Tabbouleh with a Twist

Tabbouleh is an Arabic dish comprised of bulgur and fresh herbs and vegetables. It is served as part of a mezze (Middle Eastern appetizers) and can also accompany many dishes as a refreshing side dish. I decided to give the classic tabbouleh a small twist, by omitting the cucumber and combining it with a salad that my grandmother used to make to accompany heavy meals. The salad included roasted eggplant, parsley, tomatoes, lots of garlic and lemon juice. Combining these two dishes together worked very nicely. The dish has some bright flavors of garlic, lemon and salt, and I love it!

Ingredients:
1 cup coarse bulgur
2 medium eggplants
2 large tomatoes, diced
6-8 small cloves garlic, minced
½ cup parsley leaves, chopped
Juice from 1 large lemon (or 1 ½ if you are me)
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt

Preparation:
Place the bulgur in a medium bowl. Cover with boiling water, about 3 inches above the bulgur, and let sit for 20-30 minutes. Drain to remove excess water.

Place the eggplants on a baking sheet and roast under the broiler or on the grill. Poke the eggplant with a knife in several places to prevent it from exploding when on the grill. Let the skin get charred, then turn the eggplant 90 degrees and roast until charred. Repeat the process until the eggplants are well charred all around. Remove from the heat and leave on the side to cool.

When cool enough to handle, scoop out the meat of the eggplants, using a spoon. Chop the meat on a cutting board. I also like to chop a little bit of the charred skin. It adds a great smokey flavor to the eggplant.

In a large bowl combine all the ingredients and mix together. Let sit for 30 minutes to allow the bulgur to absorb the flavors.

Cabbage Puff Pastry Roulade

An easy and fun appetizer for a festive meal, that can also serve as a main dish with some salad on the side. This year this appetizer will be part of our Rosh HaShanah table. Rosh HaShanah is the Jewish new year and usually we celebrate it with different edible blessings. One of the main blessings is for us to be the head and not the tail or in other words we are wishing to be leaders and lead by example. The food which symbolizes this blessing is the head of a cow or lamb (cheek meat) and in some communities it is the head of a fish. This year, though, as we turned vegan, we can’t do either, so we decided to be creative and use a head of cabbage. Hence the following recipe. For more about Rosh HaShanah recipes check my Rosh HaShanah Blessings and Recipes.

Wishing a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year to all who celebrate!

Ingredients:
1 large onion, thinly sliced
4 tbs oil
½ cabbage head, thinly shredded
12 mushrooms, sliced
1 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp paprika
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
1 package frozen Puff Pastry sheets (2 sheets)
Sesame/nigella seeds (optional)

Preparation:
In a large saucepan heat the oil and sauté the onion until translucent. Add the cabbage and keep sautéing, while stirring occasionally, until cabbage is wilted and slightly seared.

Add the mushrooms and the spices and give the dish a good stir.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for about 15-20 minutes, covered, until the cabbage and mushrooms are very soft, and all the liquid evaporated from the pot. If there are liquids left, remove the cover and raise the heat to let all liquid evaporate.

Remove from the heat and set aside.

Defrost the frozen puff pastry at room temperature for about 40 minutes. The dough should be defrosted but cold enough to handle, otherwise it’s too hard to work with.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Place one of the pastry sheets on a work surface and roll it out to a rectangle. Place ½ of the chilled cabbage filling in the middle of the sheet lengthwise, to create a cylinder. Fold the short side edges of the dough on top of the filling, then fold the top and the bottom edges, one on top of the other, to close the roulade.

Place the roulade, sim down, on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and repeat the process with remaining ingredients.

You may brush the top of the roulades with egg wash and sprinkle sesame or nigella seeds on top.

Bake in the preheated oven until the roulades turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and chill for a few minutes before serving.

Gondi Nochodi

This recipe may look like Matzah ball soup, but it is actually a Jewish Persian dish, very popular among Persian Jews.  It is made of ground chicken and chickpeas.

Gondi, is perhaps the single most unique food to the Jews of Iran. While Persian Jews have over the centuries adopted the Persian cuisine in their kitchen (kosher style, of course), Gondi has been one of their few culinary innovations that they can claim as their own.

It is usually served as an appetizer together with Sabzi – raw green vegetables including tarragon, basil, mint, and radishes. In our home, we used to eat it as a main dish.

Ingredients:
5-6 oz roasted chickpea (found in Middle Eastern grocery stores)
1 lb ground chicken breast
2 large onions, shredded
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp black pepper
¼ cup canola oil or rendered chicken fat
4 tsp rose water (found in Middle Eastern grocery stores)
Homemade chicken soup (recipe follows) or 8 cups of good chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
In a food processor, grind the roasted chickpeas only until they turn into crumbs. Be careful not to over grind it. You don’t want chickpea flour. You may find chickpea already coarsely ground in Middle Eastern grocery stores. Do not buy chickpea flour. It is too powdery.

Place the chickpea crumbs in a large bowl. Add all other ingredients except for the chicken soup, and mix well by hand, until mixture is well combined.

In a large saucepan, bring the chicken soup to a boil. If needed, add salt and pepper.

Make plum size balls of the chickpea mixture, and add them gently, one by one, to the soup. If the balls stick to your hands, use a small bowl with water to wet your hands lightly.

Lower the heat to medium and cook for about 30 minutes.

Place 1-2 balls in a soup bowl, add some soup and serve.

