Baba Ghanoush, my way

Here is another ode to the aubergine. A dip of roasted, smoky aubergine and tahini. When I first came across it, its greyish and lumpy appearance wasn’t the most appealing to be honest, but the taste soon won me over. In The New Book of Middle Eastern Food Claudia Roden describes baba ghanoush as “exciting and vulgarly seductive” – possibly one of the best compliments anything could have. People also make a version with mayonnaise, which I hate with a fiery passion. Somehow it transforms this wonder into a sweet, eggy sort of wallpaper paste.

There are infinite ways to make this, and this one is my favourite. And I really do love it. My flatmate Claudie just asked how long it keeps in the fridge, a perfectly valid question, but the answer is that it never lasts long enough for me to find out. According Jerusalem, there is apparently major disagreement as to whether proper baba should have tahini in it, or just olive oil. I am in the tahini camp.

I wrote in the miso aubergines post that I wasn’t sure how aubergines have become such a symbol of Jewish food – but I have done a tiny bit of research and of course Claudia Roden and Yotam Ottolenghi/ Sami Tamimi provide the answers. Apparently, while aubergines were brought to Spain and Italy by Arabs, Jewish people are credited for introducing them because they took them into the countries when fleeing various aggressors and moving and trading among the Arab Moorish and Christian cultures in the 15^th and 16^th centuries.

Ottolenghi/Tamimi writes in Jerusalem:

“Few ingredients have reached the level of veneration achieved by the humble aubergine or have found their way to almost every table in Jerusalem. Everybody loved to be associated with the aubergine – it’s like the local celebrity. The number of people who claim to have invented baba ghanoush, or at least elevated it to the level of fine food, is extraordinary.”

Ingredients:

2 aubergines

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed – you can either use these raw, or fry them slowly in olive oil until glossy and sweet

olive oil

tahini sauce** 

ground cumin – freshly toasted and ground if you have the time, this is however one of the few recipes where I give you permission to use the ready-ground

smoked paprika

lemon juice

salt and pepper

handful chopped fresh parsley – optional but very tasty

Turn the oven to 190-200C

Method:

Prick the aubergines all over with a fork or sharp knife. Put them in the oven and bake for at least 45 mins. You can check on them after this time by pressing them gently with a fork or some other non-finger implement – they should have wrinkled and be soft to the touch. Depending on how hot/pre-heated the oven was, this could take a good hour. This would be a lot more authentic by the way if done on a barbeque. I wouldn’t recommend scorching them over a flame on the hob though – however fun it may be to stick a fork in a pepper and burn it over a flame (terrifying flatmates in the process), aubergines are just a bit too big. And the concept of covering your entire hob in foil and just leaving the aubergines on the rings for half an hour sounds a bit much. Leaving them alone in the oven is just easier.

Once the aubergine is soft and a little collapsed, allow it to cool until it can be handled – this is a hands-on messy bit. Putting the aubergines on a large plate or oven tray, carefully peel away the skin, reserving any flesh that comes away with it. Break the aubergine open a little to allow some of the excess water to drain away – you don’t want a watery baba! At this stage I also remove some of the big clumps of seeds – there is hardly any flesh on them and I just don’t think they are that good. Give whatever flesh is left a squeeze or shake to get rid of any remaining water, and chop the whole thing up – so that it goes a little pulpy in parts.

Add the chopped aubergine flesh to a big bowl with the tahini, garlic and parsley if using. Add about ½ teaspoon of cumin and ¼ teaspoon of the smoked paprika, a few spoons of lemon juice, salt and pepper. Mix well and taste, adjusting the different seasonings to your liking. I like it with a lot of lemon, and sometimes also a little bit of hot chilli powder or cayenne pepper.

I love it with pita, quickly warmed in the toaster – so that the edges are a little charred, but it is warm and soft in the middle. Apparently it goes very well with rye crackers too.

** Tahini: I used to buy this in little jars from health food stores or supermarkets, but over the past few years I have become so addicted to it that I now buy it in 1kilo plastic tubs from local Middle-Eastern stores. I use it whenever I make humous, baba, as a dressing for salads, roasted fish or meat, or as a dip in its own right. I always turn it into a sauce first  – when using the paste ‘neat’ it has too cement-y a texture.

