Category: World

travel recipes

Tajine with Eggplant, Chickpeas, and Olives

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Allow me to introduce this highly-anticipated and newly-inducted member of my household: an Emile Henry olive green ceramic 3.5 liter tajine. This baby can hold enough food for 10-12 servings, is microwave and dishwasher-safe, and no amount of heat will make it lose its beautiful glossy color.

I’ve wanted a tajine ever since I took a cooking class at a riad in Marrakech, where we made a lamb and okra tajine (preparing okra was not the most painless choice, as anyone who’s ever shaved tough hairs off of a few dozen little okra will know, but the results were delicious). The colorful painted tajines found rather cheaply and ubiquitously in Arabic markets are exclusively decorative, however, as the painted surfaces are not treated. Traditional tajine cookware, somewhat disappointingly, is generally plain brown ceramic–so imagine my excitement at finding such an elegant, beautifully finished tajine that’s capable of feeding an entire table of people.

The tajine’s conical shape captures condensation and recirculates moisture, making it an ideal vessel in which to slow-cook meats, fish, and vegetables. Moist, tender results are ensured, so you don’t have to worry about checking every 20 minutes to see if the stew is too dry. If you want to make this dish but don’t own a tajine, cooking in a dutch oven will produce comparable results (though less fun and a lot less aesthetically pleasing).

This dish is really perfect for a dinner party–it can easily serve a modest group, is extremely low-maintenance (essentially, you throw all the ingredients inside with spices and some water and it prepares itself), and as far as presentation goes, well that’s self-evident. No one can help being impressed when a giant covered platter is placed in front of them and dramatically unveiled amidst billows of fragrant steam.

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A tajine is, in all honesty, best suited to meats like beef, mutton, or poultry, where slow stewing in low heat over a long period of time will break down the toughness in the flesh. Most vegetables cannot hold up to such stewing and will simply collapse into unappetizing mush. Chickpeas, on the other hand, are perfect for a tajine, and the addition of tender eggplant stewed with spices is filling and delicious. Olives are used often in classic tajines to add a salty-briny balance and colorful garnish.

One large sliced eggplant is enough to feed many people, but even better would be baby eggplants, if those are available to you. Also, the addition to the tajine of a couple of tomatoes, quartered, would do no harm.

I finish my tajine with a squeeze of lemon, but this dish would benefit from Moroccan preserved lemons, which contribute a bright and powerful distinctively pickled flavor. You can find a recipe for preserved lemons in the NYT Diner’s Journal.

A last note: tajines are generally considered whole meals in and of themselves, served in the dish they are cooked in. Although you may be tempted, there’s no need for couscous here (which is an entirely different dish). Instead, make the Moroccan bread khobz to go along with the tajine (which is exceedingly simple to make; see here), or buy some crusty rolls.

tajine

Tajine with Eggplant, Chickpeas, and Olives

serves 4-6

  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large eggplant, sliced longways into quarters, sixths, or eighths, depending on size (OR: 10-12 baby eggplants)
  • 1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
  • 1/2 cup olives (green, purple or an assortment as preferred)
  • sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp ginger, powdered
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • pinch saffron
  • pinch paprika
  • 1 small bunch cilantro, chopped
  • 1 small bunch parsley, chopped
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1 cup water
  1. Place the eggplant slices on a plate lined with paper towels and salt generously. After 30 minutes, dab away exuded water.
  2. Place the sliced onions and crushed garlic in the bottom of a tajine (or dutch oven) at least 32 cm in diameter. Drizzle oil over onions and garlic and cook over medium heat until softened. 
  3. Arrange the eggplant slices evenly in the tajine and drizzle generously with oil. Cook 5-6 minutes or until browned on one side.
  4. Add salt, ginger, turmeric, paprika, saffron, and black pepper, then 1 cup hot water and chickpeas. Heat to a simmer, then lower heat if necessary to maintain simmer and cover. Cook 35-40 minutes or until eggplant is soft and chickpeas tender.
  5. Add the olives and half of the chopped cilantro and parsley. Reduce if there is too much liquid.
  6. Before serving, drizzle the juice of half a lemon over the top and add the rest of the fresh cilantro and parsley. Serve with Moroccan bread.

