Still Looking...

Well, things have been very busy and very interesting here in Egypt! So my planned research for future Egyptian fooddefafas has not been productive. I did find this at a Thai restaurant in Zamaleck:




I am not sure though....


There was also some nice stuffed pigeon:



But not so sure I will be up for recreating that one back home.

Though maybe the most enjoyable food I encountered was at this guy's nut/seed cart in Tahrir Square (though this is mostly because of the ambience):

Homemade artichoke ravioli

After all this posting frenzy by David, I felt compelled to give my modest contribution... just one recipe - for now! Ravioli are actually not that difficult to make, just a bit time-consuming (but totally worth it!). The preparation is quicker if you have a pasta machine, but if you don't, this give you an idea of how to roll the pasta by hand.

This time I decided to make an artichoke filling.

This recipe will serve 2-3 people (and it took me about an hour and a half from start to end).

For the filling I used:
4 artichokes (the smaller, the better, and with tight leaves)
some onion, diced
2 generous tbsp of ricotta
salt, pepper
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First, I removed the outermost and thicker leaves and cut off the top of each artichoke, then I cut them in 2 and removed the choke (which will not be there if you use small artichokes).
I dropped them in water with lemon juice to prevent them from turning black.
Then I sliced them, and sauteed them together with the onion, some white wine, salt and pepper until tender.


At that point, I pureed the artichokes with the ricotta to obtain a relatively smooth cream.

For the dough you'll need :
200 g all-purpose flour
2 eggs (better if at room temperature)
a little water
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You have to make a well in the flour, add the eggs and mix them into the flour with a fork until they are completely blended.
When the dough becomes more consistent, knead the mixture with your hands until it is completely homogeneous. If too dry, add some water, if too sticky add some flour.
"A good dough should never stick to your fingers!" says the instruction booklet of my pasta machine.

And now, the rolling out!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cut out a piece of dough and cover the rest with a wet cloth.
Roll out the dough on setting number 1 of a pasta machine, three times, folding in thirds between each roll. Then roll through settings 2-9.


Try to match the pasta sheets as closely as possible by size.
Drop spoonfuls of filling on one sheet, leaving at least 1 1/2" between them. place another sheet on top and carefully press out the air around each mound.
Seal and cut between the ravioli (with a knife or a pasta cutter), then place them on a floured plate or sheet. Apparently it's better not to refrigerate them.
Repeat with each dough section until you're out of filling.


Cook the ravioli for 5-6 min in abundant, salted water. Since they are delicate, it's better to use a slotted spoon to remove them into a colander once they're ready.
You can serve them with butter, brown butter and sage, or a light tomato sauce. And parmesan, if you like it.

PS: I also tried a butternut squash filling for Thanksgiving, which was much appreciated!

Cardamartha

So I am not sure about you, but I don't really understand the whole cupcake fad. Don't get me wrong, cupcakes are great and all, but I often find that the mountain of frosting is just a bit much for me. The question is, why is there not a cookie fad? TV shows, food carts, hundreds of little shops opening up, all just about cookies? They are equally capable of incorporating a variety of different flavors. Following this thought, I started with the regular martha and then developed the spicy martha. Now, introducing the cardamartha! Cardamartha is just the basic recipe + cardamom.

Cardamom is great! Look:



In order to get the cardamom flavor into the cookie, I took two routes. First, I melted the butter separately from the chocolate and let it hang out with several while cardamom pods:



After a bit I removed the pods and then incorporated the chocolate and followed along with the rest of the recipe as usual. I think the next time I might even want to dry roast the pods a little before adding the butter.

Then after laying out the dough on the cookie sheet, I split open a few pods to get at the seeds which I then sprinkled on top of the cookies before putting them in the oven:



Unfortunately, the cookies got a little toasted, I think because I put them on the bottom rack of the oven. But they were still pretty delicious after scraping a bit of the bottom off.

Shakshouka

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Egypt I decided to look up some info on Egyptian cuisine. The dish that immediately caught my eye was shakshouka. Shakshouka seems to have originated in Tunisia but is popular throughout the Middle East, including Morocco, Egypt, and Israel. But the real reason I decided to make it was that it called for 6 eggs, allowing me to use up my egg farm share. Shakshouka = "a mixture" in Tamazight (a local language of North Africa according to Wikipedia) and is basically eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce.

Here I followed a recipe I found on the blog smitten kitchen, which has some great pictures.

Ingredients
1 onion
several cloves of garlic
2 poblano peppers
3 jalapeño peppers
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
28 oz can of whole pealed tomatoes
6 eggs
flat parsley
feta

1) Sauté the chopped onion, garlic, and peppers in olive oil until nice and soft.

2) Add the paprika and cumin and fry for about a minute longer.

3) While all this going on, put the tomatoes along with their liquid into a large bowl and squeeze until they are broken up as well as you can. This is the fun part.

