"Jerusalem": is this the cookbook of the year?

The cookbook - just released in the UK

Anyone who follows the international food media – newspapers, magazines and blogs – would have read of the much anticipated “Jerusalem”, the third cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi that was published in the UK last month and is about to be released in the US.   Fortunately, I was able to get a copy here in Hyderabad last week via the miracles of on-line retailing ... and it’s extraordinary!

The original "Ottolenghis" in Notting HIll, London

Ottolenghi and Tamimi are the co-proprietors of the string of Ottolenghi restaurants and delicatessens  in central London.   They are also a publicist’s dream couple .... one an Israeli brought up in the Jewish west of Jerusalem  and the other a Palestinian brought up in the Arab east side of the ancient city ... never meeting each other until 20 years later when they formed a culinary and business partnership in London.

Sammi Tamini and Yotam Ottolenghi

Yotam Ottolenghi has the higher profile of the two.  A former journalist and academic with a Masters degree in Comparative Literature, he changed careers when he moved to London and went on to become a successful chef, cookery writer and restaurateur.  He has a highly popular weekly column in The Guardian newspaper and does most of the media for the businesses.     Sami Tamini began working as a chef in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv before moving to London where he is now head chef of the Ottolenghi empire.

Their first book – the eponymously named “Ottolenghi”- is on the UK Amazon’s “ten best cookbooks of all time” list, and their second book “Plenty” - a modern day bible of Middle Eastern-influenced vegetarian cooking - this year received a second life when it was released to wide acclaim on the American market.   (I just hate these guys!)

The Muslim quarter of Jerusalem

“Jerusalem” is both a homage to their childhood memories of food and the relatives and friends that cooked for them and also an attempt to reflect the extraordinarily rich multicultural fabric of the city.  

“Consider this: there are Greek orthodox monks in this city; Russian Orthodox priests; Hasidic Jews originating from Poland; non-Orthodox Jews from Tunisia, from Libya, from France or from Britain; there are Sephardic Jews who have been here for generations; there are Palestinian Muslims from the West Bank ... ; there are secular Ashkenazi Jews from Romania, Germany and Lithuania and more recently arrived Sephardim from Morocco, Iraq, Iran or Turkey; there are Christian Arabs and Armenian Orthodox; there are Yemeni Jews and Ethiopian Jews but there are also Ethiopian Copts; there are Jews from Argentina and others from southern India; there are Russian nuns looking after monasteries  and a whole neighbourhood of Jews from Bukhara (Uzebekistan).”
 
From the introduction to “Jerusalem” 

One of the key recipes in the book is hummus, which is included with a number of mouth watering variations.   The authors write of the “hummusia fetish” in Jerusalem with many of the ethnic groups above claiming ‘source of origin’ for this chickpea-based dish: “Generally most people agree that it was Levantine or Egyptian Arabs who first made hummus, though even this is debatable!”

I have been struggling on and off to make hummus for the past 25 years ... and IT’S NEVER WORKED!   From my early cooking days as a half-baked vegetarian student at Monash University in Melbourne, I have attempted this recipe every now and then and it has always come out as glug!   It didn’t help either that this dish became a bit of a cliché in restaurants in Australia as we began to embrace Middle Eastern and Lebanese cuisine in the 1980s and 90s.  At the end of a party there would be these plates of dried out, crusted hummus sitting next to the overflowing ashtrays and spilt plastic glasses of cheap red wine .... uuggh!

So I was surprised the other evening when I made the basic recipe that it turned out so perfectly.    Maybe it was my home-made tahini paste that was lighter than the store bought stuff ... or maybe it was adding iced water rather than more olive oil to the blender that did the trick?
 

Hummus Kawarma is basically hummus topped with pan grilled lamb

The add-on recipe that I cooked was “Hummus Kawarma” or Lamb with Lemon Sauce, which highlights finely chopped lamb pieces pan fried in ghee and olive oil served on top of a pool of hummus scattered with whole chickpeas and topped with a puckery lemon sauce consisting of finely chopped parsley, lemon juice, green chillies and white wine vinegar.

The Fattoush salad

It was fantastic!   We ate this with a bread and crisp vegetable salad  (“Na’ama’s Fattoush”, also from the book) which involves marinating the ingredients in a home-style buttermilk made by ‘fermenting’ full cream milk and thick yogurt for several hours; the milk we get over here of course is from buffaloes and this only added to the creamy texture of the final dish.

I’ve only just started dipping into “Jerusalem” but the recipe titles give some indication of the style and substance of the book ... “Roasted sweet potatoes & fresh figs”, “Lemony leek meatballs”, “Braised quail with apricots, currants & tamarind”, “Saffron chicken & herb salad” and “Set yogurt pudding with poached peaches”.   So far “Jerusalem” is looking like my favourite cookbook of the year!