Socca

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Ah, socca. How I’ve missed you. I’ve never quite been able to get out of my head the memories of repeatedly burning my tongue and fingertips on fresh-from-the-fire socca in Nice (it was too hot, but I couldn’t stop eating). That was in February 2010, during Carnaval, and I wandered my way through the cobblestone allies of the Vielle Ville and picked pieces of smoky-hot, crispy and flaky socca out of a paper funnel.

Ever since, I’ve thought about making socca at home but alas, the primary ingredient was never available. Chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour is admittedly difficult to find outside the Mediterranean region, though it can be found in some Arabic shops, in Indian grocery stores (as besan flour), and in certain organic supermarkets.

As you’ll see if you visit Nice, true socca du marché is cooked over a wood fire in batches of giant circumference, with much scorching and blistering and rustic smoky flavors. But, we can certainly do a close approximation at home (David Lebovitz does it all the time; the following recipe is his). To imitate the smoky tones of cast iron over a blazing fire, we add a touch of cumin to the batter. Above all else, don’t be shy with the pepper–there must be freshly ground black pepper must be in excess, and the more coarsely cracked the better, in my opinion.

You’ll know you’ve made the socca right when you scrape it out of the pan with a spatula and it flakes apart in big, crumbly pieces. This is street food, and as such, fingers and mess are the only things required to eat.

Socca

makes about three 10-inch (23cm) pancakes

from The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz

  • 1 cup (130g) chickpea flour
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (280ml) water
  • 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
  • freshly-ground black pepper, plus additional sea salt and olive oil for serving
  1. Mix together the flour, water, salt, cumin, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Let batter rest at least 2 hours, covered, at room temperature.
  2. To cook, heat the broiler in your oven. Oil a 9- or 10-inch (23cm) cast-iron pan or baking dish with the remaining olive oil and heat the pan in the oven.
  3. Once the pan and the oven are blazing-hot, pour enough batter into the pan to cover the bottom, swirl it around, then pop it back in the oven.
  4. Bake until the socca is firm and beginning to blister and burn. The exact time will depend on your broiler (for me it took 5-6 minutes).
  5. Slide the socca out of the pan onto a cutting board, slice into pieces, then shower it with coarse salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.
  6. Cook the remaining socca batter the same way, adding a touch more oil to the pan between each one.

Fondant au Chocolat (Easy Lava Cakes)

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In which: I explain how to make individual chocolate lava cakes within the space of 15 minutes, pantry to plate.

To be perfectly frank: this is not the best chocolate lava cake you will ever have, although it is most likely the easiest one you’ll ever make. It’s not my favorite kind of molten lava cake–you know, the one where you dip in with your spoon and as soon as you break that fragile, quivering outer edge of moist crumb the whole cake catastrophically gives way and the center comes gushing forth in a torrent of warm chocolate ooze flooding your entire plate. Here, although there is indeed a runny center (more akin to the cream filling of Hostess cupcakes than to torrents of lava–not that we are complaining about that) there will be no such drama.

Nevertheless: keep this recipe in mind, because if one day you are stricken by a craving for gooey chocolate cake so urgent that the entire process of baking and eating must be accomplished within 15 minutes or your crankiness will become unbearable–this is the recipe for you. Or, if you want a sophisticated-seeming dessert for a dinner party that no one except you knows is so easy and that can be achieved half-drunk and that everyone will love (everyone loves lava cake)–this is the recipe for you.

(Don’t: be fooled by those 1-minute microwaved chocolate-cake-in-a-mug recipes. I’ve tried them many times, and the result is spongey and soggy and thick and entirely underwhelming.)

The French connection: This recipe comes from France, the pays d’origine of chocolate lava cake, which has to count for something. In France lava cake is called fondant au chocolat; or gâteau au chocolat au coeur fondant, which translates to the lovely image of a sugary, melting heart; or moelleux au chocolat, which is more like a thin slice of flourless chocolate cake.

Some tips: This cake is exceedingly simple to make, it being mostly egg, sugar, chocolate, and butter, with a bit of flour and vanilla. The key to creating that runny center is 1) under-bake the cakes, taking them out when the edges are just set enough to hold but the centers are still very jiggly; and 2) placing a largish piece of semi-sweet chocolate in the centers of the cakes before baking. You could also keep the egg yolks out of the batter and whip up the egg whites, which would make the cakes lighter and more like a soufflé. And don’t forget the finishing touches: a sprinkle of powdered sugar or a drizzle of chocolate syrup, and a heap of fresh raspberries or strawberries if you have them, makes all the difference.