4) Add the tomatoes and about half a cup of water. Simmer for about 10 until some of the liquid has reduced and everything
looks nice and ready. Salt to taste.

5) Poach the eggs in the tomato sauce. Do this by cracking the eggs and gently dropping into the tomato mixture, placing them uniformly around the pot like so:



6) Allow to simmer for a few minutes until it looks like the yolks are firming up a bit.

7) Carefully baste the egg whites with the liquid from the sauce until everything looks good.

8) Top with feta and the chopped parsley. I used quite a bit of both, and it was delicious!



9) Serve with toast or warm pita bread.

Chole Palak

Yesterday was my second shipment from the CSA (woo hoo another dozen eggs!!).

This time it included a whole bunch of spinach so I thought it'd be good to do something with it right away. Chole = chic peas, palak = spinach (not that I speak Hindi though...). I feel like at this point if you've read any of the past posts here, that is about all I need to say to explain the recipe. But just in case there are any late night bacon fans out there, I will go into the details.

One thing to note is that there can be quite a bit of variety on which aromatics and which spices you use. This time I only had some garlic and hot pepper (no onions or ginger) so I did without. I also skipped the usual curry leaves, and opted for some cumin seeds and the usual powdered spices. Here is more or less how it happened:

I also decided to experiment with the beets I got. I tried treating them like potatoes. Peeled, cubed, cumin seed fried with ghee, then some garlic and hot pepper. My roommate said the sweetness of the beets was rather in conflict with the heat and saltiness that I introduced, but I enjoyed it. Don't typecast the beets.

And now for listener mailbag!! Some good friends in Chicago made their own rendition of aloo saag (using spinach here rather than swiss chard which is a bit more proper), and it looked pretty delicious! Thanks guys!

Too Many Eggs Curry

So part of signing up for a CSA is that you have to cook with whatever you get. Mine currently includes a dozen eggs every two weeks, which is almost a dozen more eggs than I usually cook with. So how about egg curry?! I've seen this before, but never tried it. Not sure I got it quite right, but it wasn't bad.

This follows more or less the standard procedure:

0) Hard boil a few eggs (I had 3 of them left), cool, peel, and cut in half.

1) Fry 1 tsp black mustard seeds, 2 tsp cumin seeds, several curry leaves in 1 tbsp of ghee.

2) When the seeds start to pop, add in your minced garlic, ginger, and hot pepper, frying for a couple of minutes.

3) Toss in 3 medium-sized tomatoes, chopped, and some salt. Cover for a few minutes, letting the tomatoes cook down.

4) Mix in powdered spices and fry for another minute: 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp chile powder, 1 tbsp cumin powder.

5) Pour in about 1/2 a cup of coconut milk (I actually put in about twice this much which was probably a bit too much) and simmer for about a minute.

6) Throw in the sliced eggs and simmer for another, then serve on rice! I think the next time I make this I'll add in some potatoes to make it a bit more hearty.

Paneer Biryani + Spicy Martha

Paneer Biryani

I had a bunch of leftover rice from the other day and thought it would be a good time to make some biryani. I had only ever made shrimp biryani, but thought I would keep up with the vegetarian theme, and do some paneer biryani.

Use: 14 oz package of store-bought paneer
Do: Sauté the paneer cubes in 1 tbsp of ghee (or butter or canola oil). Once they start to brown, remove with a fork or slotted spoon, leave as much of the ghee or oil behind in the pan.

Use: 2 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp coriander seeds, several curry leaves

Do: Fry in the remaining ghee, adding more if needed.

Use: 1 medium onion, several cloves of garlic, several hot peppers, a hunk of ginger, all finely chopped.

Do: Add the aromatics once the seeds start of pop. Toss in a bit of salt, cover, and fry until the onions are soft.

Use: 1 tsp turmeric powder, 2 tsp chile powder, 1 tbsp cumin powder, 0.5 tbsp coriander powder

Do: Mix in the powdered spices and fry for another minute.

Use: 3 medium-sized tomatoes

Do: Toss in the chopped tomatoes, a bit of salt, and cover, allowing the tomatoes to cook down.

Use: 2 handfuls raw cashews, 1 handful raisins, about 0.5 cups of plain yogurt.

Do: Incorporate the cashews, raisins, and yogurt, and cook for a minute or two.

Use: 2 cups of cooked rice

Do: Incorporate the cooked rice into the mixture. Once it is fully mixed, and the paneer, stirring gently to avoid breaking up the paneer. Enjoy!

Spicy Martha

I decided to make a slight modification to the super chocolate cookies I made the other week by adding a bit of pasilla chile pepper and topping with a bit of cayenne.

The pasilla comes dried, so the first step is to reconstitute by soaking in water. Once they seem nice and soft, dry them off a bit and then chop.

I basically just incorporated the chopped pasilla into the melting butter and chocolate stage of the original recipe. Here is a visual version: