Category — Recipes

Tea and crumpets, toad-in-the-hole, bangers and mash. All conjure up the London damp, but surely there is no food more English than Marmite. Please check out my ode to the sticky substance in National Public Radio’s Kitchen Window.

photo Dan Huntington

Really? Pomegranate molasses? You’re just hearing about this now? True, that somehow once the NYT discovers something it suddenly exists (see Mark Bittman’s paean to “yogurt cheese“  last week. ‘What,’ you may ask, ‘is yogurt cheese?” Turns out that it’s actually labne, a strained yogurt that people in the Middle East have been eating for breakfast for about 3,200 years (yes, I made that number up). I’ve eaten it all my life, and yet I couldn’t tell what it was until I read the whole piece. “Yogurt cheese,” indeed….)

Anyway, pomegranate molasses. I’m glad the white guys at the NYT have finally discovered it, but they’re way too late. First, pomegranate molasses has been all over the Internet and the Food Network for at least a year now (swear on my kibbe: Bobby Flay made a pomegranate molasses turkey or some such thing). And second, pomegranate molasses is, like, sooooo 2009….

I hereby declare the NEXT hot ethnic ingredient to be date molasses. Basically dates reduced down to a syrup, date molasses imparts a complex, fruity sweetness to yogurt, dressings, baked good and basting sauces. And just to prove it, I’m referring you back to my knock-out recipe for my Tangy Middle Eastern Salad (date molasses in the dressing). Look for it in Middle Eastern groceries — cuz it ain’t in Safeway yet. And remember, you heard it here first.

(p.s. when you go to the salad recipe, try substituting kumquats for the clementines. DEEEEE-licious!! Dried figs also work in place of dates….)

Nobody loves turkey sandwiches more than me. Big thick swipe of mayo across really good crusty bread…slightly warm….crunchy salt….yum. But chances are you’ve got more turkey than bread left over today. Here’s a recipe from my Sittau (grandmother) for turkey stew. I never asked her about this, but looking at it, I’m pretty sure she lifted it from a lamb recipe that involves braising a leg of lamb and smothering it in peas and tomato. Serve this stew very hot with lots of saffron-infused rice, cooked with lots and lots of rendered butter….The recipes for both of these dishes are in my uncle’s cookbook, A Taste of Syria.

Alice Kayal’s Turkey Stew

Total Time: 30 minutes

Active time: 5 minutes

Serves: 4

1 (14.5 oz) can crushed tomatoes

1 cup chicken stock

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 cups cubed, cooked turkey

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1 package (16 oz) frozen green peas

1 tablespoon butter

Combine tomatoes, stock and lemon juice in a heavy-bottomed pot. Mix well. Cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Add the turkey, salt and allspice. Heat through, then add the peas and butter and return to a simmer.

Serve over rice.

photo from Holiday Eats