Fondants au Chocolat (Chocolate Lava Cakes)

makes 9 individual cakes

  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 2/3 cup flour
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
  • 1 bar (12 oz.) unsweetened chocolate
  • 9 pieces of semi-sweet chocolate.
  • confectioner’s sugar for sprinkling
  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. Whisk eggs and sugar together in a bowl until the mixture lightens in color, then add vanilla and salt.
  3. Delicately fold in the flour.
  4. Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave until butter is melted, stir until chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour into batter and mix just until incorporated–batter should be thick and sticky.
  5. Spoon the batter into a greased 9-cup muffin tin as follows: put one spoonful of batter into the cup, add a sizeable piece of semi-sweet chocolate into the middle, then cover with another spoonful of batter. Repeat until tin is full.
  6. Bake for 6-8 minutes or until sides are just set and middle is jiggly.
  7. Wait five minutes for the cakes to cool, then sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar. Serve warm (with liquid centers) or room temperature (with soft centers).

Onigiri

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One doesn’t usually expect to see Japanese rice balls among the New Year’s Eve party spread, and indeed mine were the only onigiri included in the buffet festivities this Monday night. Even so, they were a big hit, disappearing long before neighboring bundt cakes, sprinkle cookies, and chocolate doughnuts. Perhaps the art studio crowd of the party I attended harbored a special predilection for seaweed? No–I prefer to think that there is something in the minimalist aesthetic of onigiri that we found particularly appropriate for ushering in an introspective new year after a holiday season of garish excess. Simplicity of form, pureness of content, economy of design: all find harmony in the undistracted elegance of these little rice balls.

In Japan onigiri are the perfect snack, whether for a post-lunch treat in a second grade classroom, or a furtive bite for hungry salarimen on the commuter train. The most familiar onigiri form is the triangle, either covered in a snug outfit of crackly nori warp, or more daringly clothed with only a thin rectangular strip stretching from front to back.  However, variations on the theme are ubiquitous, including circles, balls, and tombstones. Rolling the onigiri in sesame seeds or furikake rice flavorings (like nori-mushroom, shown in the above photo) gives them more pizzazz.

Onigiri is, at heart, simply steamed sushi rice flavored with a bit of salt. Here, unlike sushi, we don’t flavor the rice with rice vinegar. To make a more filling meal, you might stuff the onigiri with tuna and mayonnaise, umeboshi (picked plum), barbecued eggplant, kimchi, or just about anything you like–the possibilities are endless. See this onigiri-making tutorial at Serious Eats for a nice photo-explanation of how to shape and stuff your onigiri.

Onigiri (Japanese rice balls)

makes 16-20 onigiri, depending on size and shape

  • 2 cups sushi rice
  • 2 1/2 cups water
  • sea salt
  • 1 package nori wrap (the longer, rectangular kind for making onigiri, not the square shape used for rolling sushi)
  • furikake or sesame seeds
  • fillings, as desired (ex: umeboshi, pickled radish, canned tuna and mayonnaise, grilled eggplant or mushrooms, kimchi, anchovies)
  1. Wash and rinse the sushi rice in water until the water runs clear. Place the rice with the 2 1/2 cups water in a rice cooker; cook. If you don’t have a rice cooker, bring the rice and water to a simmer in a pot, then cover and lower the heat to medium-low for 15 minutes. Then turn off the heat, keeping the pot covered for an additional 10 minutes.
  2. Once cooked, fluff the rice with a rice paddle and mix in the sea salt. Let the rice cool down until it is no longer too hot to handle.
  3. Place a small bowl of warm, salted water near your work station and wet your hands. The water will keep the rice from sticking to your hands, and the salt will lightly flavor the rice as you work.
  4. Paddle a small scoop of rice into your palm and shape as desired. Add the fillings. If you are eating immediately, wrap in nori (you will probably have to cut the nori with scissors to fit your shapes). If you are preparing the onigiri in advance, set the rice ball aside without nori–otherwise the nori will get soggy.
  5. Just before serving, wrap the rice balls in nori. If the nori has trouble sticking, lightly moisten the nori and press firmly.
  6. These rice balls don’t need any sauce. Be creative while you are making them and enjoy as they are!

