By Emily Moore, JTNews Correspondent
Chicken Sofrito! Duck Fesenjan with walnuts and pomegranate honey! Lamb braised with cinnamon, raisins and almonds! Meatballs in sour cherry sauce! All are fabulous and highly prized Sephardi recipes. Still, at the heart of Sephardic cooking is a core of wonderful, exotic and just as beloved vegetarian dishes.
With such an embarrassment of riches it would seem that overwhelming preparations would be in order. Yet a great many wonderful dishes are disarmingly simple. For example, probably the most popular of salads consist simply of a particular vegetable or two, roasted — as with peppers — or fried, as with eggplant — or raw — cucumbers and tomatoes — dressed with a little salt, a touch of garlic, a drizzle of lemon juice and a sprinkling of fruity olive oil. Then they are mixed and left to marinate in the bowl for and hour or two or overnight. What you sprinkle on top is a matter of taste and inclination; it could be black pepper or pine nuts, or maybe the spice mixture za’atar, a lovely blend of flavors made from toasted sesame seeds, wild thyme and sumac (a tart aromatic berry crushed into powder) and sold in Middle Eastern groceries.
A much more complex spice mix often used on salads is the Moroccan ras al hanout, made with more than 12 spices, including cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, black pepper, turmeric, cloves, nutmeg, dried peppers, fresh ginger, mace, dried lavender and dried rosebuds. You can also find it at Middle Eastern food stores. Or, just for the fun of it, toast and grind the spices yourself—you can make it up to your own taste as you go along. Here is another easy and aromatic salad for an appetizer or accompaniment:
Grated Cucumber Salad with Pistachios, Raisins and Yogurt
1-1/2 c. cucumber, peeled, seeded and grated
1-1/2 c. grated carrot, peeled
3 Tbs. chopped green onions
1 Tbs. chopped fresh dill (or 2 Tbs. dried)
3 Tbs. chopped Italian parsley
1/4 c. raisins, soaked in hot water 1/2 hour
1/4 c. toasted pistachios, roughly chopped
1 c. yogurt
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Reserve 1 Tbs. parsley, 1-1/2 Tbs. raisins and 1-1/2 Tbs. pistachios for garnish.
Mix together all the vegetables.
Mix in the raisins and pistachios.
Stir in the yogurt.
Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with olive oil.
Garnish with the reserved raisins and pistachios. Serve immediately.
Yield: 4 servings
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What makes this Syrian stuffed tomato recipe uniquely Jewish is the tamarind, a fleshy pod that is processed to a paste and added to dishes to give them a tart complexity. It’s avail-able in Asian and Middle Eastern markets.
Tomatoes stuffed with Rice, Raisins and Nuts
1 med. onion, chopped
3 Tbs. olive oil
1-1/4 c. short grain round or Italian arborio (risotto) rice
2 c. water
Salt and pepper
1 Tbs. tamarind paste
1-2 tsp. sugar
2 Tbs. chopped fresh mint or 2 tsp. dried
1/4 c. raisins
1/4 c. pine nuts or pistachios
8 large firm tomatoes
Fry the onion in the oil until golden.
Add rice and stir until well-coated and translucent.
Add the water, 1/2 tsp. (or as much as 3/4) salt, a few grinds of pepper, the tamarind and the sugar, and stir well to dissolve the tamarind.
Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes until the water is absorbed.
Stir in the mint, raisins and nuts.
Slice a cap off of the stem end of each tomato. Use a pointed spoon to scoop out the center and seeds. Fill with the stuffing and replace the caps.
Arrange in a shallow, lightly greased baking dish and bake at 350° for 30-40 minutes or until the rice is tender and the tomatoes are soft. Watch carefully to be sure that the tomatoes don’t fall apart before the rice is done.
Serves 8
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The Sephardic culinary world is filled with little baked turnovers variously called bourekas, sambusak, pasteles, burriche, or a handful of other names, depending on their country of origin. The dough is usually made with flour, oil and water and is so satiny that no flour is needed to roll it out. Scraps can be gathered together and rolled again with no loss of quality. My favorite dough uses butter and oil, which makes it easy to handle and gives it a tender texture.
The fillings are uncomplicated, ranging from potato, spinach or eggplant with cheese, to soft cheesy custards, to roasted eggplant with tomatoes. Because eggplant is the undisputed queen of Sephardi vegetables, I’ve chosen an eggplant filling with feta and kasheval or kasseri cheeses
Bourekas de Berengena
Dough:
1/2 c. butter or margarine
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. lukewarm water
1/2 tsp. salt
3 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
Combine melted butter, oil, water and salt in a medium-sized bowl and mix well.
Gradually stir in the flour to make a soft, slightly greasy dough. Mix only until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl; do not overmix. Gather the dough into a ball and cover with plastic wrap.
Let rest for 15–30 min. while making the filling.
Roasted Eggplant and Cheese filling:
2 large eggplants, pricked all over with a fork
4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
1 c. grated kasseri or kasheval cheese
2 large eggs
1/4 tsp. salt or to taste
Matzo meal (use a little only if the filling is very wet)
Beaten egg for glazing
Put the eggplants on a sheet pan and roast in a 400° oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the skin is very dark and the eggplants are very soft.
Cut the eggplants open and scrape out the flesh; place in a colander.
Let drain 15 to 20 minutes, squeezing with your hands occasionally to press out as much excess liquid as possible.
Chop the eggplant into small pieces (it will be quite mushy) and put into a bowl.
Blend in the feta and stir in the grated kasseri.
Beat the eggs well, add to the bowl and mix in well.
Taste for salt and season if it needs it.
Add a bit of matzoh meal to take up excess moisture if the filling is really runny.
To make the bourekas:
Roll the dough into 36 balls, each the size of a walnut.
With your fingertips and palms or with a rolling pin, flatten or roll each ball into an oval about 3×4 inches.
Put a scant tablespoon of filling on one side of the oval and fold the other side crosswise over the filling to form a half moon shape.
Pinch the edges well together — the characteristic closure is a pleated fold crimping the edges together all the way around the turnover, but you can crimp with the tines of a fork.
Place the bourekas one inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Brush the tops with beaten egg.
Sprinkle the tops with a little grated cheese if you want, prick once with a fork to allow steam to escape.
Bake at 375° for 30–35 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Serve hot or at room temperature. Bourekas freeze beautifully.
Yield: about 36 3” pastries
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Desserts and sweets are exquisitely made in the Sephardi world. Here is a delicate little cookie from Turkey and the Balkans.
Maronchinos
Preheat the oven to 350°
4 c. ground almonds
3/4 c. superfine sugar
2 or 3 drops almond extract
2 Tbs. rose water
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Confectioner’s sugar for the tops
Mix the almonds and sugar.
Add the extract, rose water and eggs and work to a smooth paste, using your hands.
Roll into walnut-sized balls and place on a parchment or waxed paper-lined baking sheet about 1-1/2 inches apart.
Flatten them slightly and bake for about 25 min or until just golden.
Let cool and dust with confectioner’s sugar.
Yield: about 30