To make tahini sauce, put a few tablespoons of tahini in a bowl and add a little water and lemon juice. When you start stirring, the mixture may seize and become grainy, but don’t worry this is normal. Continue adding water and mixing until the sauce becomes creamy. Add more lemon juice to taste along with a little salt, pepper and some garlic. This makes a good salad dressing with a little honey added too. 

*BREAKING GEFILTEFEST NEWS* For next year's festival, there will be two new awards, 'The Gefiltefest Jewish Cookbook Awards'. One will be a public poll for the best English language cookbook, and there will be a panel of expert judges giving a separate award. Any publisher is welcome to submit books relating to any aspect of Jewish food, as long as they are published between May 2012 and May 2013.

Courgettes with Sumac, Pine-nuts and Raisins

And here is another one from Claudia, same book as before. Sumac is my new favourite thing – its getting much easier to find too.  If you are the kind of person who puts lemon juice and black pepper on everything, this will be your favourite thing too. Because she is brilliant and knows me so well, Suzy brought me back a big baggie full of the stuff from Israel. This dish is quick and easy, infinitely multipliable and seriously delicious. One to turn even the most staunch courgette-hater. Believe me I should know, I have only been eating them happily for the past 2 years.

This is more than enough for 4-6 people as a salad or veggie side dish.

3 courgettes sliced into rings between 1cm- 5mm thick. Don’t use the really massive ones as they aren’t as tasty.

1 large clove garlic, crushed

2 tsp sumac

1 tbsp raisins

1 tbsp pine nuts

1 tbsp olive oil

Salt

Lemon juice

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and when hot, add the courgettes (medium/hot flame).  Don’t move them around too much, as you want them to colour. When they start to take on a little colour, add the sumac, pine nuts and raisins. After about another 5 minutes, add the garlic. It is done when the courgettes have taken on a lovely charred colour in parts, the raisins are plump and the pine nuts are toasted. Make sure that the garlic doesn’t burn.

Take off the heat and add a little salt. Serve at room temperature, with a little lemon juice squeezed on just before serving.

Green Herb Eggah

Hands down, I think that Claudia Roden is the best food writer out there. What I love is the importance she places on history, nostalgia and cultural memory. My mother just bought her new book The Food of Spain and so far I have only had a little flick through it, but it looks pretty amazing. This recipe is from the New Book of Middle Eastern Food (1985). I made this to form part of the appetizer mezze for an Arabic-themed dinner that I co-hosted recently with some pretty special people. They are also some of the best cooks I have ever had the pleasure to work with, and am trying to convince them to contribute something to this blog.

This is what Claudia has to say about Middle-Eastern eggs:

“Egg dishes are very popular throughout the Middle East. Beid, as they are called, received the full Oriental treatment. Hard-boiled and coloured yellow or brown, flavoured with cumin, coriander or cinnamon, they are sold in the streets with little cornets of rolled-up newspaper filled with seasoning to dip them in. Fried or scrambled, they are enhanced with flavourings of garlic, onions and tomatoes, lemon, vinegar or yogurt. The Arab omelette, eggah, is more like a cake. Thick and rich, it is not unlike the Spanish tortilla to which it is undoubtedly related through the Moorish conquerors of Spain. Did the Moriscos introduce the omelette to Spain, or did they bring it back to North Africa after the Reconquista? It does not appear in early Arab culinary literature, so its origin is still a matter for speculation.”

In Persia, this dish is called Kuku, and the first time I tried it was at a Persian feast a few months ago, made by Becky. It can be eaten hot or cold, and can be made in advance and warmed up again, which makes it very advantageous when cooking for a lot of people in advance, or going on a picnic. It is though, of course, much nicer on the day it is made, still a little crispy from the grill.

Here are the quantities that I used for mine, and it made enough for about 25 little squares.  Of course it does all come down to how big your frying pan is, you want the Eggah to be at least an inch thick, and bursting with filling, so that it is almost emerald green when you slice it.

12 eggs

1 bunch parsley

1 bunch coriander

½ bunch mint

5 spring onions

salt and pepper

1 tbsp olive oil, or clarified butter

½ cup milk (optional)

1 tbsp flour (optional)

Preheat the grill.

Wash and finely chop up all of the herbs, and finely slice the spring onions, using the green tops as well as the white parts. Break the eggs in a large bowl and whisk up until frothy. At this point you could whisk in the milk and flour if using. Mix in the herbs, and season.