Here’s some inspiration for creative onigiri makers: cute onigiri faces!

Chilaquiles

On grocery trips I always end up overestimating how much food I need to buy. This stems in part from my own family’s propensity to buy in bulk (does a family of four really need a second 48-ounce container of minced garlic? “It was on sale,” comes the response) but also from me frequently choosing to shop when I’m ravenously hungry. Yes, I know that is a recipe for frozen pizza and muffin assortments, but I generally hate shopping and therefore put it off until I open the fridge and realize that I have a choice between eating lasagna noodles with soy sauce, or trudging down to the grocery store.

After one of these overloaded produce runs, my refrigerator initially looks rosy and full-cheeked, but after a week or two it begins to resemble something brown and wilty, being full of uneaten goods quickly ripening past their prime. Corn tortillas are especially bad for this, and somehow my brain still insists on getting two packs at once: “They’re only 49 cents, might as well round it out and make it a dollar.” The same reasoning explains why I always end up with ten avocados at the same time: “Ten for $2? What can I lose?” I lose a bunch of mushy avocados and stale tortillas to the compost bin.

The advantage of having a roommate who’s lived in Mexico is learning what to do with old tortillas. Before this I had no idea that there were delicious ways to dispose of even the warped, tough, hardened corn tortillas that have been sitting on top of my microwave since last week.

One way to do it is chilaquiles, which is basically a dish of old corn tortillas fried with onion and peppers, and frequently mixed with salsa or mole sauce and queso. It’s a breakfast dish, so eggs are commonly in there as well. My roommate and I like to use fresh diced tomatoes instead of the salsa, or just leave it at the onions and peppers, which makes everything crispier.

Making chilaquiles is very simple: first you tear or break up some old corn tortillas into pieces. Slice an onion thickly, then slice one or two poblano peppers lengthwise into strips (or, barring that, a green bell pepper). If desired, cut some tomatoes into thin wedges. Then fry the onion and pepper for a few minutes in vegetable oil until softened, and add the tortilla pieces. Stir to avoid burning but let the tortilla get crispy and brown.  Add the tomatoes last and cook just until soft. Sprinkle a liberal pinch of salt over everything and some ground pepper. Serve very crunchy and hot with a big spoon of sour cream.

That’s it! And don’t you think it’s a better way to get rid of old tortillas than the compost bin…

 

Carottes Râpées

One thing living in France taught me is that when it comes to vegetables,  simpler is better.

Naked carrots, grated raw and barely dressed, are one of the sexiest French salads, in an everyday-sexy kind of way. You can find carottes râpées in the packaged deli aisle of any supermarket or convenience store in France; it’s an obligatory side at pique-niques, or on school lunch trays, or for light Tuesday dinners.

The usual carottes râpées salad, the kind you find at Monoprix or Carrefour, has perfectly grated skinny little carrot sticks like crunchy orange straw, in a completely useless vinegary-water dressing. At home, your grating job might look less than perfect but the addition of a few simple extras like fresh lemon juice, fresh cilantro, and raw garlic will soon make up for that.

My grated carrots look like they came out of a cheese grater. Which they did. Those of you with fancy mandoline-julienne graters, go to town. Otherwise, you can arm yourself with a very sharp knife, a steady grip, and a lot of patience and julienne those carrots the old-fashioned way.

If you think just carrots is boring (it’s not!) you might mix in some julienned celery root or beetroot. An even better idea, I think, would be to add citrus–swap a spoonful of fresh orange juice for some of the lemon juice and cut in some orange pieces.

Carottes Râpées (Grated Carrot Salad)

serves 4

  • 6-8 carrots
  • juice of half a lemon
  • drizzle of olive oil
  • 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
  • small bunch of cilantro, chopped
  • sea salt
  1. Peel the carrots. 
  2. Grate the carrots as thinly and longly as possible. If you have a fancy vegetable grater so much the better. If you don’t, take your sharpest knife and start slicing away, then slice some more.
  3. Put the carrots in a mixing bowl. Add the lemon juice, minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and mix. Add the cilantro last and mix again.
  4. The salad will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days–any longer and the cilantro will start to wilt.

Dessert Tofu with Ginger

Yes, that’s right. Tofu for dessert. You can do that.