Here’s the first recipe ....

“Hummus Kawarma” or Lamb with Lemon Sauce

first the basic hummus ...

Ingredients:     250g chickpeas    1 T bicarbonate of soda    250g of tahini paste (I used less)    4 T lemon juice    4 garlic cloves, crushed    100ml of iced water (I ended up using about 200+ml of water to lighten the chickpea paste after grinding)

Method:   Wash chickpeas and soak in twice their volume of water in a pot overnight, stirring in the bicarb’ soda which helps soften the peas.  Next day cook chickpeas in saucepan with 1.5 litres of water (for 20 to 40 minutes) until soft and tender.   I use a pressure cooker to quicken this step ... and save gas from our bottle in the kitchen!

Drain and cool the chickpeas and place in large blender/mixer.    Process until you get a smooth paste and then add tahini paste, lemon juice, garlic and 1 ½ t salt.   Then you slowly add the iced water until you get a smooth, creamy texture.  (I just added all the ingredients pretty much from the start as the chickpeas wouldn’t break down on their own in my mixer;  I found I had to add twice the amount of iced water to achieve the proper texture.)

Leave aside covered for at least 30 mins.

Hummus Kawarma

Ingredients:    (1)   the basic hummus recipe, as made above plus small cup of extra cooked chickpeas for garnish    3 T toasted pinenuts to garnish

(2)  300gm fillet of lamb, finely chopped by hand (I used about 500gm for 4 people)   ½ t pepper   ½ t ground allspice    ½ t cinnamon    pinch ground nutmeg    1 t zaatar spice mix or oregano    1 T white vinegar    I t chopped mint    1 T chopped parsley    1t salt    1 t olive oil

Lemon Sauce Ingredients:    10gms flat leaf parsley, finely chopped    1 or 2 green chillis, finely chopped    4 T lemon juice    2 T white wine vinegar    2 garlic cloves, crushed    ¼ t salt

Method:    Place all the kawarma ingredients (no 2) - apart from olive oil - in a bowl and mix thoroughly, marinate 30 mins+  in fridge.

Just before cooking meat, mix all ingredients for lemon sauce together in a bowl.

Heat olive oil in pan to medium high and cook meat in batches.   Recipe says meat should be slightly pink (cooked only 2 to 3 mins) but here in India I cook meat a little longer just to be safe!

Divide hummus between 4 to 6 bowls or plates and spread out, leaving a slight indentation in the middle.   Spoon the warm kawarma into the middle of plate and scatter with the extra chickpeas.   Drizzle over the lemon sauce and scatter extra parsley and chopped nuts over top.   (I also drizzled some xv olive oil around edge of plate.)

Serve ... and raise a toast to hopes for peace in the Middle East!
  
P.S.   which I guess translates in the near future to at the very least: Obama IN – Netanyahu OUT!


Tony saab/Hyderabad/INDIA    Oct 2012    


 

 

 

 



 

Brighton, Belly Pork and the FAT Cookbook

BRIGHTON, BELLY PORK AND THE “FAT” COOKBOOK


Brighton Beach, U.K.

Last year our family was fortunate enough to stay with friends in Brighton, England ... before travelling onto Paris and the south of France for a holiday.  





Brighton weekend market

Tara, Taj, Zia & Jade



Priya and Juhee on Brighton Beach

During our stopover, our host Priya cooked a wonderful array of mainly classic French dishes -  including Coq au vin, Cassoulet and Boudin blanc – and it really opened my eyes to the rustic nature of true French cuisine.  

Till then – despite occasionally eating at some great French restaurants in Melbourne - I still had this misinformed prejudice that French cuisine was all sauces, creams and way too much butter!

"fat" cookbook by Jennifer McLaglan


And as one does when you stay with friends, I checked out our host’s recipe book collection and discovered an extraordinary cookbook called: “FAT: an appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient, with recipes.”   The book is written by chef and writer Jennifer McLaglan, who co-incidentally is an expat’ Australian now living in Toronto, Canada.  

One of the recipes in this book has become an all-time favourite ... despite the challenge of finding all the ingredients here in Hyderabad!



Zia & Jade



Taj & Zia outside the Royal Pavilion



Brighton itself reminded me so much of the beachside suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne, where we lived for several years and spent many great times before moving to India.    In fact, there is a remarkable similarity between the two towns – both towns have been holiday spots for city dwellers for the best part of two centuries, both have a remarkable array of seaside restaurants and cafes, both have iconic beaches with a prominent pier attracting hordes of tourists in the peak seasons, (both also have experienced arson attacks on the pier restaurants/restrooms in recent times!) and both town’s are also a mecca for university students, academics and other bohemian types attracted to a less hectic lifestyle than that offered in neighbouring London and Melbourne respectively.




