Tiny Potatoes, Spicy Salad

The number of vendors has increased over the past few months in Harare – shop-side vendors dangling plastic sleeves of tomatoes, potatoes, onions and okra from sticks like veggie mobiles; street-side vendors displaying their greens, mangoes, avocadoes and maputi (popped maize) on upturned boxes; and, my favorite, the men who defy death itself, standing smack dab in the middle of busy roads (even when the lights aren’t working) hawking the most delicate of commodities – crates of eggs.

Given Zimbabwe’s ever-more-astronomical currency denominations, bargaining for these items sounds absolutely ridiculous. “Tomatoes, imari?” I ask. “Five million.” “And the potatoes?” “Seven point five.” "I’ll give you 10 million for both." “11.” Sold. And so I count out a small pile of bills – one 5 million note and 30 200,000s.

I am picky about my produce. The tomatoes can’t be too ripe or too firm; the mangoes and avocados must be string-less. And the potatoes I seek out from venders are the tiny, spherical ones that you barely need to chop. A quick slice or two and they become bite-size.

These potatoes are ideal for tourchi batata, a spicy potato salad from Tunisia that can be served hot, cold or anywhere in between. This salad is quick to prepare and easy to double – after making it the first time and seeing my husband gobble it up I have vowed never to make a single recipe again. You could peel the potatoes, but I like to keep them on. I served tourchi batata last week as a tapas-like dish with afternoon drinks – beer cuts the spice best. I’ll let my friends make their own comments, but I think the salad was a hit.

Tunisian Potato Salad (Tourchi Batata)
Adapted from Sephardic Cooking: 600 Recipes Created in Exotic Sephardic Kitchens from Morocco to India
Serves 4 as a side dish

1 pound / 450 grams small boiling potatoes
2 tablespoons / 30 milliliters olive oil
1 teaspoon harissa (more, or less, to taste)
½ teaspoon / 2.5 milliliters salt
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters ground cumin
1 lemon, freshly squeezed

Cook potatoes in boiling water for 15 minutes, or until tender. Cool and cut into cubes (or, with tiny potatoes, just in half). Heat the oil in a skillet, and add the harissa, salt, ground cumin and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and boil for a few seconds. Pour over the potatoes and toss. Let marinate for twenty minutes or so and serve warm, or serve at room temperature, or refrigerate for at least one hour and serve cool.

The Red and Green Gimmick

When my husband and I first moved into our furnished rental house in Harare, we discovered a heart-shaped plaque on the wall that featured two kissing mice and the slogan "mouse-to-mouse resuscitation." We took it down. Immediately. And hid it in the farthest corner of the closet. I am not a fan of the tacky or the twee.

I do, however, take pleasure in the occasional gimmick. Gimmicky is at the seedier end of the tacky-classy spectrum, I’ll admit; although I hope you’ll agree that it doesn’t quite approach the excess of plastic mice attempting to cutely feign a life-saving procedure. Predictably, my gimmicks typically enlist the assistance of food and drink. I’ve dyed cookies all colors of the rainbow to match holiday hues. In college, my roommate and I turned our apartment’s thermometer up to 80 and held a July in Winter party, complete with umbrella-ed margaritas. A year-and-a-half ago, when the Zimbabwean government dropped three zeros from the currency, my husband and I hosted a “zeroes” fiesta featuring zero-shaped food, including bagel pizzas. And, over the past two weeks, I have been obsessed with preparing red and green food. Roasted red pepper soup with a dollop of avocado cream for garnish? Made it. Spinach lasagna? Check. Watermelon and feta salad with mint? Yep. And, for breakfast on Christmas morning, testira (sometimes written tastira) – a Tunisian egg and pepper dish. Red and green peppers, of course.

Although some recipes call for the egg in testira to be poached, the egg is scrambled in the recipe I use from Kitty Morse’s The Vegetarian Table: North Africa. In any case, the egg is really beside the point because what makes this dish a standout are the peppers – roasted until sweet and spiked with harissa (also spelled harisa), a traditional Tunisian condiment of chilies, garlic, spices and olive oil that makes you breathe like a dragon.

Testira is typically served as an accompaniment to fish. My taste buds have a difficult time imagining how this combination works, although I certainly don’t doubt the flavor amalgamation skills of the people who brought us tabil and chakchouka. Fish and testira might be one of those things I’ll just need to try someday in Tunisia. In the meantime (and this could be a very long meantime), I think testira stands up for itself quite well as a breakfast centerpiece.

Hmm….maybe I could have a party where the gimmick is that everyone brings a food combination that they like, but that other people think is strange; or maybe the gimmick could be egg dishes from around the world, or maybe…

Testira
Adapted from The Vegetarian Table: North Africa
Serves 3 as a main dish

2 red bell peppers
2 green bell peppers
1 red or green chili pepper
4 large tomatoes
2 tablespoons / 30 milliliters olive oil
2 teaspoons / 10 milliliters ground coriander
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters harissa (See note below)

Roast the peppers and the tomatoes, using the roasting method you prefer. Here’s what I do: I preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F) and put the vegetables on one tray, with the tomatoes on a piece of aluminum foil with the edges rolled up so that the juices they emit during roasting don’t spread. Place the tray on an oven rack near the top. Turn the peppers every 5-10 minutes. The chili pepper will only take about 20-25 minutes to roast. The tomatoes and peppers will take about 35-40 minutes. The peppers are done when their skins have blackened and separated from their flesh.

Set aside the tomatoes to cool. Place the peppers in a glass or ceramic bowl and cover with a plate. When the peppers are cool enough to handle, peel and seed them, and cut them into 1-inch (2.5-centimeter) pieces. When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel, seed and chop them.

In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the olive oil. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes break down and thicken a bit – about 5-6 minutes. Add the peppers and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10-12 minutes. Stir in the coriander, salt, pepper and harissa. Add the eggs and stir gently until they are cooked. Serve immediately with toast and some extra harissa on the side for those who like spice!