In Japan, they say that the best dessert is a walk after dinner. Super soft silken tofu, warmed and mixed with sugar syrup and grated ginger, might even be better than walking. Vietnamese cuisine is known to be light, and this is the simplest, purest Vietnamese dessert.

Buy your tofu from an Asian foods market and look for “extra soft” or “extra silken.” This tofu comes like pudding in a cylindrical container, not in a cube like firmer tofus.

Heat a few spoonfuls of sugar in a pot until it melts and mix in water to make a simple sugar syrup. Add a big pinch of freshly grated ginger, then turn off the heat and stir in the tofu.

Then stick in a big spoon and enjoy accompanied by a warmish-coolish end-of-summer evening, the kind where the sky is all purply and deep. For seconds, there’s always a nice stroll to be had . . .

Semmel Knödel

 

Although modern Germany is impressively vegetarian-friendly, the traditional cuisine is decidedly not. Classic German fare is much like rural America’s diet; that is, a strictly meat and potatoes affair, with cheese and butter thrown in for good measure.

So, a classic-style German eatery, though it may have charming wooden tables, perfectly browned bretzeln (pretzels), home brewed beer, and pork loins galore, presents somewhat of a challenge for vegetarians such as myself.  Unless we are content with salads (I’m not) in such cases we have to search the menu for filling side dishes. Semmel knödeln, or hearty bread dumplings seasoned with fresh herbs, fit the bill. These little babies saved me several times from exiting the restaurant with a grumbling belly, which in turn saved my dining companions from an undesirable change of mood.

In German supermarkets you can buy pre-prepared dumplings shrink-wrapped in plastic for a few euros. Just boil for ten minutes, unwrap, and eat. Unfortunately the results are, as is often the case with shrink-wrapped things, rather disappointing. Unless you like gummy balls of bread with the approximate density of dying stars, tumbling all the way down your throat like sticky little bowling balls. But I don’t think you do.

Fortunately, making semmel knödeln from day-old bread is hardly more work than scissoring open a plastic package, and requires exactly no special ingredients. Assuming you do, actually, cook, I’ll bet you have all the ingredients on hand at this very moment. And, like the most convenient spur-of-the-moment dishes, you can throw in wilting things you find at the back of the refrigerator and everything will still taste great.

To make your homemade dumplings stand out from the usual bunch you will need fresh herbs, especially parsley and dill, though rosemary and thyme would be quite nice as well. The dusty grey stuff you get in spice racks is useless (go ahead, just throw it out now). I give the bread cubes a little fry in butter with the chopped onions for some added flavor and texture (the crunchy golden crouton-bits that you’ll get in the cooked dumpling are divine), and I also add in chopped mushrooms for flavor and a bit more substance. Don’t cook all the herbs in right away, because they’ll wilt and lose color; save a bit fresh to throw in at the end to keep a green pop in the finished dumpling.

And, if you have leftover dumplings the next morning (make enough to have leftover dumplings!) give them a turn in a hot pan with a smear of butter for a terrific brunch treat.

Semmel Knödel (German Bread Dumplings)

Makes 10-12 dumplings

  • 1 loaf of day old crusty bread, cut into cubes
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 1 cup mushrooms, finely diced
  • 2 Tbsp butter
  • 1/2 bunch (1/2 cup) fresh parsley, chopped
  • small handful (2-3 Tbsp) fresh dill, chopped
  • 1 1/2 to 2 cups whole milk
  • 2 eggs
  • ground black pepper
  • sea salt
  • about 2/3 cup flour, or as needed
  1. The evening before, cut your bread into cubes and spread in a single layer on a baking sheet to dry out overnight.
  2. To start the dumplings, melt the butter in a large saucepan and saute the onions and mushrooms together on medium heat until the juices run out, about five minutes. (Add a touch of olive oil if the butter threatens to burn.) Add most of the parsley and dill, and the bread cubes. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring regularly, until onions are translucent and the mushrooms and bread cubes are browned. Remove to a large mixing bowl and let cool.
  3. Heat the milk and pour it slowly over the bread mixture. Do this in several pours, allowing the bread to absorb the milk before adding more. You may not need all the milk; do not add so much that a puddle forms in the bowl.
  4. When the bread-milk mixture is cool, add the remaining fresh parsley and dill (saving a bit for garnish, if desired), eggs, and bread crumbs. Mix well (use your hands!).
  5. Flour your hands and sprinkle in the flour tablespoon by tablespoon, mixing it in, until a sticky dough forms.
  6. If the dough is too wet to hold its shape, add more bread crumbs or flour. If it is too dry and stiff, mix in a bit more milk. Work in small additions until you achieve the right consistency.
  7. Flour your hands again and take pieces of the dough in small palmfuls, shaping them into dumplings.
  8. Boil water in a dutch oven. Salt the water generously. Add the dumplings and bring back to a soft boil, then cook about 10 minutes longer.
  9. Cut a dumpling in half to check for doneness. If the center is still doughy, add back to the pot and cook a minute or two longer.
  10. When done, remove the dumplings with a slotted spoon onto paper towels. Serve sprinkled with ground sea salt, black pepper, and fresh parsley.