Heat the oil in the frying pan, and add the fantastically green egg mixture when hot. Cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until the eggs have set up the sides. Put the frying pan under the grill (leaving the door open is fine) and cook for another 4-6 minutes, checking every 2 minutes. When it is done it should be burnished and crisp, and slightly springy.

Serve cut into wedges or squares.

Interlude number 2 – the cookbooks

Here I am with another break from cooking (don’t worry I haven’t stopped). As I said in my first ever blog, I have too many cookbooks. I really do love them though, and as far as addictions go, it isn’t exactly the end of the world. Yes it is much easier to look for a recipe on the internet, but there is something about their physical presence, squashed on the shelf, arranged according to food style (of course). I love books where the emphasis is on the prose, and the personal journey or nostalgia of the writer.  They inspire me with my cooking, with my foodie adventures and my writing.

Not all of the cookbooks on the shelf are mine, others include: a great book on food activism Soy not “Oi”; Vegan Cooking for One, possibly the most depressing cookbook on the planet; Claudia Roden’s wonderful epic The Book of Jewish Food; Aromas of Aleppo, a great book on a really specific and rich culture – sometimes I wish that my own cultural heritage was a bit more complex than potatoes, herring and beetroot. I do love chrayne though…

Here is a list of some of my favourite cookbooks, what they are like and how they inspire me. I have left out a few of my favourites as I have harped on about them enough for the time being (The Moosewood Cookbook, Apples for Jam, Ottolenghi, River Cottage Veg Everyday!). Most of my favourite books were given to me as gifts, and so much love and thanks to those wonderful people who gave them to me.

Spooning with Rosie – Rosie Lovell

I first heard about this book eavesdropping a colleague talking on the phone about what she was cooking for dinner (a colleague whose food judgement I trust). I heard the word ‘spooning’ and I knew that I had to look into it. Anything that includes spooning is ok by me. Rosie Lovell owns a trendy little deli in Brixton, and she is a little bit like the kind of person I want to be. Her writing is multi-sensory and evocative “another late night in Soho…Now as usual, my alarm is pounding at me, calling me to the deli. Showered and squeezed into trusty jeans, I dash out the door of my damp 1930s flat. Round the main road I pass Simon, one of the more amenable local down-and-outs. ‘All right, Ma’am.’ He’ll be in later for his hot chocolate with five sugars…Electric Avenue is particularly alive at this time of morning, with sex-workers, red snappers, pig’s tails and pulsing beats coming from every crevice…”

The book includes a range of recipes in different styles, with a fantastic breakfast section. I haven’t actually made anything from this book yet, but there is a lot on my hit-list, including some coconut cakes made almost entirely out of condensed milk, a smoked mackerel and chard bake with a crunchy top, and grated apple and cheese on toast – genius! My one criticism would be that there aren’t enough photographs of the dishes, and the spine is pretty solid, so the book doesn’t prop open as easily as I would like from a cookbook. There are however some incredible illustrations of food-maps, pairing traditional flavours, kitchenware and hygiene tips. There is also a little section on food ethics.

The Great British Bake Off – Linda Collister, Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood

I loved this show so much. When it comes to competitions on TV, I’m not into sports, amateur singers make me cringe, and even potential next top models can’t hold my interest. Give me cake and an unrealistic amount of pressure and I’m there. Watching the contestants plead into the camera about how their kids won’t love them if they don’t win, or crying into their potatoes just makes me so happy.  From the looks of my Facebook and Twitter feeds, I think everyone else loved The Great British Bake Off too.

This book is just fantastic, it has all of the really good recipes from the show – both from the participants and the technical challenges, with incredibly detailed step-by-step instructions and beautiful photos. It is easy to follow and every chapter begins with an explanation of the practicalities and science behind baking. I haven’t cooked anything from this book yet but Hannah recently made the coffee and walnut traybake, and it was really delicious – she was really impressed with the book, and said that it explained the principles of cake in a way that most other books fail to convey. Recipes I want to try include Earl Grey cupcakes, Mary Berry’s Brandy snaps, filled with cream and dipped in chocolate and pistachios, and Jason’s (the really cute young one) salmon and pak choi quiche.

And Mary-Anne! Remember her? Remember her incredible patterned sponges? Truly one of the best things I have ever seen on a cake, and the recipe is in there! Makes me so happy. One day I am going to be organised and motivated enough to make someone a cake with ‘happy birthday’ or something written into the sponge.

