One of our special vegetable dishes hardly needs any cooking. In fact, what’s interesting about this dish, is that the green ful cooks in hot water for about ten minutes, while the peas are left uncooked, and slightly steam when they are mixed with the cooked, steaming-hot ful. Add some lemon juice and zatar, and it’s finished, and very very tasty. Moroccan Jews consider green ful to be one of Passover’s festive dishes, and they sometimes make it into a special soup and even garnish the table with it (here are some other Moroccan traditions). Our recipe is much simpler. Of course, it only works if the peas are super-fresh and can be eaten raw.
Ful and Peas in Lemon and Zatar 30 ful pods 20 garden pea pods juice from 1 lemons 1 tbsp zatar
Place ful, in pods, in a pot of hot water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer a bit more – ten minutes in total. During that time, take peas out of pods and place in serving bowls. When ful is ready, take out of pods and put hot ful right into bowl. Mix with peas. Add lemon juice and zatar to taste.
Variation: this would work like magic with some tchina.
This quiche is brilliant. I was looking for something that would enable me not to use flour, and in this dish, the grated potatoes do a great job. It’s full of wonderful seasonal spring greens, and you’re welcome to substitute them for whatever greens you like – except bok choy. I have a feeling bok choy won’t work so well in this dish.
Green Quiche 3 large or 5 smallish potatoes 150 gr feta cheese 150 gr spicy yellow cheese (it’s possible to substitute for feta, though two kinds of cheese make it really nice and interesting) 3 large cups of chopped greens: white beet leaves, kohlrabi leaves, broccoli leaves and stems, kale, collard, anything you have at home 2 white parts of leek, chopped in rings 2 eggs 2 garlic cloves
This recipe is much easier to do in a food processor, but is doable by hand, as well.
Heat up oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Grate the potatoes (I don’t bother skinning them), and mix them with the cheeses, eggs and garlic.
Some separate the thicker stems from greens when cooking them; I think this can easily be avoided by simply chopping the stems smaller, since the quiche will be cooking for a long time anyway. Chop up greens, and add, with leeks, to the mix. Mix well. If it’s still too liquid, add some more greens or another small potato. If too dry, add a little bit of cheese. You’ll feel if it’s the right consistency if it doesn’t move too much and seems packed with solids.
Bake for about 45 minutes, or until a fork sunk in the middle comes out dry. It’ll be a little airy when right out of the oven, but it becomes more solid as it rests outside after it’s baked.
Six dishes are finished! Three recipes and three mini-recipes follow. Here’s the first one.
Deviled eggs
10 hard-boiled eggs 2 large pickled cucumbers (I prefer in brine) 1 stalk green onion 2 tbsp Dijon mustard 1/2 tbsp good quality mayonnaise 2 tbsp chopped parsley 1 tsp black pepper
Carefully cut each egg in half. Try to make the cut so that each half is pretty stable with the yolk removed. This is tricky, but sometimes you can sort of see that the yolk isn’t in the middle of the egg.
Carefully separate yolks from whites, place whites on a tray and yolks in a mixing bowl. Chop cucumbers, green onion and parsley into TINY pieces. This is one piece of work where using a food processor won’t do – there’s no substitute for careful and thorough knifework. Add chopped veggies to the yolks, add mustard, mayo and green pepper, and mix well with a fork.
Place spoonfuls of the mix back into the whites, slightly nudging them into the yellow cavity in the egg. Refrigerate well.
We’re getting ready for the Passover Seder, here, and most of the heavy cookery is over. The menu includes some contributions from other members of the family (the fish and meat, obviously, weren’t prepared by me, and folks are bringing them with), but the stuff I’m making here is all fresh out of the Chubeza special holiday box we requested.
I decided to go with fresh and seasonal, which meant that some dishes are improvised. We only got the fresh box this afternoon, so had to make some adjustments to the original plan. Anyway, we’ve finished setting the table:
This beautiful table is mostly the work of my mom, who has a real talent for designing parties and events. She brought in the beautiful table and matched it with candles and napkins in silver and gold.
These beautiful napkin holders (each of them is different!) remind us of our happy years in Ecuador.
Our menu will not, perhaps, be meticulously kosher, but it’ll be springy in the sense that it’ll only showcase seasonal, fresh, organic vegetables. So tomorrow my family can expect to eat the following:
On the table seder plate matzos
Starters gefilte fish (grandma) deviled eggs cherry tomatoes stuffed with tofu “uncheese” pickled red peppers (mom) pickled eggplant (mom)
Soup grandma’s chicken broth kneydalach
Main Courses walnut roast (mom) mixed grain plate (mom) roasted potatoes with rosemary, onion and garlic baked carrots with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg roasted beets with kimmel quiche of greens green ful and fresh peas in lemon and zatar bean noodle stir-fry with celery and shiitake mushrooms green salad with avocado and red grapefruit cucumber, pepper and tomato salad with sprouts carrot-radish grated salad (dad)
Coffee/Tea fresh-ground coffee (from Colombia) chamomile tea nut cookies (mom) egg-foam cookies (gift from our neighbor) charoset from dates, walnuts, almonds and apples (Chad_ chocolate truffles (mom)
Last night I called my pals Rosie and Noam, and invited them over to watch Green for Danger, a British thriller. As they were heading to my house, I realized I had nothing to give them, except for some dill tofu uncheese. A short glance at the kitchen reminded me that I had four ripe bananas which were still sweet and nice, but would go bad in a day or two; something had to be done. I ran to the grocery store.
“Where’s the flour?” I asked myself. The flour was gone. My grocer had to get ready for Passover a bit early, this time; many of the customers are folks from my neighborhood, the Yemenite Quarter, who live close by and keep Kosher quite meticulously. But I wouldn’t let that thwart my efforts! I grabbed a bag of potato flour, a bag of matzo flour, and headed upstairs.
There, I took a look at Phyllis Glazer‘s wonderful classic “A Vegetarian Feast”, and changed her banana bread recipe a bit to resemble the following:
Passover-Safe Banana Cakes
1/2 cup canola oil 2 small eggs 1/2 cup brown sugar or honey 4 ripe, sweet bananas 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp salt 1 bag baking soda 1 cup matzo flour 1 cup potato flour 1/2 cup hot water dried cranberries (mine are sweetened with apple juice) 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Heat up the oven to about 160 degrees celsius (yes, it’s pretty low). Use a large mixing bowl and mix the canola oil, the eggs and the sugar/honey. Make sure the eggs are well beaten and the whole thing is pretty smooth before mashing up the bananas and adding them in. I mashed them in my food processor, but if they’re ripe enough, should be no problem to do so with a fork. Mix up the bananas and the oil/egg/sugar mix. Add vanilla extract and mix.
Add the salt and baking soda and mix.
Then, gradually start adding the flour. After every 1/3 cup of flour or so, add some of the water to assist the mixing. Mix really well, so all the flour blends into the mix. Then, add the dried cranberries and the cinnamon and give it a little mix again.
Pour mixture into an English cake mold, or (as I like to do) into muffin cups. Lately I’ve become addicted to baking in silicone pans, which are very easy to use and require no oiling. If using a silicone pan, be sure to place it on a solid tray before pouring the mixture, so you can put it in the oven, and retrieve it, with no difficulty. Place in oven and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a fork comes out dry when you check if it’s ready.
The result? fluffy and fruity little cakes. Being on a no-wheat regime, I had to count on others to report back from the field. The cakes were a big success. Are we onto a breakthrough in Passover baking?
One of my favorite places to eat when I just moved to Tel Aviv was Taste of Life, run by the Hebrew Israelites. This is a fascinating community of folks of African ancestry who live mostly in Dimona, a town more toward the south, and who abide by vegan nutrition principles as part of their spiritual practices. It’s a tiny place, but one that was offering tofu cheeses and patties long before these creative dairy and meat alternatives were popular in Tel Aviv. While the Hebrew Israelites refrain from meat and dairy for spiritual reasons, it is well known today that dairy allergies are quite common among folks of African ancestry, so there may be very good health reasons for their abstinence, too.
My favorite dish there was their tofu “uncheese” with dill, and I would buy small containers of it and snack on them on my way home… nothing would be left by the time I arrived to my fridge.
I’ve just managed to recreate the recipe, and here is my version, for your enjoyment.
200 gr soft tofu 4-5 tbsp fresh dill (big heaping fistful of chopped herb) 5 garlic cloves (don’t be shy with the garlic on this one) juice from 1 lemon pinch of salt and black peppper
Place dill and garlic in food processor, pour lemon juice in, and chop up; add tofu, cut into cubes, then process again until smooth or a bit chunky. Add salt and pepper to taste.
I have to say, for us, all this quinoa consumption isn’t merely a trend. We both grew up in South America, where quinoa, made as a side dish or a soup, is a staple.
Cut vegetables into cubes/stripes. Sautee garlic in olive oil; add cubed veg and about 1/2 cup of the broth and mix up. Cook for an additional three or four minutes, until the water sort of becomes pink. Add quinoa, parsley, and simmer, with lid closed, occasionally peeping in and mixing up. When all broth is absorbed, you get pink quinoa! And veg! And it all tastes so nice! Much better than the weird rice-with-ketchup of our childhood, and with a color that’s even freakier.
Simple and fun, and make use of all those amazing spring greens out there. Potential filling for Passover tomatoes (we’re of the grain-eating persuasion).
2 cups quinoa 2 carrots, grated 3 garlic cloves, chopped 1/2 onion, chopped 1/2 kg leafy greens, like mustard greens, leaves from red or white beets, kale, collards, etc, chopped up into ribbons 1 tbsp canola oil 2 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp vegetable broth 1/2 tbsp crushed chilis a teeny bit of squeezed lemon juice (optional) 1/2 tbsp honey
Cook quinoa in 3 cups of water until all water is absorbed. In the meantime, in a wok, heat up garlic cloves, chili and onion in canola oil. After a minute, add grated carrots, chopped greens, veg broth, soy sauce, lemon juice and optional honey. Then, add the quinoa and stir-fry for three minutes or so. Ready.
It appears that a few weeks ago Chad actually managed to take a picture of the flan he made before it was consumed (an incredible feat requiring considerable dexterity and restraint). The recipe is elsewhere on the blog; the picture itself is here.
As we get ready to leave, in a few months, and head off to the States again, we are confronted with the prospect of terrible hardships in the form of hummus deprivation.
I know Americans think that they get “hummus” when they go into one of those Middle-Eastern places and order “hummus” off the menu. The truth, my friends, is they don’t. What they get is what an Israeli friend of mine once referred to as “a fun garlicky spread, but no resemblance to Hummus”. Part of what comes with culinary diversity is that some of the production methods of stuff disappear as they emigrate across the seas. Also, stuff gets adjusted to foreign palates and loses its original taste.
(I suspect the same is true for ethnic cuisines I’m less familiar with, and a Japanese friend assures me that sushi served in America tastes nothing like Japanese sushi. Now I’m curious).
Anyway: one thing that holds true for many Israelis is that we sure love our hummus, and therefore have to decide what to do when away from adequate sources. One solution is to adopt the “no hummus outside Israel” rule. Another is to adjust to the local varieties and give a fair chance to the strange designer dips (roasted pepper hummus, pesto hummus, and other travesties). We, as usual, are taking the third path, and Chad is specializing in making hummus at home. Here’s how he does that.
1 kg garbanzo beans juice from one lemon 1 garlic clove 1 cup raw tchina 1/4 cup olive oil Possible garnishes: ready tchina (with lemon juice, parsley and garlic); leftover cooked garbanzo beans; ful; hard boiled egg.
Let garbanzo beans soak in water for at least a night. Discard the water.
Cook them in a lot of new water until very, very tender. While they are cooking, periodically remove the foam from the surface of the pot. To see if they are ready, try squeezing one and see if it becomes mush. This is not a time for haste. They really have to get very soft. Then, place them in your food processor with the tchina, some olive oil, a bit of lemon juice and – only if desired – the garlic clove. Add some of the cooking water to reach desired consistency. Process until smooth or semi-smooth (we like it a bit chunky).
Use a large spoon to “coat” a serving plate with hummus, then, in the middle, add a little mound of tchina, whole garbanzo beans, ful, or an egg cut in half.