NOTE: Leftover dumplings are fantastic for breakfast sliced up and fried in butter!

Ratatouille

The French provençal dish ratatouille has been made famous by Disney and Pixar but it’s enjoyed a cherished presence in the south of France for much, much longer than that.

Ratatouille is always made with the sunny trio of eggplant, red bell pepper, and zucchini, along with tomato, onion, and garlic. The vegetables are chopped and sautéed in olive oil until a soft provençal vegetable mash-up results. The dish can be served hot or cold, as a side or with bread or rice as a main course. Eating a spoonful of ratatoille is like savoring a concentrated dose of the Mediterannean sun.

Opinion differs on the best way to prepare ratatouille; I suppose it depends on how much time you have.  The simplest (and least tasty) version is simply to sautée all the chopped vegetables together. Slightly improved technique (and flavor) calls for sautéeing each vegetable separately and then combining them and simmering them together. This preserves the individual flavors of each ingredient before they are mixed. What I (and my French cooking mentor) prefer is to grill the trio of eggplant, bell pepper, and zucchini with garlic and olive oil and then simmer them together with the previously sautéed onion and tomato. This, in my opinion, gives the best mélange of flavor. [A note: I prefer to leave the eggplant skin on, because otherwise it disintegrates completely and loses all form. Ratatouille purists, however, may disagree with me. Which is not the worst thing in the world.]

The preparation of the vegetables alone (peeling, chopping, etc.) requires quite a bit of time as well as more hands than your own two–and then the grilling and cooking extend the cooking time from reasonably long to very, so be prepared to spend all afternoon in the kitchen. Of course, if you have the good fortune to be en vacances in Provence (as I am right now) some leisurely chopping and chatting with cooking buddies all afternoon won’t be a problem, especially if you have a bottle of Pastis on hand, the sun overhead, and the sound of cicadas in the background. Just remember to save time for a game of pétanque afterwards . . .

Ratatouille

serves 4-6

  • 2 large eggplants
  • 2 red or yellow bell peppers
  • 3 zucchini
  • 4-6 tomatoes
  • 2 medium red onions
  • 1 head of garlic
  • 4-6 Tbsp olive oil
  • salt
  • pepper
  • handful of fresh basil
  • herbes de provence
  1. Remove the stems of the eggplant (don’t peel), slice lengthwise into thick strips (see photo above), maybe 1/2 inch thick. Remove the ends of the zucchini and peel, then slice into thick strips like the eggplant. Remove stems and seeds of peppers, quarter them.
  2. Using a garlic press, mince 3-4 cloves of garlic. Mix with 2 Tbsp of olive oil. Brush eggplant, zucchini, pepper slices with olive oil & garlic.
  3. Arrange in one layer on a grill or oven rack and cook until one side is browned and slightly blistered. Flip and grill the other side. Grill in batches if there is not enough room, taking care not to let the vegetables burn.
  4. Meanwhile, peel the tomatoes and roughly chop. Dice the red onion. Mince the remaining 3-4 cloves of garlic. Sautee tomatoes, onion, and garlic together in a large pan with 2 Tbsp olive oil until onion is soft.
  5. Once eggplant and zucchini are grilled, slice into long strips (see photo above). Rub off skin of the bell peppers and slice likewise.
  6. Add eggplant, zucchini, and bell pepper to the sautée mixture. Season with salt, pepper, and herbes de provence. Cook on low heat until all vegetables are soft and more or less homogenized into one mixture. Turn off heat and mix in fresh chopped basil. Strain out the excess liquid and oil.
  7. Serve warm or cold, as a side dish or with rice or bread as a main dish.

Bissap Sorbet at Taste of Chicago

Yesterday was the opening of Taste of Chicago, a five-day showcase for the most classic and the most creative restaurants on this city’s diverse food scene.

Along with staples like the Chicago-famous hot dogs, deep dish pizza, Eli’s cheesecake, foot-long corn dogs, and Billy Goat Inn’s cheezborgers, there were pleasant surprises, new inventions, and deep-fried flights of fancy. To name a few: plantain with goat, coconut ice, deep fried Chinese bread, pork-filled banana dumplings, mustard-fried catfish, baked crab cake nuggets.

After a few tastes and some samples and lots of eyeball gorging, I put 10 tickets towards a Rainbow Waffle Cone well-deserving of capital letters, a towering five flavors of sherbet that melted immediately all down my arm. Best self-birthday present of the day.

And then, right in the sweaty, sticky, heady midst of it all, while I was drifting through air pockets redolent of parmesan and garlic and ranch dressing, a beautiful sight caught my eye. Alongside  jerk chicken and jollof with oxtails a sign showed bissap sorbet, a sweet ruby-colored West African dream frozen and served in a little plastic cup. This was from Iyanze, a West African restaurant in Uptown that I haven’t (yet) visited.

Jus de bissap, or hibiscus flower juice (though it’s prepared more like a tea), was my favorite revitalizing midday treat in Senegal. There are two colors of hibiscus flower, white and red, but the red is used to make juice that is a deep jewel-tone. The taste is similar to cranberry juice but not as tart, and I like it much better.

My friends’ family in Mbour had a plot across from their house where they grew bissap, and when I arrived it was time for the harvest. The papa and some help brought in tubs of spidery flower heads and everyone pitched in for hours a day to remove and reserve the edible outer part of the flower. Apart from a few handfuls used fresh for cooking, the hibiscus was then spread out on the roof of the house to dry in the sun. After a few days of this, we made pitchers of jus de bissap by simply steeping the flowers in hot water with sugar and fresh mint, then chilling the mixture.

When it’s hot and sandy and you’ve just eaten more than your fill of poulet Yassa, there’s nothing better. Jus de bissap can be found about everywhere in Senegal, sold in restaurants, on the street, in the markets, even at the tortoise reserve. The first time I tasted it counts among my most vibrant memories of the country.

the bissap harvest in Mbour, Senegal

As delicious as I remember jus de bissap being, I was delighted to see Iyanze’s sorbet at the Taste of Chicago. Making a frozen juice dessert seems like an elegant spin on the refreshing cold drink. And it was just as good as I remember.

The recipe below makes juice ready-to-drink, but you might also make a concentrated version with half the amount of water to mix with sparkling water, tonic, or ginger ale. I have also included Gourmet‘s recipe for bissap sorbet. I have seen dried hibiscus flower for sale in stores such as Trader Joe’s, and you could also try to find them in Mexican grocery stores. This juice is also popular in Mexican restaurants (though I have to say that there it’s often too watered down).

Jus de bissap (Hibiscus juice)

  • 2-3 cups dried red hibiscus
  • 2 liters (8.5 cups) water
  • 1-2 cup sugar
  • a couple of sprigs of fresh mint
  1. Heat the water in a saucepan or pot. When the water boils, add the hibiscus and turn off the heat. Let the flowers steep for ten to fifteen minutes.
  2. Strain the liquid into a pitcher and add sugar and mint. Let cool completely and chill in the refrigerator, or serve with ice.
  3. Garnish with mint leaves.

Bissap Sorbet (Hibiscus Tea Sorbet)

from Gourmet, October 2004
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cup organic dried hibiscus flowers
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1 Tbsp fresh lime juice
  1. Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan. Stir in hibiscus and remove from heat, then let steep 15 minutes.
  2. Pour hibiscus tea through a fine-mesh sieve into a metal bowl, pressing hard on and then discarding solids. Return tea to saucepan and bring to a boil with sugar and a pinch of salt, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
  3. Transfer mixture to a metal bowl, then set bowl in a larger bowl of ice water and stir until cold, 10 to 15 minutes.
  4. Stir in lemon and lime juices and freeze in ice cream maker. Transfer sorbet to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, at least 2 hours.
at work preparing white bissap in Senegal