The original Brighton pier - after the fire


The recipe from the cookbook I found in the house in Brighton - that has become one of my all-time favourites - is “Slow-Roasted Pork Belly with Fennel and Rosemary”.  


Pork after roasting for 3 hours

The thesis behind McClagan’s book is that until recent times fat in food was at the centre of western diet and culture and it was only 30 or so years ago – when scientists postulated a link between saturated fats and heart disease – that fat became labelled as “the greasy killer”!     What followed was a processed food industry-induced hysteria that sucked the flavour and goodness from meats and butter, driving us into the arms of transfats and refined carbohydrates, tasteless pork and climaxing in an obsession with synthetic products like margarine and other dairy substitutes!   Uuuughh, I can still remember the margarine we ate in my house during the 1970's!

McClagan argues that it’s time to redress the balance – that not all fats are bad for us; as she states in the book, at a time when the West is so obsessed with diets, exercise gimmicks, and low-calorie food additives we have never as a society been so overweight or unhealthy!     (Many of these arguments are put from another perspective in Michael Pollan’s magnificent book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”; if you are interested in food & agri-politics, you have to read it!)

However, in regards to this recipe, buying pork meat in India was in the past a fairly dodgy affair - with the threat of picking up the parasitic brain disease Trichinosis - but in the last few years the industry has cleaned up its act and proper farming methods are now in place.

Some of the vegetables and herbs used in the recipe are also hard to find in Hyderabad such as sage and fennel; I have managed to conquer these particular culinary hurdles by growing my own herbs – including sage, and discovering an unusually western-focused vegetable supplier (Takari) who sells fresh fennel bulbs .... along with other non-traditional Indian vegetables such as lettuce and avocados.

The base of onions and fennel

After marinating the pork belly with a rub made of garlic, sage, rosemary, black pepper, fennel seeds and rock salt, the meat is slowly cooked in an oven for 2 ½ to 3 hours.   The drippings from the meat mingle with a base of fresh onions, sliced fennel and the leftover fronds from the sage, rosemary and fennel plants and this becomes the side dish when mixed with poached kale – or, in my case, spinach.   The cooking liquid from the casserole is then reduced with a mixture of white wine and mustard and the end result is an absolute masterpiece!    I serve it with boiled or mashed potato on the side.



SLOW ROASTED PORK BELLY WITH FENNEL AND ROSEMARY

Ingredients:  

1.5kg boneless pork belly, skin on    4 cloves garlic    15 fresh sage leaves, stems reserved    1 T fresh rosemary leaves, stems reserved    1 T sea salt    1 T fennel seeds, toasted in dry pan    1 t peppercorns    3 onions, sliced thickly    1 fennel bulb (I use 2 or 3 depending on size)    1 ½ cups dry white wine or vermouth    2 t fine sea salt    1 bunch of kales, shredded and cooked (I use spinach instead)    2 t Dijon mustard    1 t cornstarch

Method:

1/.   Wash & dry pork belly, then score the skin with a blade/box cutter – but don’t cut through the meat.  
2/.   Peel & halve garlic and put in grinder or pestle with sage & rosemary leaves, coarse se salt, fennel seeds and peppersorns.    Grind or pound to a paste & then rub onto meat side of the pork piece.
3/.   Place pork in dish, skin side up, and marinate in fridge for 8 hours/overnight.
4/.   Preheat oven to 220C.   Remove meat from fridge and let come to room temperature.
5/.   Slice fennel bulb(s) – reserving stems and fronds and place in bottom of deep pan along with the sliced onions.   Add sage & rosemary leaves, along with extra fennel fronds. Add 1 C wine to pan, rub fine salt over pork skin and then place in pan on top of vegetables skin side up.
6/.    Roast for 30 minutes, and then reduce heat to 160C and cook a further 2 to 2 ½ hours.   Check liquid level in pan occasionally and add more water if needed to keep meat moist.

The cooked onions and fennel in a sauce

7/.   Transfer pork to flat baking dish, remove fronds & stems and add rest of cooked vegetables to a serving tray.
8/.   Poor cooking liquid into cup, let stand to allow fat to rise to the top and discard the fat.
9/.   Crisp crackling on pork by placing it under oven grill (turned to high) till crackling is puffs up, curls & crisps.   Watch it does not burn.

The sauce made from reducing cooking liquid, wine and mustard

10/.   Pour ½ C of cooking liquid into a saucepan and add mustard.   Mix the cornstarch with remaining 1/2C of wine and add to sauce.   Bring to boil over high heat, then stoir for 1 minute.

Serve sliced pork with vegetables and sauce.


Tony saab/Hyderabad, INDIA   Sept 2012