Note: I’ll write about harissa in a future post. In the meantime, in some countries you can find prepared harissa in a jar at the store. These two recipes also look quite good, and are similar to the Madhur Jaffrey recipe that I use. If you don’t have harissa, you can add a teaspoon of chili powder when you add the ground coriander, although it won’t pack the same punch.

P.S. Happy 2008!

Dear Salad

Dear Salad,

It is a sunny Sunday afternoon here in Harare – a day just calling out for a salad – and I decided it was high time I write you a short note of appreciation. After all, I have enjoyed salads my whole life.

I’m not certain which came first – me liking salad or me liking the praise adults showered upon me whenever I ate raw vegetables. In any case, I started eating salad young. Growing up, my mom prepared a salad to accompany almost every dinner meal. To our great fortune, she saw right through the pale, watery leaves of iceberg lettuce and introduced us to romaine and red leaf and Boston lettuce way before the Jones’. We might not have had cable until 1995 or an answering machine until 2000, but we were eating tasty, nutritious salads.

My dad dressed you, salad, with his special vinaigrette. He has tried many times to show us how to accomplish this perfect balance of olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and dried oregano, yet we can never make it quite the same. Whatever dressing remained at the bottom of the bowl was (and still is) carefully absorbed with a slice of Italian bread.

The other three salads I remember my mom serving were tomato salad (only made in August with tomatoes from our garden and, again, with my dad’s vinaigrette), chef’s salad, and ravioli salad – a “keeper” recipe my mom clipped from the newspaper that combines ravioli, fresh tomatoes, shredded zucchini and grated parmesan. I still make this salad today.

College might have expanded my brain, but it did not expand my repertoire of salads, even though I ate daily from the school’s salad bar. Since the cafeteria charged students according to the size of the salad bowl we used, I learned how to maximize the “small” bowl. I selected the sturdiest slices of cucumber and lined them up around the edges of the bowl, effectively adding another inch to the bowl’s height. Salad, I valued you, but I valued my precious “food points” more.

Once I began cooking on my own, I experimented with salads formed around bulgur and tofu, and learned to appreciate egg salad – now I not only like this Africa-inspired version, but also one by Mollie Katzen that mixes hard-boiled eggs with gremolata and ricotta. When my husband and I moved to Australia to study, we quickly adapted to ordering sandwiches “with salad.” As you know, in Oz, “with salad” does not translate to “side salad;” rather, it is the lettuce, tomato, and, oftentimes, beetroot, placed inside the sandwich itself.

Yet, it has really been over the last two years that I’ve discovered how diverse a genre you really are, salad. Since I began experimenting with North Africa cuisine, I’ve learned that by looking to Tunisia, Algeria and Moroccan, I can take any abundant fruit or veg from my fridge, garden or cupboard – carrots, zucchini, beetroot, dried peaches – and transform it into salads, both warm and cold. Now, I understand that anytime I am cutting up a vegetable and adding some sort of dressing – well, salad, there you are. Thank you.

Best wishes,
Carolyn

The salad I’m enjoying at the moment is a traditional grilled vegetable salad from Tunisia called mechouia (also written salata mishwiyya). It contains a cast of characters familiar to those who prepare chakchouka or turlu turlu. I’ve seen recipes that call for blending the vegetables together after they are grilled or crushing them with a mortar and pestle; others, like this one, request a good fine chop. In addition to the topping of hard-boiled egg and feta cheese, some recipes also call for tuna. Olives or capers would be welcome additions, too.

Mechouia (Grilled Vegetable Salad)
Adapted from Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa
Serves 6 as a side salad

2 large red bell peppers
4 firm medium tomatoes
3 medium onions
1 small chili
45 milliliters / 3 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
45 milliliters / 3 tablespoons olive oil
5 milliliters / 1 teaspoon oregano
5 milliliters / 1 teaspoon salt
2.5 milliliters / ½ teaspoon black pepper
2 hard boiled eggs, cut into wedges
40 grams / ¼ cup feta cheese, crumbled

Grill the red peppers, tomatoes, onions and chili (outdoors or on the stovetop), or broil in the oven. Turn the vegetables periodically. Remove the vegetables as they become soft – the chili will grill faster than the onion, for example.

Peel the skins from the peppers and chili and remove as many seeds from the chili as you want; you can keep a few in to add additional heat to the dish. Chop all the vegetables into small pieces.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, salt and pepper. Add the chopped vegetables and mix well. Transfer to a serving platter and scatter the egg and cheese around the top of the salad. Serve warm.

Good, Simple, Filling

Cookbooks are filled with gussied up classics – cheesecakes transformed by lite makeovers, chocolate chip cookies enriched by whole grains, grill-side marinades renewed with pomegranate molasses, macaroni and cheese gourmet-ed with gruyere, and mashed potatoes, anointed by truffle oil, baptized into 2007. When I first made kushary, a sturdy Egyptian dish built around lentils, rice and pasta, I, too, was tempted to play. What if I added some a cinnamon stick to the stewing lentils, or mixed in some roasted garlic? There, in that pan of simmering tomato sauce, couldn’t I toss in a dried chili and some fresh herbs? And wouldn’t using spinach pasta just brighten up the whole dish?

Why, yes, it probably would. But sometimes cheesecake is supposed to be fattening; mashed potatoes need to be, well, just mashed potatoes; and kushary should be left as the simple, stick-to-your-ribs, working-class meal that it is.

Even on the night just before you go grocery shopping, you will be able to make kushary. Pasta, rice, lentils, tomato paste, onions – is this not a concise list of staples? I’ll admit, the current food shortages in Zimbabwe and recent multi-day power outages at my house have created some challenges for a food blogger. (Did I mention I haven’t had a dial tone at my house for a month and, yes, I use a modem?) All the more reason to keep it simple, be happy that your refrigerator is reasonably full (although where oh where can I find real butter?), and remember that food is for sustenance. When it tastes good, even better.

