Arabic Coffee Panna Cotta

Panna cotta is one of my all-time favorite desserts to serve when I’m having people over. It’s incredibly elegant, and, though it sounds fancy, shamefully easy to make (what your guests don’t know, won’t…). It’s one of those do-ahead-and-forget-about-it dishes that always comes out rich, creamy, and crowd-pleasing. I made this a few years ago for a massive Thanksgiving feast we had. The night before, I was struggling for time and a delicious dessert. I quickly whipped up the panna cotta mixture, poured it into champagne flutes, and was all set!

If you’ve ever had a cup of Arabic or Turkish coffee, that slightly menthol taste comes from cardamom. I grew up drinking coffee that was steeped with both cardamom and cinnamon, a tradition that’s found throughout the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (check out this recipe on the Republic of Brown!). To me, the combination of cardamom and coffee flavors is distinctively beautiful. In some versions, saffron and clove are added, but I kept it a bit simple here. Feel free to experiment.

What’s nice about panna cotta is that it requires zero baking. Simply heat up the liquid, infuse it with flavors, and use gelatin to work its magic while it cools in the fridge. Here, the heavy cream takes on the coffee, vanilla bean (the lovely specks!), cardamom, and cinnamon flavors. I don’t like mine super sweet, so taste and add more sugar if you need. A quick chill, some chocolate espresso beans (I’ve also used tasty amaretti cookies) for garnish, and that’s it…simple, luscious, decadent. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6

2 cups heavy cream

½ cup espresso or very strong coffee

½ vanilla bean, split and scraped

3 cardamom pods, split open w/seeds

1 cinnamon stick

¼ cup sugar

¾ envelope gelatin powder

chocolate-covered espresso beans, crushed (for garnish)

Procedure

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring heavy cream, coffee, vanilla bean, cardamom, cinnamon, and sugar up to a boil and immediately turn off the heat. (Be careful that it doesn’t boil over.) Cover and let steep for 5 minutes.

In a small bowl, ladle some of the heavy cream mixture. Add the gelatin powder, and whisk to dissolve completely. Pour the mixture back into the pot, and whisk to ensure even distribution. Strain mixture to remove whole spices and any leftover gelatin and pour into ramekins, espresso cups, or little pots de crème . Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of 5 hours.

Serve chilled with crushed espresso beans on top.

Egyptian Dukkah

If you’ve been following this blog at all you know (and for those who haven’t, here’s the rub…), I love when traditions, spices/spice blends or ingredients from other cultures make that easy transition across into our own. Something translatable, that takes foods we know and love to another level.

I am passionate about culturally unique specialties, and Egyptian dukkah is just that – a warm spice blend of sorts that includes the bonus of roasted nuts. It’s actually quite close to a West African tradition called tsire, another blend of nuts and spices (which I’ll have to write about soon) and is eaten in Egyptian culture much like za’atar is in other ones, with bread and a little olive oil.

Dukkah starts with a base of roasted nuts – usually hazelnuts but sometimes pistachios, almonds or cashews. To that, sesame seeds, coriander seeds, and cumin are added and occasionally even dried roasted chickpeas. Other spices might include black or red pepper, fennel, nigella seeds or caraway and, for herbs, mint, marjoram or thyme. A touch of salt, perhaps some sugar, a bit of pounding with a mortar and pestle (or, gasp, a spice grinder) and you have an incredibly textural, nutty blend that can top everything from bread to salads to pastas (how ridiculous would it be on top of pumpkin ravioli?!?).

Egyptians also eat dukkah with eggs, which is genius, because it’s the perfect topper for a simple Sunday scramble. I do love it on your basic mixed greens with a little balsamic and olive oil and can’t get enough of blending it with panko for breading chicken, fish or even lamb. I’m thinking my next experiment will be a little sweet potato hash with bacon and a sprinkling of this stuff…

Spicy Seafood Gumbo Pot Pie

Pot pie is one of those winter comfort foods that is really unmatched. A warm, creamy, thick (typically, chicken) soup-like interior with delicious vegetables topped or, better, encased in crusty, buttery pastry dough. It really wasn’t something I ate regularly growing up and always felt like such a treat.

I was trying to come up with a way to get the soul satisfaction of a pot pie but with a little more kick to it. I didn’t feel like going WAY spiced – say, with a Thai or Indian base – and yet I wanted something more. Gumbo immediately popped into mind, and that was it! All of those Creole spices, that rich thickness…gumbo pot pie was born.

