste glaze.   Down the road from Sète, in Bouzigues, a similar preparation is made with mussels and is called chausson de moule.

2 to 2 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3 ½ ounces pork lard

¼ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup sweet red wine

1 ½ pounds octopus, cleaned

2 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra as needed

1 medium onion, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, cut in half, seeds squeezed out, and grated against the largest holes of a standing grater down to the peel

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 bay leaf

Pork lard or butter for greasing the tart pan

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1. In a cold, large metal bowl, work 2 cups of the flour, the lard, sugar, and salt together with your fingers or a pastry cutter until it is pebbly and well-blended.  Alternatively, pulse in a food processor and then transfer to a cold metal bowl.  Add the wine and knead until you have supple dough, adding more flour if the dough is sticking.  Form the dough into a ball and wrap in waxed paper and leave in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

2. Put the octopus in a large pot of boiling salted water with the vinegar and boil until tender, about 45 minutes.  Drain, rinse with cold water and peel as much of the skin off the octopus as you can while it is still hot.  Chop the octopus into smaller than bite-size pieces.

3. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat, then cook the onion , garlic, and octopus until the onion is soft, about 8 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add the tomatoes and season the sauce with salt, black pepper, cayenne, thyme, and bay leaf.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and let the sauce simmer until the water is evaporated, about 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours, stirring occasionally.

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

5. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll out thin.  Cut out sixteen 5-inch disks.  Lightly grease eight 4-inch tart pans with lard or butter and cover each with a disk of dough.  Prick the dough all over with a toothpick.  Spread several tablespoons of the tomato-and-octopus stuffing over it.  Cover with the remaining disks and pinch down the edges so they meet the bottom disk.  Pinch off any excess dough.  Prick the top with a toothpick.  Whisk together 2 or 3 drops of olive oil with the egg yolk and tomato paste and brush on the top crust.

6. Bake until a glistening golden, about 30 minutes.  Remove the tarts from their pan, arrange on a serving platter, and serve.

Makes 8 servings

Pirates of the Mediterranean

In the Pelion region of Greece, fishermen would give up their gardens and hunting and move their families to the streets of the local harbor for the fishing season.  In Crete, men routinely joined Turkish ships even a century before Crete fell into Turkish hands.  Turkish recruiters would also find Greek sailors in the taverns of Pera on Cyprus.  There were many small-time Greek pirates in the islands of the Aegean and along the coasts of the Adriatic, in search of small-time victims and whatever food could be stolen.  Although these fishermen-pirates could take from the sea, pirate rations were usually a sack of flour, some biscuits, a skin of oil, honey, a few bunches of garlic and onions, and a little salt.  These rations would last a month, or until the next raid or port.

            Greek fishermen were truly sailors who found a home all over the Mediterranean.  Greek sailors could easily be found manning a Spanish, Turkish, or pirate galley. The infamous brothers, the Barbarossas, were Greek or Turkish sailors from Lesbos who converted to Islam and settled in Djerba, becoming pirates who terrorized the western Mediterranean.  By 1518, they ruled Algiers until the last brother’s death in 1546.

When you throw that just-caught fish onto the grill, wrapped in grape leaves, you can think of how rich that Mediterranean is with its magnificent cuisines and equally fantastic history.  Try the recipe for grilled fish wrapped in grape leaves.

Christmas Day 1189

Of the famous Christmas dinners, I must comment on that of Christmas day 1189 when Richard the Lion-hearted gave a sumptuous banquet at Castello Mategrifon in Messina in Sicily.  The name of the castle means “curb on the Greeks.”  He invited the King of France and the Sicilian notables.  A few days later he had an interesting interview with the aged Abbot of Corazzo, Joachim, founder of the Order of Fiore.  The venerable saint expounded to him the meaning of the Apocalypse.  The seven heads of the Dragon were Herod, Nero, Constantius, Muhammad, Melsenuth (by whom he probably meant Abdul Mueim, founder of the Almohad sect), Saladin, and finally the Antichrist himself, who, he declared, had already been born 15 years ago in Rome and would sit on the papal throne.  Richard’s flippant reply, that in that case the Antichrist was probably the actual Pope, Clement III, whom he personally disliked.  This splendiferous feast was described by Ambroise (flourished c. 1190) a Norman poet and chronicler of the Third Crusade, author of a work called L’Estoire de la guerre sainte, which describes in rhyming French verse the adventures of Richard Coeur de Lion as a Crusader.  As proof of its splendor Ambroise, says that every dish was of gold or silver, and that there was not a dirty tablecloth in the hall, providing us some insight into hygiene in that period of time when it was notable that the tablecloths are clean.

A Side Dish for Thanksgiving

 [Photo: Clifford A. Wright]
Thanksgiving is a big joyous occasion in our house and even more so now that the kids are grown and actually do the cooking or a lot of it anyway.  We have a set menu and recipes printed out in a looseleaf folder that we use every year.  The menu is heavily weighted towards New England mostly because we lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 14 years and the kids were raised there.  We like everything traditional and the food is fantastic.  The turkey is moist and tender and slices like butter.  We have gravy made with homemade turkey stock and a little cognac.  Our stuffing is typical New England bread stuffing, with homemade bread, sausage, chestnuts
and herbs.  We add dishes to the repertoire but never take away.  For example, for some years we made pumpkin puree but then switched over for about a decade making pumpkin flapjacks.  Brussels sprouts are traditional on the New England Thanksgiving table and finally I came up with a winning Brussels sprouts dish that people love.  Hash of Brussels Sprouts with Maple-cured Bacon and Hazelnuts is a winner.  You start by pan-searing the split Brussels sprouts in a large cast-iron pan until golden brown.  Remove them and cook the bacon until crispy, then everything is chopped up like a hash together with the hazelnuts and there you have a wonderful side dish.  I'm sure you've never seen people take seconds of Brussels sprouts but they do with this one.

Clifford Teaching at Central Market in Texas

I will be teaching at CENTRAL MARKET in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Ft. Worth, and Southlake from October 18 to 23.  Join me for classes on cooking with cheese, CHEESE: THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT.  The dishes I will demonstrate are some old time favorites and some new delights.  Learn how to make French Onion Soup au Gratin, Mexican Three Cheese Soup with Roasted Poblanos, Cheesy Ham Poof, Bacon Noodle Casserole, Palak Paneer, and Tomato Tart with Figs, Fontina, and Goat Cheese.

These will be fun and delicious evenings. Come join me and sign up now at Central Market Cooking School in the city nearest you.

Tomato Tart with Figs, Fontina, and Goat Cheese

Sardines

One of the typical seafoods of the coastal Mediterranean are sardines.  Usually they are either deep-fried or they're grilled.  I love them both ways.  In the U.S. sardines are mostly considered bait and one rarely finds them in fish stores.  Sardines are abundant off the coast I live near in southern California, but they sure aren't abundant in the stores.  I think I know the reason they're not popular: most southern Californians trace their heritage to the Midwest and fish cookery was never big--in fact  non-existent--in their families that came from Oklahoma, Missouri, or Michigan.  They passed on to their children and their grandchildren their disinterest in fish.  However, you can't ignore fish when you're on a big ocean, so when they did eat fish they ate fish that didn't look like fish, namely, fish fillets or unrecognizable "white" fish.  So what about those sardines?  Goodness, you could see their eyes and they had bones!

Man, what they're missing.  Of course, I miss the easy access to them.  My local Whole Foods supermarket sells local sardines for $3.99 a pound.  That's great.  Down the street is the fancy-shmancy Santa Monica Seafood selling their sardines (and they are the ONLY 2 places that sell them in all of the West side of Los Angeles, population 1 million I would imagine) for $15 a pound.  Yikes.  I told them I could get then down the street for $3.99.  They said "yeah, but these are from France."  Only in a stark raving mad country like ours would someone want to pay for a first class seat on a plane for a little fish.

So you've got your sardines.  Gut them, ripping out all the viscera including that in the head too.  Deep-fry them in plenty of olive oil for 2 to 3 minutes.  And then lay them atop of some linguine cooked with olive oil, garlic, parsley, and a dusting of cayenne.  Mighty nice.

[photo: linguine with fried sardines, Clifford A. Wright]

A Week of Great Food

When my friend Boyd visited this week from Baltimore it become a week of great food.  No recipe-testing this week from this cookbook author.  The kids came over ever day and we feasted.  On Tuesday we started with as authentic an ossobuco all Milanese and risotto alla Milanese as you can get.  I made the veal stock for the risotto the day before and I used my ultra-low simmer setting on my stove so it simmered, barely, for about 8 hours.  Wednesday we had a mixed grill of veal sweetbreads, lamb kidney (oh man, those were good), skirt steak, and homemade Italian sausage that I had frozen about a month ago.  Along with it we had frittedda, that Sicilian dish of artichokes, peas, fava, and scallions that I made in June and my favorite Sicilian eggplant dish, mulinciana alla schebbeci, a kind of eggplant seviche, but much more.  Thursday turned into Mexican night and my girlfriend Michelle and son Seri made a 5-course dinner straight from Rick Bayless's Authentic Mexican cookbook.  We had queso fundido, chipotle chile sauce  for our tacos with chorizo and potatoes and tacos al carbon, plus some guacamole and frijoles charros.  On Friday was a break, but Saturday we had our annual lobsterfest, that wonderfully messy affair on the roof deck, juice squirting everywhere and shells a-flying.  We got 10 two-pound lobsters for $5.95 a pound, can you believe it?  Sunday was oysterfest, 100 Blue Point oysters from Long Island that I had my man fly in for our enjoyment.  We bake 24 wrapped in prosciutto and sauced with a balsamic reduction and the rest we ate raw.  Man what a week.  Lotta beer too.

[photo credits: ossobuco, Clifford A. Wright; lobster: Dailymail.com.uk]

The Turk and the Dragon

Facade, Basilica di Santa Croce, Lecce. Photo: Clifford A. Wright

Wherever you look in the Mediterranean lies an untold or unknown story for Americans not well versed in history. The Mediterranean is so rich in history it’s dizzying and sometimes one will feel overwhelmed especially if you go unprepared. The more you know the more you get out of a trip to the Mediterranean. Here’s one little example found in the unique Baroque style of the Basilica di Santa Croce in Lecce in Italy’s Salento Peninsula. The principals responsible for the structure were Gabriele Riccardi who began work in 1549 and Francesco Antonio Zimbalo, Cesare Penna, and Giuseppe Zimbalo who continued adding layer upon layer for the next 100 years. What you see today is the decorative symbolism creating an allegorical feast that can be digested only if you know the story.

This detailed photo of the exterior shows one of the Turkish prisoners from Battle of Lepanto (1571), one of the most important and significant battles in history. The dragon was the symbol of the Boncompagni, family of Pope Gregory XVI. Behind these stone workings lies a culture that appreciated the Baroque, yet the food of the town is not Baroque. It’s simple food based to a large extent on homemade dried pasta, even to this day, and simple vegetables such as chicory, fava beans, and other legumes. However, an appreciation of the food of Lecce, or Apulia for that matter, will be enriched by understanding the economic and cultural background of the people of the Salento Peninsula. This can be analogous to how much you would want to know about the Turk and the dragon on the façade off Santa Croce and what led men to build it.

Surprising Soups

When I wrote THE BEST SOUPS IN THE WORLD the hardest part was cutting down the nearly 2,000 soups I wanted to include to the 250 that actually made it into the book. So, when I'm asked what's my favorite soup it's all 250. But I keep thinking of more soups I wish I had included. On the other hand some surprising soups have found their way into the book such as Alexander Dumas' Shrimp and Tomato Soup. You'll find it in THE BEST SOUPS IN THE WORLD.

 [Photo: Clifford A. Wright]