I am unimpressed with the macaroons though, even the photos aren’t that good – mine (Ottolenghi’s) are better.

World Vegetarian – Madhur Jaffrey

This book had more little paper bookmarks in than any other book I own. It is an opus – over 600 recipes listed alphabetically according to vegetable (first artichoke, then asparagus), each with an introduction, place of origin and easy to follow recipe. There is also a section on dried beans, lentils and nuts. The book is well-researched and exotic: while there is a focus on Indian food, there are recipes from places such as Trinidad, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Afghanistan and Korea. Makes an incredible index and research tool, useful for how to prepare veggies, and aspects of food culture and history. One of the recipes which I have made many times is the poached aubergines with a Korean hot sauce – the recipe says that the kochu jang can be substituted with a mixture of miso and cayenne pepper. And its very tasty. Recipes I want to try include Papas a la huancaina – Peruvian potatoes with a spicy cheese sauce; Goan style black-eyed beans flavoured with anise, coconut and ginger; Nigerian red kidney bean stew with a peanut sauce – it’s a recipe that has peanut butter in it, so of course I am there.

The Flavour Thesaurus – Niki Segnit

Emma bought me this book as a present for my 25^th birthday. From what I can recall she gave it to me on the train, and I then spent the rest of the entire journey jumping up and down in my seat and reading bits of it out loud to her, like an over-excited 7 year old. An opus of 99 different flavours and their best, and worst combinations. The concept of the book is “Pairings, recipes and ideas for the creative cook” – it’s a book for those who know how to cook, so the actual recipes are stripped back and presume a large amount of knowledge. I like this because it makes me feel a little bit smug every time I understand what she is talking about. As well as recipes there are tips, bad ideas, history, pop-culture and nostalgia.

I keep a bookmark in the book covered in my notes- recipes and ideas I want to try. I bought the novel Like water for chocolate after she referred to it a few times amongst various flavour combinations, and of her other advice was as good as that, this book is my new bible. Her writing is evocative and resonant – in terms of writing styles, hers has influenced me the most. Check out this tip about aubergines: “ideally an aubergine should be as tight and shiny as dolphin skin. Similarly they should squeak when you pinch them.” Recipes on my list to try so far include a chocolate cardamom tart and fennel seed crackers to serve with Stinking Bishop or a similar washed-rind cheese.

The Vintage Tea Party Book – Angel Adoree

“A complete guide to hosting your perfect tea party.” This is a really lovely book.  Angel Adoree runs the Vintage Patisserie and has perfectly set flame-red hair, and an enviable cleavage. As well as recipes the book has cute little crafting sections (invitations, painting on china, fascinators) as well as all the other tips you may need to become a super-hip vintage chic. Her tips for styling the perfect victory curls have been very useful. Some of the recipes are really interesting – the cakes, eggy things and chocolates especially. On one page, Angel arranges open triangular sandwiches with ribbons like bunting – SANDWICH BUNTING!!! Can you think of anything more brilliant? Perfect for the jubilee weekend I think. I haven’t made anything from this book either, but there is a very interesting recipe for an Earl Grey chocolate truffle which I am very keen to try. There is one recipe which is so incredibly complex, simple and sensual that my thighs tremble a little bit just thinking about it – I’m going to keep it under wraps for the time being, but I will let you know if I make it!

Moro, The Cookbook – Sam and Sam Clark

I think the main reason for buying this book was because Moro is so damn trendy. I was once walking down a street and ACTUALLY WALKED PAST MORO! I have never felt cooler by association.  It is actually a lovely book, and the paper just feels so nice. And Sam and Sam really know what they are talking about. This is probably one of the best-researched books I have (Claudia Roden’s doesn’t count because I don’t technically own it). Spanish/ Muslim Mediterranean in style, the recipes are spicy, exotic and warming. As I don’t eat pork, there are actually a lot of recipes in this book that I can’t eat – but they sound so good I have been known to try and convince others to make them, and describe it to me (yes I know, I’m a dork). It also requires ingredients like proper Spanish sherry and sherry vinegar – like Ajo Blanco, a very delicious white gazpacho – a vehicle for legitimately eating copious amounts of garlic. The fish tagines look incredible too, and the cauliflower with saffron, pinenuts and raisins. And the bitter chocolate, coffee and cardamom truffle cake – oh my.