I decided to go with all seafood because I actually created this recipe for some pescatarian friends of mine, but feel free to add some andouille (yum!) or whatever you like in there. I also cook the roux for this to a milk chocolate color (time saving…) though I know people who cook their roux for at least an hour and a half to get that super dark chocolate look. Finally, I make these individual-sized for fun and only put the pastry on top to keep it easy and, perhaps, slightly healthier. The gumbo is rich, spicy, hearty and has some heat to it (depending on your hot sauce and cayenne doses) and tastes amazing with bites of the pastry dough…Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields 12 8–ounce round ramekins

1 stick unsalted butter

¾ cup all-purpose flour

2 tbsps butter

3 cups chopped onion, small dice (approximately 2 medium onions)

1 cup chopped bell or small sweet pepper, small dice (approximately 4 or 5 small sweet peppers)

¾ cup chopped celery

Creole seasoning (recipe follows, a little over 4 tbsps)*

4 or 5 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup sliced okra

½ cup peas

6 cups of chicken, seafood or vegetable stock

a few dashes of Worcestershire

a few dashes of hot sauce

2 bay leaves

½ cup sliced green onion

small handful of cilantro, finely chopped

small handful of parsley, finely chopped

½ cup heavy cream

1 ¾ lbs mixed seafood (lump crab, rock or small shrimp, bay or small scallops, shelled lobster)**

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

lemon juice to taste

1 egg (beaten with a bit of cream or water)

2 sheets of puff pastry, thawed according to package directions

Procedure

Preheat oven to 400° F.

I like to start by making the roux since it takes some time to develop color. That is, melt butter in a heavy bottomed cast-iron pan (large enough) or dutch oven over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk. Continue to whisk at very frequent intervals (semi-constantly) for 15 to 20 minutes until the mixture has turned a deep chocolate brown. Be careful not to burn.

In a separate skillet, melt butter over medium-low heat and add onions and a bit of salt (to draw out the moisture). Cook for about 2 minutes and add peppers, celery and creole seasoning. Cook for another 5 minutes, add minced garlic and let cook for about 30 seconds to a minute until fragrant. Remove from heat, and, if the roux is ready (good timing!), add directly to the roux.

To the cooked roux, add the onion mixture as discussed, okra, peas, stock, Worcestershire, hot sauce and bay leaves. Make sure none of the roux is stuck to the bottom or in the crevices of the pot. Bring mixture up to a boil and lower to a simmer for 20 minutes. You want it to thicken up, so leave it uncovered.

On a floured surface, roll out the puff pastry to about 1/8th of an inch thick. Using pastry cutters or a glass that’s larger than the diameter of your ramekins, cut out 12 circles. I like to poke holes now while it’s on a flat surface, so use a fork to poke little holes or a knife to make a few slits in each circle.

To the gumbo, add the green onions, chopped herbs, seafood and heavy cream. Adjust seasonings at this point, adding salt, pepper and a shot or two of lemon juice, if needed. Ladle gumbo evenly into ramekins.

Brush the tops of the ramekins on the outside with the beaten egg. Place puff pastry circles on top, crimp to your desired effect, and brush entirely with the egg wash. Place ramekins on baking sheets and bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the top is brown and crusty.

*Creole Seasoning:

1 ½ tsps onion powder

1 ½ tsps garlic powder

1 ½ tsps dried oregano leaves

1 tsp dried sweet basil

1 ½ tsps dried thyme leaves

½ tsp black pepper

½ tsp white pepper

¼ – ½ tsp cayenne pepper (whatever you can stand!)

½ tsp celery seed

1 tbsp sweet paprika

½ tsp ground mustard

**For the seafood, I like to use small pieces for a few reasons. (1) The seafood has to fit into the ramekins with room for all of the other great stuff, and (2) I only put the seafood in right before it goes into the oven – small pieces will cook perfectly (without overcooking) and pre-cooked items, like crab, don’t turn to mush. If you are using larger shrimp or decide to do this in a casserole dish rather than individual ramekins, adjust your cooking time accordingly.

Black Garlic

I was wandering through Dean and Deluca with a girlfriend the other day looking for a bit of cooking inspiration when I came across black garlic. I’d been meaning to experiment with it for some time, so I nabbed a few bulbs. I love to see different ingredients getting more shine in places like this…they also had a bucketful of kaffir limes! Go Dean and Deluca.

There is definitely some mystic misperception out there about this stuff. Black garlic is high quality garlic that has been put through a temperature- and humidity-controlled fermentation process in its whole form. The result is an aging of sorts (not rotting!) and sweet, mellowed, tangy, molasses-like cloves that lack the acrid, sulphurous quality of typical raw garlic.

Many claim that this garlic has been used for centuries in Korean and Japanese cooking for its super high antioxidant levels (which it does have), but there’s no hard evidence to these historic claims. The black garlic we see in stores is thought to have been created in the last 10 years. Makes a nice story though.