Kushary tastes good. Not phenomenal or awe-inspiring. It is not the type of food you eat slowly because you are pausing every half-second to gush with praise. But it is good. The recipe I use comes from Clifford Wright, who has an excellent site you should explore when you have the time. The whole compilation – pasta on the bottom, rice and lentils in the middle, sauce poured on top, garnished with browned onions – improves the next day.

Rather than rewrite the recipes, here are the links:

Here for the kushary,

And here for dim’a musabika, the thin tomato sauce it must be made with.

I left my onions caramelized instead of crispy, mostly because I find the line between crispy and burnt very hard to master. And, yes, I did use ghee – I found an old container crammed into a dark recess of my fridge. The serving numbers are accurate – it fed my husband and me exactly three meals. Three good, simple, filling meals.

Grown-up Spaghetti-Os

My husband writes music reviews, which means I have the opportunity to hear a lot of good music...and a lot of, well, music that I don’t love. I also get to stare at Mark in awe as he confidently describes albums as “angular artrock” or “Japanese instru-metal.” Angular WHAT? Japanese HOW? It is strange to hear someone you know so well put together phrases that you completely and utterly don’t understand.

Food imagery is rarely as impenetrably obtuse, but the craft of describing food and describing music are not that dissimilar. Both involve allusions and metaphors, evoke your senses, and, in the end, reflect just as much about the describer as the described. Although I usually lack the vocabulary and reference points to express more than a gut-level like or dislike of music, I occasionally try to impress my husband by, for example, telling him that a singer-songwriter sounds like what would happen if Iron & Wine shouted instead of whispered. Could fool you into thinking I know what I am talking about, now couldn’t I?

Mark, in return, shares his insights about food. Like when, after tasting this soup from Morocco, he quickly exclaimed – “It’s like grown-up Spaghetti-Os!” Sweetened by squash, freshened with lemon, and sustained by dainty pasta strands instead of Os – why yes, yes chorba bil matisha does taste a bit like grown-up Spaghetti-Os. Although this easy-to-prepare Kitty Morse recipe may not be as thought-provoking as angular artrock or Japanese instru-metal, it deftly transcends the seeming average-ness of pureed tomatoes and squash through the inspired addition of cilantro, celery leaves and cloves. Like new music from The Old Ceremony, Roman Candle, Sara Bareilles, Bobby Bare Jr., The Be Good Tanyas, and The Crooked Jades, it will join our regular playlist.

Chorba Bil Matisha
Adapted from The Vegetarian Table: North Africa
Serves 4 generously

1 onion
4 whole cloves
6 cups / 1.5 liters vegetable broth
2 pounds / 1.2 kilograms butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into small chunks
4 celery stalks, including leaves, coarsely chopped
5 tomatoes, quartered
12 fresh cilantro (a.k.a. coriander) sprigs
¼ teaspoon / 1.25 milliliters ground turmeric
½ cup / 50 grams angel hair pasta, broken into 2-inch / 5-centimeter pieces
½ cup / 125 milliliters milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Lemon wedges

Stud the onion with the cloves. In a large saucepan, combine the onion, broth, squash, celery, tomatoes, cilantro and turmeric. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook until the vegetables are tender, 30-40 minutes. Take the pot off of the heat and discard the onion with its cloves.

Use an immersion blender to puree the vegetables and broth until smooth. Return to heat and add the pasta. Simmer until the pasta is tender, about 6-8 minutes. Turn off the heat, stir in the milk, and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, with lemon wedges.

One Veggie Star

Snowed under. Swamped. Buried. So describes my work situation at the moment. If you will give me a “Get Out of the Kitchen Free” card, then I will give you the recipe for a very simple Moroccan salad.

Moroccans are masters at concocting salads in which one solitary vegetable is the headlining act. Radishes, green peppers, and tomatoes, for example, can all get the star treatment. The recipe below features zucchini, and is one of the many dishes I learned from the cook who introduced me to Moroccan cuisine. Lemon-tart and garlic-tinged, this salad tastes even better the next day.

Warm Zucchini Salad
Serves 4 as a salad

3¼ cups / 500 grams zucchini (a.k.a. courgette, baby marrow), very thinly sliced
1½ teaspoons / 7.5 milliliters ground cumin
2 teaspoons / 10 milliliters sweet paprika
Pinch of cayenne
¼ teaspoon / 1¼ milliliters salt
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoons / 15 milliliters olive oil
2½ tablespoons / 37.5 milliliters fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons / 30 milliliters vegetable broth (you can use water)
Handful minced fresh parsley, plus more for garnish

Steam the zucchini until it is tender. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, whisk together the ground cumin, paprika, cayenne, salt, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, vegetable broth and parsley. Add the steamed zucchini and place over medium heat. Cook for five minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Note: You can also boil your zucchini with a pinch of salt until tender, and use reserved cooking water in place of the vegetable broth.

Tags: zucchini, salad, Morocco, North Africa, recipe, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

With an Egg on Top

Sometimes you learn a new recipe. And sometimes a recipe teaches you a whole new strategy for composing a meal.

As a fish-a-tarian who rarely cooks fish, my dinners usually fall into one of the following categories: Indian curry; risotto; pasta; veggie or legume-based soup; frittata/quiche; polenta. Until now. Welcome – the vegetable sauté with poached eggs on top.

The inspirational dish was chakchouka, an Algerian/Tunisian creation that, I discovered through a little online searching, was brought by North African immigrants to Israel and is also quite popular there (spelled shakshouka), especially during Passover. Chakchouka is basically eggs poached in a sauté of tomato, onion, green pepper and North African spices. It is so easy to put together – and so warming and flavorful – that you’ll start inventing many other vegetables sautés that could cushion an egg. I’m thinking tomatoes and zucchini with some fresh basil; mushrooms, leeks, parsley and thyme; veggies with Indian spices and a handful of brown lentils; and morshan. In my humble opinion, just like pasta, risotto, or quiche, chakchouka is a brilliant dinner template.