Chicken soup

2 lb chicken bones (necks, backs) or other parts
8 cups water
1 large onion, quartered
1 small bunch cilantro
4 carrots, peeled and sliced into ¼ inch rings
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 tsp turmeric
2 tbs chicken soup powder

Place the chicken in a large saucepan. Cover with 8 cups of water and bring to a boil. Using a large spoon, clean all the foam formed on the water.

Lower the heat to medium and add the onion, carrots, cilantro, and spices and cook for about an hour, covered.

Discard of the cilantro. You may use the soup as is to cook the Gondi dumplings in, or you may strain it, and have a clear broth for the Gondi.

Gondi is served with a plate of fresh green herbs such as basil, tarragon, mint, and sliced radishes.

Mediterranean Medley

Eggplants, zucchini, bell peppers, basil, olive oil and garlic….couldn’t get more Mediterranean then that.

This wonderful dish can be served as a salad or as a side dish, warm or at room temperature. It is at its best a day after preparing it as the flavors combine into a cohesive dish.

Ingredients:
2 eggplants, cut into 1 inch cubes
3 zucchinis, cut into 1 inch cubes
3 bell peppers
Olive oil for drizzling
4 cloves garlic, minced
5 sprigs basil (1 cup)
3 tbs white vinegar
2 tbs olive oil
Salt

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400F.

Place the cubed eggplants and zucchini on a baking sheet, drizzle with some olive oil and bake for about 20 minutes, until eggplants are golden. Remove from the oven and chill.

Place the whole bell peppers on a baking sheet. Set the oven to hi broil and roast the peppers until skin is charred. Turn the peppers and char them all around. Remove from the oven and place in a pot with a lid to let the peppers sweat. When cold enough to handle, peel the skin off the peppers and remove the stem and the seeds. Cut the peppers into strips.

In a large bowl, place the roasted eggplants, zucchini and peppers.

Cut the basil leaves into thin strips and add to the bowl.

Add the garlic, vinegar, olive oil, and salt, and toss the salad well.

Keep refrigerated overnight or at least 4 hours before serving, to let all flavors come together.

Cauliflower, Asparagus, Pea, and Herb Salad

This salad was born as I was making it. As I was roasting the cauliflower with the idea of making some kind of salad, I was exploring the options in my head. I wanted to add texture and flavors that would complement a Moroccan lamb dish we made for Passover dinner. I wanted the salad to be refreshing and not too packed with flavors as the lamb was already very flavorful. And I had to use what I already had in the fridge. The result is a refreshing, delicious salad that can accompany any meat, chicken, or fish dish, as the flavor is mild and lends itself to a wide variety of flavors.

Ingredients:
1 medium head cauliflower
1 cup frozen green peas
7 asparagus spears
½ cup chopped green onion
½ cup chopped mint
½ cup chopped cilantro
½ cup chopped parsley

Vinaigrette:
½ cup olive oil
3 tbs red wine vine
1 tsp Dijon mustard
¼ tsp salt
¼ black pepper

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400F.

Cut the cauliflower into small florets, and place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with some salt and drizzle a little oil on top. Roast in the preheated oven until cauliflower has soften, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Remove 2 inch of the bottom of the asparagus and slice the spears on an angle into 2 inch pieces.

In a medium saucepan, place the asparagus and the peas. Fill the pot with water just to cover the veggies and bring to a boil on high heat. Cook for 2 more minutes, then remove from the heat.

Transfer the asparagus and peas to a bowl filled with ice water, to stop the cooking process and retain the green color of the veggies. Remove the veggies from the bowl once cold.

In a large bowl, combine the roasted cauliflower florets, peas, asparagus, and the chopped herbs.

In a small jar combine the ingredients for the vinaigrette. Closed the jar with the lid and shake well until the dressing emulsifies.

Pour the dressing over the salad and mix it in well.

Savory Parmesan Cookies

Warning – these cookies are addictive!!!

They are excellent as hors d’oeuvres and go great with drinks. I like to make them for large gatherings, because they are very easy to make so you can make a nice amount of them, and everyone is super impressed. Usually, though I need to make a double batch because the wonderful cheesy aroma gets my hubby and kids out of their rooms and brings them to the kitchen. Everyone wants to have just a bite as soon as the cookies come out of the oven, and before we know it a whole baking tray is gone… People will stalk you for the recipe, so be prepared to hand out copies, or better yet, refer people to my blog 🙂 .

The recipe below is a base upon which you can build. And it’s really fun because every time you can make it slightly different and you get a different flavor. You may change the parmesan cheese with kashkaval, cheddar, or any other sharp flavored cheese. Or mix a bunch of cheeses together. You can also incorporate any seeds or spices that you like in or around the dough, such as poppy, mustard, nigella, sesame, paprika, smoked paprika, black pepper, cumin…you name it.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
½ tsp salt
8oz soft butter
6oz shredded parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 egg beaten with a little water (egg wash)
Toppings of choice: poppy seed, sesame, zaatar, nigella seeds

Preparation:
Place the flour, salt, butter, cheese, and one beaten egg in a mixer bowl equipped with the guitar attachment. Mix the ingredients to form a cohesive dough.

Divide the dough into three pieces and roll each piece into a 2inch thick log. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes, or until dough in frozen.

In a small tray, place your topping of choice.

Remove the dough logs from the freezer. Brush each log with the egg wash, then roll it in the topping, making sure it is fully covered.

Slice into ½ inch slices and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

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Bake in a 360F preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the cookies are slightly golden.

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