To me, the sweet, almost tamarind-like sweetness is surprising! The jelly-like cloves don’t really need further cooking unless you are going to heat a little olive oil and infuse with the clove. Since black garlic isn’t the cheapest of ingredients, I plan to bottle the infused oil and keep around to serve with bread. Spread the flavor (and cost!) out. I pretty much use this where I would use roasted garlic – in sauces, pastas, mashes, dips…it’s delicious spread right on a bit of toast. Since I’m still experimenting, I’d love to hear if any of you have used it and how!

Valentine’s Day & Fig Sundaes

Valentine’s Day. It signifies different things to different people, and, for many, it’s completely meaningless. I think of it as a day to celebrate someone or people you love – partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, family, or friends. Since it’s coming up next week, I started to think about a menu from recipes on the site that would work well if you happen to be cooking for someone or even for a group. I also came up with a delicious dessert, vanilla sundaes topped with sweet wine-poached figs and toasted almonds – it’s light-hearted enough for an early paramour, fun for a family (sans wine for kids!), and all about love for that someone special.

I think a great Valentine’s menu would start with spiced sunchoke soup. Sunchokes are still in season, and this dish is an easy do-ahead one for an elegant starter. For the main course, I’d go with berbere-spiced lamb chops and freekeh with summer squash and brown butter (using winter squash, of course). The lamb is super easy. I like to sear ahead and then finish in the oven while everyone’s eating the starter. Also, the vegetables for the freekeh can be roasted a day ahead and reheated once thrown into the freekeh.

This dessert was very much an accident. I had eaten some beautiful sweet cheese-stuffed Turkish apricots that inspired me to do something similar with dried figs. I thought it would turn out artful and pretty, but my version sort of looked stuffy to me. The figs are cooked in a sweet white or dessert wine until glazed, and you end up with this honey-wine-fig-infused syrup. Drizzled over vanilla ice cream with the poached figs and a sprinkling of some toasted, nutty almond slices – heaven! If you ask me, a sundae as a Valentine’s Day dessert wins in my book. Oh, and figs and almonds also happen to be aphrodisiacs… Enjoy!

Ingredients

Serves 4

1 ½ cups Sauternes, Riesling, or any dessert/sweet white wine you like

½ cup water

2 tbsps sugar

2 tbsps honey

¼ tsp lemon zest

½ lb (8 to 10) dried figs (I used Calimyrna figs but Black Missions are also great)

1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted

vanilla ice cream

Procedure

In a saucepan, bring the wine, water, sugar, honey, and lemon zest to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes uncovered. Add the figs, cover and boil for another 10 minutes to plump up (they will significantly). Remove the cover and boil for another 10-15 minutes until the liquid reduces to a syrup consistency.

Top ice cream with figs, a drizzle of syrup, and a sprinkle of the toasted sliced almonds.

Za’atar Compound Butter

I had a few friends over a couple of Sundays ago to watch a game and was already making some of my lamb meatballs with a spicy yoghurt dipping sauce. Wine was a given with each girlfriend independently deciding to bring two (two!) bottles each, and I had a delicious, simple cheese plate going with a beautiful Parmigiano Reggiano, a French Double Cream Brie, a Jura Erguel, and some speck and olives from Murray’s Cheese.

I had that (way paranoid) feeling that I wasn’t serving enough stuff and (gasp!) that someone might leave hungry and remembered I had some parbaked French baguettes in the freezer. I came up with this butter to slather on some toasty, crunchy pieces of the baguette, and it was super simple and a quick fix.

I’ve mentioned za’atar previously, so I won’t go into the whole history of it. But it’s lovely on its own or mixed with a little olive oil to dip. The first four ingredients of my recipe below make your basic za’atar. I like to add a little roasted garlic, which you can omit if you want it simpler. Mix it all up with some room temperature butter, and you have a great compound butter. Nutty from the sesame, a bit tart from the sumac, earthy from the thyme – casual for a game night or elegant for a sit down dinner. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields approximately ½ cup compound butter

1 tbsp sesame seeds, black or white or some combination of both

1 tbsp dried thyme

1 tsp sumac

½ tsp salt

4 or 5 cloves roasted garlic (optional)

1 stick unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

Procedure

In a small skillet, toast the sesame seeds over medium-low heat until fragrant and slightly golden in color (for the white seeds).

Over a small bowl, place dried thyme in your palms and rub palms together to pulverize thyme and get oils going. Add toasted sesame seeds, sumac and salt and mix thoroughly.

Add roasted garlic, if using, and softened butter and mix until za’atar is evenly distributed.

Vadouvan, A French-Indian Curry Powder

Curry, to me, has always been something rather magical. My mom would throw down in the kitchen growing up, and, whenever she was making a curry, she would take out her spice daaba, a circular box that housed little cylinders within, holding tons of different spices. It was so mysterious to me at the time, the process of making a curry intimate, subjective, artful. She decided how much of one spice versus another – cumin, coriander, fenugreek – went into the specific curry. Tailored flavors.

For this reason, I pretty much never use pre-fab curry powders as I’ve mentioned in the past. EXCEPT, and this is a big one, when it comes to Vadouvan, a French-Indian style curry powder. Some believe the spice blend is from the Pondicherry region in South India where there’s a ton of French colonial influences. That’s unconfirmed, though, and vadouvan has popped up as a gourmet spice du jour here as well as in Europe.

Now, it’s not like you couldn’t also make this one on your own, but there are so many spices and quite a process involved. Garlic, shallots and onions give it a rounder flavor, ingredients like turmeric, fenugreek, cumin and coriander the signature curry flavor, curry leaves a delicious earthiness, and fennel seeds that licorice-like sweetness. To name a few….The spices are toasted before grinding and, in some, the onions/shallots fried before granulating. The result is a complex spice blend that is warm, a bit sweet, and a touch smoky.

The toasting of the spices takes away a lot of that raw flavor, so it’s good to go straight into yoghurt or an aioli to add incredible flavor. I love it as a dry rub on fish that I sear and finish with a bit of butter. Cooked up with onions and garlic, it’s delicious as a soup base for butternut squash or most other root veggies. I’m on a pot pie kick lately and have been debating throwing it into the mix for my next one. This blend is so versatile.

And, just for kicks, a picture of one of my dogs trying to get a little spice in her life…

Lamb Meatballs with Quince & Black Olives

Lamb with quince is a truly classic combination and features heavily in the cuisines of Morocco, Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, the Republic of Armenia, and throughout the Middle East. I recently had a stew with both that was the inspiration for this recipe – that perfect combination of sweet, tart, and textures along with the slow-cooked lamb was heavenly.

If you haven’t tried quince, it’s a hard, yellow, apple-looking fruit that is pretty tart. The ones in the East are sweeter and more palatable raw, but both truly mellow and deepen in flavor with cooking. I’ve been told beating them with a rolling pin helps bring the juices to the surface if you happen to be cooking them down for a jam or jelly. They are also positively delicious poached in wine with spices and sugar and served with a bit of cream.

I went for a meatball here because there was a game on and my husband and his friend were playing guinea pigs. These are, without a doubt, man-friendly. The quince jam adds the perfect touch of sweetness and acidity, and I threw in the black olives for a briny touch. I like to use both dried and fresh mint here because they offer different flavors, and I served these with a kicked-up, Greek yoghurt dip of sorts to add a bit of spice. I personally prefer my meatballs a bit softer and melt-in-your-mouth rather than firm, so these meatballs are super moist and tender with a bit of char from the browning. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Serves 6

3 shallots, chopped into chunks

5 garlic cloves

2 lbs ground lamb

2 scallions, finely chopped

2 tsps salt

2 ½ tsps cumin

¾ tsp paprika

½ tsp cayenne

½ tsp black pepper

2 ½ tsps dried mint*

½ cup black olives, pitted and finely chopped

1/3 cup quince jam

¾ cup plain breadcrumbs

2 egg yolks

8-10 mint leaves, finely chopped

handful of parsley, finely chopped

3 tbsp vegetable oil

Procedure

Preheat oven to 375° F.

In a food processor, pulse shallots and garlic until finely minced / almost a paste.

To a large mixing bowl, add the ground lamb and make a well in the center. Add shallot/garlic mixture and rest of the ingredients except the vegetable oil. Carefully, mix to ensure even distribution. I like to make a claw with my hands and fold over the meat mixture repeatedly. You don’t want to mash or over mix as it will make the meatballs tough.

Using wet hands, roll even-sized pieces of the mixture into balls until all of the mixture is finished. I make my meatballs about 1 ½ inches in diameter, so if you make yours larger or smaller, adjust the cooking time appropriately.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil and place meatballs into the pan. These brown pretty quickly, so I cook for about 30 seconds to a minute on each side. Work in batches so as not to overcrowd the pan, and place browned meatballs in a baking dish.

Once all have been browned, cover baking dish with foil, and place in the oven. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until cooked through but tender.

Serve warm alongside your favorite dipping sauce.

*For the dried mint, rather than putting it straight from the jar, I like to crush it between my palms and then dust it into the bowl. It helps to bring out the natural oils..

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