The other reason I love this dish is that I adore poached eggs, but am a failure at poaching eggs myself. (Here is where my husband would say: and you have the audacity to call yourself a food blogger? Yes, I know, I should be able to poach an egg.) I’ve even used those special poaching pans with the ready-made indents, and I still screw things up. Chakchouka is a foolproof way of producing lovely poached eggs, and it even comes with a bonus stew.

The recipe below calls for chickpeas, which are a North Africa ingredient, but are not traditional to chakchouka. To me, the chickpeas are what make this a dinner dish. (Chakchouka is traditionally eaten for breakfast or lunch.) For an added Tunisian touch, and some more heat, stir in a dollop of harissa when you add in the tomatoes.

North African Pepper and Tomato Stew (Chakchouka)
Adapted from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook
Serves 4

2 teaspoons / 10 milliliters olive oil
1 tablespoon paprika
½ large onion, cut in half widthwise and then into fine slivers
1 large green bell pepper, cut into 2-inch/5-centimeter long slivers
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 green chilies, seeded and cut into 2-inch/5-centimeter long slivers
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters ground cumin
2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 15-ounce/425-gram can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
½ cup/125 milliliters vegetable broth or water (more, if needed)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 large eggs

Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the paprika, and cook 10 seconds. Add the onions and cook, stirring often, until they are lightly golden – about 2-3 minutes. Add the bell pepper, garlic, chilies and ground cumin, and cook, stirring often, for 3-5 minutes until the vegetables have softened. Add the tomatoes and chickpeas and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have broken down into a sauce, about 10 minutes. If, as the tomato cooks, the stew is getting too dry, add some vegetable broth (I used ½ cup). Season the stew with salt and pepper to taste.

Make four small indentations in each quadrant of the stew. One at a time, crack each egg and drop it into an indentation, taking care not to break the yolk. Cover the skillet and cook over medium-low heat until the eggs are set, about 5-7 minutes. Transfer one egg with stew to each plate, and serve immediately.

Tags: recipe, chakchouka, eggs, vegetables, Algeria, Tunisia, North Africa, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

Dinner, Now Now

Once upon a time, Mark and I had a friend from Tonga. One day he invited us to his church for a special celebration. He said the festivities started at 11. Mark and I took the train from Brisbane to the suburb where the Tongan church was located, arriving just before the scheduled hour. We spotted our friend sitting in the shade of a tree, eating oranges. He invited us to sit with him, and handed us each an orange. There was no other activity on the church grounds; Mark and I were slightly baffled. But, we were enjoying the shade, the oranges and the company, so we lazily let time pass.

About 45 minutes later, our friend said, “I bet you’re wondering where all the people are and when the service will start.” Why, yes, we said, that question did cross our minds. “Well,” he said, “We are on Tongan time. Which means it doesn’t matter when we start. All that matters is that the service happens.” People began trickling in a few minutes later, and after another half an hour there was a boisterous crowd. The service, indeed, did happen. (And was followed by a feast that involved five whole spit-roasted pigs, but that is another story.)

In Zimbabwe, time is not quite so loosely conceived as in Tonga. However, we are certainly not on German time, or New York time, or even Southern U.S. time. It took me a while to get the hang of what exactly time here means:

Zimbabwean English: U.S. translation

Let’s go now: Let’s go sometime in the next couple of hours.

Let’s go just now: Let’s go sometime in the next hour.

Let’s go now now: Let’s go now.

After a day of meetings that started “just now” and e-mail replies that came, belatedly, “now,” sometimes I want dinner now now. If you find yourself in a similar situation, then you can prepare Chickpeas and Swiss Chard in the Style of the Tunisian Sahel. The recipe comes straight from Paula Wolfert, the doyenne of Moroccan and Tunisian cuisine. I am reprinting it here only so I can provide the metric equivalents – I didn’t change the recipe one bit. It makes for a quick, light nutritious meal, or a vibrant side. I love the different textures, the spicy kick and the fact that you can eat this dish warm or cold. The one question your dinner-mates will ask, of course, is where, oh where is the Tunisian Sahel? “Sahel” means coast or margin in Arabic; in Tunisia, the Sahel refers to the central part of the country’s eastern shoreline.

Time to go eat – now now!

Chickpeas and Swiss Chard in the Style of the Tunisian Sahel (Morshan)
From Mediterranean Cooking
Makes 2 servings (4 as a side)

¾ pound / 340 grams Swiss chard leaves, stemmed, rinsed and torn into large pieces
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled
½ teaspoon / 2.5 milliliters coarse salt
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters ground coriander
1 small dried red chili
30 milliliters / 2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup / 80 grams minced onion
2 teaspoons / 10 milliliters tomato paste
1 cup / 165 grams cooked chickpeas, with ¾ cup / 190 milliliters cooking liquid*
1 lemon, cut in wedges (optional)

Steam, parboil or microwave the chard leaves until tender, about 5 minutes. Set leaves in colander to drain. Squeeze out excess moisture and shred coarsely.

Crush garlic in mortar with salt, coriander and chili until a thick, crumbly paste forms.

Heat olive oil in large skillet and sauté the onion until pale-golden. Add the garlic paste and tomato paste and stir into oil until sizzling. Add chard, cooked chickpeas and cooking liquid and cook, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand until ready to serve. (Contents of skillet should be very moist but not soupy. For a looser texture, stir in more chickpea cooking liquid. Serve warm, at room temperature or cold with lemon wedges.

Note: Broccoli rabe, dandelion leaves, mustard greens, kale or turnip tops may be substituted for Swiss chard. Discard any yellow or damaged leaves and cook like chard. Cooking time will vary.

*Okay, I lied, I realized as I was typing that I didn’t follow this recipe to the letter! I actually used two tins of canned chickpeas, drained, and water instead of the freshly cooked beans and their cooking water. I wanted dinner now now, remember?

Tags: recipe, Tunisia, main dish, side dish, chickpeas, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

I’m Back, with Bread

I have been living outside of the US for more than four years now; during this time, I have visited home on four occasions. Like other gradual transformations (wrinkles on the forehead, extra pounds around the hips), perhaps changes in one’s country are best noticed after prolonged absences. Maybe if I had lived in the U.S. last year, for example, I would have barely noticed the creep, creep, creep with which flavored water asserted itself on the shelves of my grocery store and the menus of my favorite sandwich shops. Perhaps I would have quietly absorbed the fact that water could somehow become healthier than itself through infusions of pomegranate and injections of vitamins.

Instead, I stepped off the plane excited to simply drink water straight from the tap without the tedium of boiling and filtering. Which meant I was dumbstruck by the innocently-posed question: “So, what flavor water would you like?” Um, the watery water flavor?

My first visit home three years ago was marked by a similarly perplexing experience.

I joined the lunchtime line at Bruegger's, very excited about eating my first bagel in more than a year. (However inauthentic you may think Bruegger's bagels are, they are the epitome of bagel-dom after viewing what passes for a bagel in Australia.) There I was, grappling with the deep “Everything? Or whole grain?” question, when I overheard a snippet of conservation. The store manager was commenting to his assistant, “I get asked to make those all the time now.” I followed his gaze until I spotted a bagel, plain, being totally eviscerated. As I stared, the assistant used his plastic-gloved finger to tear the entire inside bread from the bagel crust. He proceeded to layer sandwich fillings onto a bread-less bagel half.

What? A bread-less bagel? What is going on?

And then it hit me, the phenomenon I had missed while I was away: Atkins.

So, today, in honor of “catch-me-dumbstruck” food moments past, present and future, I offer you an extremely bready, completely anti-Atkins, Moroccan bread. Which I recommend you serve with tap water.

Moroccan Flatbread with Yeast (Batbout M’Khamer)
Slightly adapted From World Vegetarian
Makes 5

1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters active dry yeast
½ teaspoon / 2.5 milliliters sugar
1¾ cups / 210 grams unbleached, all-purpose white flour
1½ cups / 300 grams fine semolina flour
1½ teaspoons / 7.5 milliliters salt
Olive oil

Combine the yeast, sugar and 2 tablespoons of warm water in a small bowl. Stir to dissolve completely. Set aside for 5 minutes, or until the yeast begins to bubble.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mound the white flour and the semolina flour into the shape of a small hill. Hollow a crater on the hilltop and put the salt and the yeast mixture into it. Now slowly pour warm water into the crater. You will need about 1 cup of warm water, or slightly more. As you add the water, slowly gather the flour together into a ball. Keep adding the water a little at a time while gathering the dough, until the dough begins to form a soft, smooth ball. Once you can form a ball, begin to knead. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, or until it is smooth and elastic. Form a ball.

Lightly grease a large, flat platter with the olive oil and set it aside. Coat your hands slightly with the oil. Break the dough into 5 equal, smooth balls. Place the balls on the oiled plate a good distance from one another. Cover with a clean dishcloth and set in a warm place for 5 to 10 minutes.

Lightly grease your countertop. Take one ball and, with the flat part of your fingers, flatten it out until it is 1/4-inch / 6-millimeters thick and 6 inches / 15.5 centimeters in diameter. (Note: Mine ended up slightly larger at this thickness.) Follow the same procedure with all of the balls. Cover the flatbreads with a clean dishcloth and set them aside for 1 hour.

Set a large, cast-iron frying pan over medium heat and let it get very hot. Pick up one flatbread and lay it in the center of the frying pan. Cook for 1 minute. Turn the bread over and cook for another minute. Now turn the bread over four more times, cooking each side for just 30 seconds. The bread should have some toasty brown spots on each side. Then stand the bread in the pan as if it were a wheel, and, using an oven mitt, hold one side of the bread with your thumb, and the other side with your middle finger. Slowly rotate the bread, just like a wheel, and lightly cook the edges for 1 minute. Place the flatbread on a dishcloth, and wrap it up. Make all the breads this way, stacking them on top of each other, and covering them each time. The bread will stay warm for about 30 minutes.

This recipe comes from Madhur Jaffrey, and she describes the bread as pita-like. Indeed, Mark and I tore them into two skinny flat pieces and used them to scoop up curry. You could also make a pocket and stuff it with your favorite sandwich filling. If you have leftovers, store them in tinfoil and simply pop them in the toaster oven the next day.

Tags: recipe, bread, Morocco, North Africa, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

After a Pause, A Pudding

Greetings from cold, rainy Boston, Massachusetts. Yep, that’s right, I am away from Zimbabwe for the moment and am visiting family and friends in the U.S. I thought I would have lots of free time during my trip, free time during which I would cook many delectable African dishes that would win the admiration of many wary-eyed family members, and that I would transform into many wonderful blog posts. The reality: few items have been cooked and, until now, no posts have been written. Instead, I have been wooed by shopping malls and feted by friends, spent hours of drop-jaw gawking at the amazing offerings of Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Wilson Farms, and been re-introduced to the joys of surfing with a fast (as opposed to a 32kbs) internet connection. Ah, the many wonders of the (over)developed world.

I have squeezed in a bit of cooking – not the elaborate feasts I had a mind, but a few dishes here and there, including these beans, this stew and beetroot pesto pasta. The biggest admirer of every dish has been my 16-month old nephew, who, I’ve learned, will eat and drink absolutely anything. I have seen him gobble up pickles and clams, bite into a fresh lemon, and take a sip of black coffee – and go back each time for another gobble, bite and sip. He may not be discerning, but he is certainly the most adventurous little eater I have ever seen. (Here seen eating the aforementioned pasta).

Thus, it was not surprising that Little Matthew used two hands as he devoured the apricot pudding I made using a recipe from Colette Rossant’s Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes. This dish had other family fans, too, including my mom, who was seen eating a bowl for breakfast and claimed the pudding’s intense apricot flavor become better every day. This dish is a great springtime dessert because of its sunny yellow color – I wish I had made it for Easter, in fact. The most fun part of this recipe is seeing how the dried apricots, after being soaked overnight, actually plump up until they are almost the size of fresh apricots. I was amazed!

Without further ado, here is apricot pudding, a recipe I hope will tide you over until I return to Zimbabwe in mid-May…or until I somehow sneak away from the many distractions vying for my attention to cook and write another post!

Apricot Pudding
Slightly adapted from Apricots on the Nile
Serves 6 or more

450 grams / 2 cups dried apricots
6 large eggs
90 milliliters / ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
30 milliliters / 2 tablespoons rum
150 grams / ¾ cup sugar

Place the pound dried apricots in a bowl, cover them with warm water, and soak overnight. Drain.

Pre-heat the oven to 180° C / 350° F. Place the apricots, eggs, heavy cream, rum and sugar in a food processor. Process until the apricots are puréed. Butter a 1½ liter / 1½ -quart mold, and pour the apricot purée into the mold. Place the mold in a larger pan filled with hot water. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the point of a knife inserted in the middle of the pudding comes out clean. Cool.

I’m sure this is pudding heresy, but I didn’t unmold the pudding after it cooled; instead, I served scoops straight from the mold. Unmold if you wish! Rossant suggests garnishing with mint leaves.

Tags: dessert, apricot, pudding, recipe, Egypt, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

Cooking Stew, Reminiscing Too

You cannot read Colette Rossant’s Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes without envying the stunning array of Egyptian and French food – from simple street food to elaborate wedding-day specialties – that she enjoyed as a child. Nor can you help admiring Rossant’s vivid memories of how these favorite dishes wove themselves in and out of her daily life. You also can’t avoid pondering what recipes might form the culinary unpinning of your own memoir.

Today, as I prepared Soeur Leila’s Red Lentil Stew – one of the book’s 43 recipes – I reflected on just this question: what recipes might help me tell the story of my childhood? Surely, this was too big a question to fully answer on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Even so, a rush of scents and flavors and recollections flooded into my head. In fact, I’m lucky Rossant’s lentil stew recipe is so effortless – anything more complicated would have been too much for my distracted brain to handle.

So what recipes did I think of? To describe an everyday weeknight in my home, the memoir would have to include pepperoni pie – a dense quiche studded with spicy nibs of pepperoni. I don’t eat meat anymore, but if you put a slice of this beloved childhood dish in front of me, I’d find it hard to resist. Another weeknight favorite was a salad made solely from lightly-dressed chicory – a frilly, bitter-tasting green that, I suspect, no other sibling team in history has loved as much. Armed with think slabs of Italian bread, my brother and I would dive right in, elbowing each other over who got to soak up the leftover vinaigrette at the bottom of the bowl. (My dad calls soaking up sauce or dressing with bread “mojuring” – I have no idea if this is an English word, and Italian word, or a made-up word. But that is the word we use.). And, of course, I’d feature my grandmother’s molasses cookies, mature versions of the brown sugar spoonfuls she gave me when I had the hiccups, and tell the story of how, later in her life, her cookies tasted different every time depending on which ingredient she had forgotten to add.

Growing up, I remember contributing to the preparation of many dishes, although my parents might have different perspective on whether I was helping or hindering their efforts. On long weekends, my dad would labor over Italian specialties passed down through his ancestors’ kitchens. Lasagna made with a layer of sliced braciole was a favorite, and it was my job to help him tie strings around the rolls of breaded meat. When my mom prepared her meatloaf, she would beckon me from my homework spot at the dining room table so that I could squish the ingredients together with my hands. I also liked to make an appearance during the most exciting part of chicken cutlet preparation – the assembly line production of dipping each piece of meat in egg, then breadcrumbs.

Other food memories are inexorably linked to holidays. When I was in school, the weeks approaching Christmastime were a time for accumulating huge quantities of candy canes from friends and teachers. Taking advantage of this bounty, my family and I would crush the canes and make peppermint stick ice cream. And, to this day, Christmas parties feature my mom’s minestrone soup, a dish that, amazingly, she has never tasted because she doesn’t like beans, but which has gained acclaim from even the most vociferous vegetable-haters. If my mom doesn’t make minestrone soup at Christmastime, she risks an insurrection.

Another soup recipe would also have to make the memoir – pasta fagiole. I love this soup so much that, during my sophomore year in college, my parents made the valiant (and slightly nutty) attempt to send me a few servings in a care package. At my university (and, I would assume, all universities), whenever care packages arrived, you would accumulate an ever-growing troop of observers (a.k.a. aspiring package-sharers) as you carried your box from the post office, into your dorm, and up to your room. How disappointed my bystanders were to discover that my package contained no candy, no cookies – only spoiled soup that had leaked out of its Tupperware container.

Although my food memories are quite different from Rossant’s, they, too, are blessed with the warming combination of family, celebrations and the daily bread of everyday life. The red lentil stew recipe Rossant shares is a hearty, wholesome dish she was served on Fridays at her convent school. Like many a favorite childhood food, it is, she says, a recipe she continues to make today.

Soeur Leila’s Red Lentil Stew
Slightly adapted from Apricots on the Nile
Serves 4 as a main course

500 milliliters / 2 cups split red lentils, picked over and rinsed
1 liter/ 4 cups vegetable broth
2 large onions, chopped (divided)
1 large tomato, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 small zucchini, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
150 grams / 1/3 pound angel hair or vermicelli pasta, broken into small pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
30 milliliters / 2 tablespoons olive oil
30 milliliters / 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Place the lentils, broth, 1 onion, tomato, carrot and zucchini in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam that bubbles up. Then lower the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Purée the mixture using a hand blender. Stir in the ground cumin, pasta, salt and pepper. Simmer, uncovered for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Add additional vegetable broth if you would like a slightly thinner stew.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a small fry pan over medium heat. Add the remaining one onion and sauté for 8-10 minutes, or until golden. Add the onion and any remaining drops of oil to the lentils and simmer for five minutes. Serve in bowls with a sprinkling of parsley. Rossant recommends garnishing with croutons made from pita bread.

Tags: recipe, Egypt, lentils, lentil stew, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

Rotating Veggies, Roasted

My favorite recipe-of-the-moment? “A Rotating Cast of Vegetables, Roasted, with Cheese from the Dairy.”

Let me explain. You already know I have a soft spot for recipes that are flexible – ones that welcome, without judgment, the variety and quantity of veggies that presently occupy my fridge. But I haven’t let you in yet on my nascent roasting kick. It started with roasting broccoli, and has expanded to roasting leeks, garlic, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes and green beans, with a preference for tossing a handful of fresh herbs atop the veggies during the last five minutes of their roast. I also haven’t acquainted you with my love of cheese – hard cheese, soft cheese, pungent cheese, mild cheese, sharp cheese, all cheese. My husband and I buy our cheese from a family-run dairy on the outskirts of town, a dairy so wonderful that it is worthy of its own separate post (coming soon!). I eat some of this dairy’s cheese – cow feta, goat feta, a creamy boursin, and, when available (oh-too-rarely), a velvety gouda – practically every day.

Lucky for me, many dishes qualify as “A Rotating Cast of Vegetables, Roasted, with Cheese from the Dairy,” including myriad soups, dips and casseroles. Today, my dish of choice was Moroccan Turlu Turlu with Feta. This dish is a cornucopia of vegetables tossed in a warmly-spiced tomato-y dressing, roasted, and anointed with crumbled feta. It is substantial enough to serve for dinner with some crusty bread. Have leftovers? They’ll make a savory filling for your omelet the next morning. It goes without saying that the vegetables in this recipe are quite flexible. Use the ones listed below – or select your own cast.

Moroccan Turlu Turlu with Feta
Adapted from Sprigs: Fresh Kitchen Inspiration
Serves 8 or more

12 small zucchini (a.k.a. courgettes), cut into 12 millimeter / ½-inch slices
2 medium eggplants (a.k.a. brinjals, aubergines), cut into 12 millimeter / ½-inch cubes
2 onions, cut into wedges
1 green pepper, thickly sliced
6 carrots, cut into 12 millimeter / ½-inch slices
300 grams / 2 2/3 cups green beans, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 400-gram / 14-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
4 garlic cloves, crushed
45 milliliters / 3 tablespoons olive oil
20 milliliters / 4 teaspoons coriander seeds, freshly ground
5 milliliters / 1 teaspoon ground allspice
300 milliliters / 1 1/3 cup tomato paste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
30 milliliters / 2 tablespoons cilantro (a.k.a. fresh coriander) and/or parsley, chopped, plus more for garnish
200 grams / 1 1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled, plus more for garnish

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (390°F).

Place the zucchinis, eggplants, onions, green pepper, carrots, green beans and chickpeas into a large mixing bowl.

In a separate, small bowl, mix together the garlic cloves, olive oil, coriander seeds, ground allspice, tomato paste, salt and black pepper. Pour this dressing over the vegetables and toss well until all the vegetables are evenly coated. Transfer the vegetables to a large roasting tray and roast for 45-60 minutes until the vegetables are tender, giving the vegetables a stir after 30 minutes or so.

Stir in the cilantro and/or parsley and the feta cheese. Serve warm with extra fresh herbs and feta for garnish.

Tags: recipe, Morocco, turlu, vegetables, feta, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

Well-herbed Couscous from a Well-loved Cookbook

Like a child’s blanket, hugged until threadbare, my copy of Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian has been loved too, too much. Its spine is broken, its pages are oil-spattered, and its recipes accompanied by barely legible scribbles and flurries of exclamation points.

I was first introduced to Jaffrey by my friends Matt and Steph, hooked by a recipe for salmon curry. I copied a few pages from their edition of From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail, and so began 2004, the Year of Curry. For me, Indian food presented a whole new way of cooking. The recipes made me breathless with their instructions to add ingredients mere seconds after one another, my spice rack became a spice cabinet, and my tolerance for hot chilies went through the roof. Another new discovery was curry leaves, an optional ingredient in what seemed like half of Spice Trail’s dishes. Serendipitously, my now-husband had just begun gardening for an elderly Indian woman with an out-of-control curry plant. He would return home, ever-chivalrous, with curry leaf bouquets.

I acquired World Vegetarian in 2005 and have been cooking my way through it ever since, adopting as dinner staples the Bengali squash curry, Italian chickpea flour pizzas and curried tomato soup. Over these two years, an ever-more-tattered green post-it has marked a recipe for Speckled Green Couscous with Red Potato Sauce. This recipe, a Tunisian dish, attracted my attention with its use of four fresh herbs – cilantro, dill, parsley and arugula – but it remained untried simply because I could never accumulate all of the ingredients at one time. My cilantro plant would be flourishing just when my dill plant had died. The supermarket would have arugula, but scallions were nowhere to be found, or perhaps the tomato paste was out of stock. Today, however, my stars aligned. In fact, even though I couldn’t find fresh dill at the store, I did discover and purchase a dill plant at the nursery (I hope it didn’t mind quickly losing half its leaves), and I compensated for my remaining dill shortfall with some feathery fennel tips, which, according to Jaffrey, are more traditional in Tunisia anyway.

Jaffrey recommends mixing a ¼ cup of the red potato sauce with cayenne and serving it as an accompaniment to the dish in place of harissa, a hot, North African spice paste. My sauce did not produce enough liquid to spare, however, so next time I’ll prepare some of my own harissa beforehand. I also think I’ll double the sauce portion of recipe, as it had a satisfying richness that well-compliments the herb-lightened fluffiness of the couscous. I wanted more! Next time…if only my new dill plant will not die, and the stars that oversee ingredient availability once again align….

Speckled Green Couscous with Red Potato Sauce
Slightly adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian
Serves 4

Potato Sauce
3 tablespoons / 45 milliliters olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons / 30 milliliters tomato paste
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters ground cumin
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters ground coriander
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters paprika
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne
12 ounces / 340 grams boiling potatoes (about 5 medium), peeled and cut into 1 x ½ x ½-inch / 2½ x 1¼ x 1¼-centimeter pieces
1½ teaspoons / 7½ milliliters salt, or to taste

Couscous
1½ teaspoons / 7½ milliliters salt
1 tablespoon / 15 milliliters olive oil
½ cup / 125 milliliters parsley, finely chopped
4 tablespoons / 60 milliliters cilantro (a.k.a. coriander), finely chopped
3 tablespoons / 45 milliliters feathery fennel tips, finely chopped
1 tablespoon / 15 milliliters fresh dill, finely chopped
4 scallions, green parts only, finely sliced
½ cup / 125 milliliters arugula (a.k.a. rocket), finely chopped
2 cups instant couscous

To make the potato sauce, put the oil in a medium saucepan and set over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion and fry it for a minute. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Next, add the tomato paste, and stir it for a minute. Add the ground cumin, ground coriander, paprika and cayenne, and stir once more. Put in 4 cups of water, the potatoes and the salt. Stir and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to a rapid simmer and cook for 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Adjust the salt, if necessary.

To make the couscous, bring 2½ cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the salt, oil, parsley, cilantro, fennel tips, dill, scallions and arugula. Cover, turn the heat down to low, and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Add the couscous, stir and cover. Remove the pan from the heat and let it sit in a warm place for 5 minutes. Uncover, and fluff thoroughly with a fork.

Serve the couscous immediately, topped with the red potato sauce.

This post is an entry in Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blog event founded by Kalyn’s Kitchen and hosted, this week, by Tomato.

Tags: recipe, Weekend Herb Blogging, Tunisia, couscous, food blog event, main dish, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

Soup for a Rainy Season

It is easy to overlook the wonder of rain. Beyond the fact that it emerges from moving, ominous grey things called CLOUDS and falls from the SKY (two awe-inspiring features, if you ask me), there is also the breath of cool air that foreshadows its first drops, the sound rain makes on different objects (a tin roof, a pool, a window pane), and the moist, earthy smell that land somehow conceals until rain comes, just like bread hides the smell of toast.

I’ve always enjoyed rain. After all, if the weather was beautiful everyday, when would I play cards, watch two movies in a row, bake cookies, organize photos, paint my fingernails, or write long e-mails? Rain gives you permission to be cooped up and sedentary, and to ponder, over a bowl of soup, how to make the best out of the situation.

Living in Zimbabwe has deepened my rain-appreciation. Here, rain only falls between November and April. Those first dust-dampening storms literally transform the landscape from shades of brown to a bright, new green. Rain is also critical to the country’s lifeblood – agriculture. This year, the rainy season got off to a sluggish start. There were a few storms in mid-November, but then the sun and heat returned, and by the time I visited a few rural communities in early December…well, people had begun whispering the dreaded D-word (drought). With farmers facing many challenges beyond the weather (such as the inavailability and high cost of seed and fertilizer), a good rainy season is critical to averting hunger. So, I am especially happy to see today’s rain, and a steady, soaking rain it is.

We had invited two friends over for tennis and a light lunch, but the rain nixed the tennis, as well as my enthusiasm for the green salad I had planned on serving alongside a chard and saffron tart. Soup was in order, and Tunisian Tomato Soup is the prefect choice for a cool, drizzly day, combining all the comforts of tomato soup with the heartiness of lentils and chickpeas, a sunray of lemon, and classic Tunisian accents of cinnamon, turmeric, cayenne and raisins.

Let it rain!

Tunisian Tomato Soup
Adapted from Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven
Serves at least 8 as a starter

1 cup brown lentils, rinsed and picked over
1 cinnamon stick
6 cups / 1½ liters water
2 tablespoons / 30 milliliters olive oil
4 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons / 10 milliliters salt
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters ground turmeric
1½ teaspoons / 7½ milliliters cumin seeds
2 teaspoons / 10 milliliters ground cumin
3 bay leaves
1 28-ounce / 800-gram can crushed tomatoes
1 14-ounce / 400-gram can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3-4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Cayenne pepper, to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
½ cup raisins, soaked in warm water and drained

Put the lentils, cinnamon stick and water in a medium saucepan, and bring it to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the lentils are tender but not mushy. Remove the cinnamon stick and drain the lentils, saving the water.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Toss in the onions and garlic and sauté for 5-8 minutes until the onions are soft. Add the tomatoes and six cups of water (including the reserved cooking water from the lentils). Bring the pot to a boil, and then lower the heat so that the soup is simmering. Partially cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove the bay leaves.

Add the cooked lentils and chickpeas and stir. Simmer for five minutes, until the chickpeas are heated through. Stir in the lemon juice, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Serve hot, topped with a sprinkling of raisins. (I like to soak the raisins in warm water beforehand so that they are nice and plump, but you don’t have to.)

Tags: recipe, Tunisia, tomato, soup, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa