Kicky Beet Salsa

Oh Trader Joe's. You are truly the love of my life. I can go hog-wild buying stuff I don't actually need (every kind of nut seasoned with wasabi? Don't mind if I do) and never break $100. So when I saw these Horseradish-Cheddar Kettle Chips, I had to have them. It doesn't matter that I'm not a huge chip fan. It doesn't matter that I'm not really a snacker.

I. Had. To. Have. Them.

I grinned like a crazy person bringing my treasure out of the store. Then they sat on my self. And sat some more. They were still sitting a month and a half later.

Every time I looked at those chips I felt guilty. I felt like I was being a horrible partner to Trader Joe's. Every time I went in that store I could swear all the happy people in Hawaiian shirts would suddenly stop smiling and glare at me knowing that I wasted one of their marvelous creations without even trying it. They knew. Just like grandmas always know when you don't wear the sweater they knit for you, Trader Joe's knew.

It was time to remedy my guilt. So for a girl's scrapbooking night I came up with this salsa recipe to complement the chips. The two were delicious together. But here's a little secret: the salsa is delicious without the chips, too. The salsa was delicious on top of tilapia. It was delicious with lamb. Heck, it was delicious off a spoon when I waited too long to cook dinner and was ravenous before the timer went off.

It has the perfect amount of kick to it from the horseradish, but the beets lend plenty of earthy sweetness. So here's a recipe to "kick it up a notch." (I hate myself for saying that.)

Kicky Beet Salsa Instructions

yield: about 4 cups
   
1) Roast your beets

     Ingredients:
     4 small to medium beets

     Directions:
     a) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
     b) Slice off beet greens and wash beets.
     c) Place beets together in an aluminum foil packet. Place packet on a baking sheet.
     d) Bake packet for 50-60 min until the beets give slightly.
     e) Let beets cool enough that you can comfortably touch them.
     f) Rub off skin with your fingers.
     g) Roughly dice.

2) Mix your salsa

     Ingredients:
     3 tbsp. grated fresh horseradish or 2 tbsp. prepared horseradish
     1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
     salt to taste
     2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
     2 tbsp. minced shallots
     1/2 green apple (roughly diced)
     2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

     Directions:
     a) Place diced beets and all other ingredients in a food processor.
     b) Pulse in 1-second intervals about 20 times, stopping every 5 pulses to scrape down the sides.
     c) Alternatively, you can do all this without a food processor by chopping very finely.
     d) Empty into a container, cover, and chill at least 2 hours before serving.

3) Serve with chips, on fish, on chicken, on steak, on celery, on a spoon...

For a less messy (but perhaps not as pretty) salsa, you can use golden beets instead of red beets. It will taste the same.

Reef House Benedict

Although technically a part of Israel (depending on who you talk to it's sometimes called the West Bank), Palestine is separated from Israel with a guarded fence.  My friend Jamie, my thesis advisor Jaime, and I boarded a bus from Jerusalem and made the 2 hour trek to cover the 13.5 miles between Jerusalem, Israel and Ramallah, Palestine.  We went through checkpoints, showed our passports and visas, etc.  It was intense.

Jaime, me, and Jamie visiting Aida Refugee Camp.  The massive amount of trash you see behind us was a continuous theme in Palestine.  So sad.

We spent a pleasant evening smoking hookah and learning about the situation between Israel and Palestine from a friend-of-a-friend who happened to be working in Ramallah at the time (hi Tochi!) before turning in to a pension my advisor had found.  All the reviews of the Reef House Pension said that the owners (George and Iman) are the nicest people in the world.  This was not far from the truth (although people in Palestine were generally friendly and helpful).  The next morning Iman greeted us with an amazing breakfast spread, which she said was a typical Palestinian breakfast.  It included tomatoes, cucumbers, this bologna-like meat, a hardboiled egg, thick and tart yogurt, brine-y sheep cheese, hummus, tahini, olives, and flatbread with harissa, sweet olive oil, and za'atar for seasoning.  I can't begin to describe how delicious this was.  In fact, I think that the food in Palestine made up 3 of the best meals I ate while in the Middle East.

After breakfast we packed our bags, thanked George and Iman, and headed first to Taybeh to taste Palestine's only craft beer and then to Bethlehem to see the Church of the Nativity and to talk to people living in the Aida refugee camp.  Although I could go on and on and on about this part of my summer trip, I will suffice to say that I left with my eyes opened a little wider and my heart a little larger.  I think this trip was important, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Taybeh beer-- hooray beer!

A tribute at the entrance of Aida Camp to dead Palestinian prisoners of war.

Reef House Benedict Instructions

1) Prepare the tahini hollandaise.

     Ingredients
     2 egg yolks
     Juice of 2 lemons
     2 tbsp. tahini
     1/4- 1/2 tsp. harissa paste (this is a hot Arabic spice paste that you can get in Middle Eastern grocery stores, the Arabic section of Whole Foods, or on amazon.com)

     Directions
     a) In a very small pan, heat tahini over med-low until it is hot.  Be careful and stir often because it will burn if left unattended or heated over too high of heat.
     b) Put your egg yolks, harissa, and lemon juice in a food processor or blender and blend until fully combined and slightly foamy.
     c) While blending, very slowly drizzle the hot tahini through the hole in the top of the food processor or blender.  Take your time with this-- it should take between 1-2 minutes to get all the tahini in the bowl of the processor.  You want to do this slowly so that you don't scramble your egg yolks.

As you can see if you look closely, I added the tahini too fast and some of it stuck to the side of the blender.  You don't want to do this so make sure to drizzle it super slowly!

     d) Keep the hollandaise warm over a double-boiler set on low heat.  Make sure to whisk it every couple of minutes to keep it emulsified, and add water as needed to maintain a good hollandaise consistency.

2) Get your ingredients completely prepared to assemble the benedicts.  I can't stress enough how important this is because you don't want to be fiddling this stuff while poaching your eggs or else you can easily over-poach the eggs.

     Ingredients
     4 pieces Middle Eastern flatbread (I was lazy and bought mine at Trader Joe's.  If you're ambitious enough to make your own flatbread, there's a really good looking Palestinian flatbread recipe here.)
     High-quality feta cheese (I get mine at Trader Joe's; there's a brand called Pastures of Eden that I love)
     4 small tomatoes, preferable campari or similar varieties
     Extra Virgin Olive Oil for drizzling
     1/4- 1/2 cup hummus (I make my own following this recipe from Smitten Kitchen)
     za'atar (you can buy this at a Middle Eastern grocery store or on amazon.com)

     Directions
     a) Warm the flatbread by wrapping it in a damp towel and placing it in a 200 degree oven.
     b) Slice the feta so that you have 4 slices that are each 1/8-1/4 inch thick--slices should be big enough to cover a piece of flatbread.  If you need, cut more slices and place them side-by-side.
     c) Slice the tomatoes into about 6 slices per tomato.
     d) Get out hummus, EVOO, and za'atar so that they're all in easy reaching distance.

3) Get your poaching equipment ready.  You'll need a 10-12" high sided skillet filled with water to 1/2-1" from the top of the skillet, 2 tbsp. white or apple cider vinegar in that water, a plate that can withstand heat placed at the bottom of the skillet (so that your eggs will never touch the heat), 4 eggs, a small saucer, and a slotted spoon.  Heat your water to gently simmering.

4) When your water is just about to start simmering, prepare your benedicts.

     Directions
     a) Place each warm flatbread on a separate plate.
     b) Spread each flatbread with 1-2 tbsp. hummus.
     c) Lightly drizzle olive oil over hummus.

     d) Place cheese across hummus.
     e) Place tomatoes on top of cheese.

5) Poach those eggs!

     Directions
     a) Crack an egg onto a saucer, and then slide the saucer in your simmering water.
     b) Do this for one other egg.  If you can poach all 4 eggs at once, kudos to you, but I've only ever been able to do 2 at a time.
     c) Set your timer for 2 minutes.
     d) While you're waiting for the eggs to cook, keep the water moving by lightly moving your spoon around the perimeter of the skillet (you don't want the eggs to come in contact with heat from the pan or to rest on the bottom--the plate helps with this).
     e) Check your eggs for doneness at 2 minutes-- it may take up to 3 minutes to finish so pay really close attention for the 60 seconds in between.  Once your eggs look like the whites are of appropriate firmness, remove with slotted spoon and put one egg on top of each benedict.
     f) Top with tahini hollandaise and a sprinkle of za'atar and dig in!

My friend Jamie, who traveled to Palestine with me, said that this reminded her so much of the breakfast we had at the Reef House Pension.  Success!

Te'meitov Pai (Tomato Pie)

This summer (in addition to traveling to Egypt) I had the unique opportunity of getting to go to Israel to present research at the International Society of Political Psychology Conference. That's right-- somehow academics have convinced universities that preparing and giving a 30 minute research presentation is enough work to justify the university paying hundreds of dollars for a plane ticket, hotel room, etc. After my presentation I got to lay on the beach in Tel Aviv. Suckers.

Not to say that it was all play. I certainly sat in my fair share of talks, learned a lot about Middle Eastern politics, traveled to various parts of Israel and the West Bank to learn about the politics firsthand, and I did lots of research. For this blog. Food research.

One of the places I went was called Blackout Restaurant. It's in Old Jaffa in Tel Aviv, and it is a restaurant run entirely by blind people. It is also one of those restaurants where you eat in the dark. Pitch black. It's meant to help you pay more attention to your senses of taste, texture, and smell, but if you need to go to the restroom during the meal, you're screwed.

The view of Old Jaffa from Tel Aviv

As were many restaurants in Israel, this restaurant was kosher, so a meal could either have fish in it for 2 courses (and no dairy in the dessert) or cheese in it for 3 courses (and no meat products). I opted for 3 courses of cheese (because...cheese). One thing I loved about this restaurant is that although they provided a menu, one could also request "chef's choice" and was likely to get food that was not on the menu at all. In this case, the waiters and waitresses loved making guests guess their food after eating it.

My first course consisted of a delicious savory pastry; fresh, warm tomatoes; a handful of fresh herbs; and a soft, melted cheese. It turned out to be a potato and cheese latke with quick marinara sauce. I have to admit that I had no idea the pastry was potato, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I love potatoes and would have been happy with the potato tasting like a potato. And when I cook I want potato to taste like potato. 

So here's a recipe where I tried to recreate the flavors and textures of that first course. Instead of trying to make the original latke, I channeled my memory of that meal into baking this traditional Southern tomato pie.  Southern Israeli tomato pie.

Te'meitov Pai Instructions

Time beginning to end: 2.5-3 hours

1) Prepare an olive oil pie crust. I used a recipe from the book Gluten-Free on a Shoestring by Nicole Hunn, but the recipe is also available here. To make this pie crust, I used King Arthur gluten-free all purpose flour, but I ran out of that halfway and used the Trader Joe's gluten-free all purpose flour in addition. The King Arthur flour is preferable. If you are not gluten-free, there's a pretty decent oil pie crust recipe from allrecipes that you could use instead (but make sure the oil is extra virgin olive oil). Make sure the pie crust is super thin when you roll it out (definitely divide the recipe into two pieces and only use one piece) because otherwise instead of being flaky the crust is just hard as a rock. 

     Ingredients

     2 cups gluten-free all purpose flour

     1 tsp. xantham gum

     1 tsp. kosher salt

     5 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil (Greek ones tend to be closer in flavor to the stuff from Israel)

     1 1/2 tsp. white wine vinegar

     1/2 to 3/4 cup cold water

Three years ago I dated a guy that was completely spoiled by his mother and grandmother. Because of their doting, he became a homemade pie fanatic and a pie crust snob. I hate using my rolling pin, but finding these pie crust rolling bags saved my life in the quest to make a pie crust he wouldn't complain about. We broke up before I did that, and I happily abandoned my quest. However, the bags are really helpful for making gluten-free crusts because they let you roll the perfect size, they let you roll a very thin circle, and they are non-stick.

One more word of caution: the pie crust will likely break. Don't be afraid to piece it back together in the pan. Squeeze the broken pieces in together and use a wet finger-tip to seal seams.

You can see here how it breaks. Use leftover bits to fill in any gaps.

2) Pre-bake the pie crust. Prick the crust all over with a fork to allow ventilation. Cut a piece of aluminum foil or parchment paper in a circle and put on the bottom with rice, beans, or pie weights to weigh down the crust. Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Set aside on a wire rack to cool.

3) Prepare your filling. I adapted one from the blog frommaggiesfarm.

  

     Ingredients

     2 lbs. of ripe tomatoes (cherry and campari work well) in multiple colors

     salt

     1/3 cup chopped red onion

     1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

     1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

     2-3 minced garlic cloves

     2 tbsp. lemon zest

     1 tsp. sumac (available at a Middle Eastern grocery store or on Amazon.com)

     1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

     Directions

     a) Slice tomatoes to about 1/2 inch thick. Layer them in a colander. Lightly salt each layer. Allow collander to sit in the sink for about 30 minutes.

     b) Chop other ingredients while you wait.

     b) Rinse the tomatoes and dry them thoroughly with paper towels. You want to squeeze the tomatoes as you dry to get the seeds and goopey insides out. Soggy tomatoes=soggy pie.

If you look closely, you can see tomato guts all over. For the yellow cherry tomato halves, I actually had to squeeze the innards out of each one as though you're popping a pimple (gross, I know, but now you can imagine EXACTLY what it should look like) and then blot with the paper towel.

     c) Toss the tomatoes, red onion, mint, parsley, garlic cloves, lemon zest, sumac, and pepper together in a large bowl until thoroughly mixed.

     d) Arrange the tomatoes in the pie crust. You can layer them to make them look pretty, or you can dump them in, making sure to leave a crater in the middle of the pie to accommodate your cheese topping.

This was meant to illustrate the crater in the tomatoes which you will fill with cheese mixture. Not sure it really did that, but it looks pretty!

4) Prepare your topping.

     Ingredients

     1/2 cup feta cheese (I like one available at Trader Joe's-- it is made in Israel and uses sheep's milk)

     3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt (nonfat works fine)

     1/4 olive oil mayonnaise (Here's a great recipe to make your own, but olive oil mayo is now widely available at normal grocery stores as well as health food stores)

     

     Directions

     a) Combine all ingredients.

     b) Spread on top of the pie, leaving a 1" circle of tomato visible around the edges

5) Bake the pie at 350 degrees F for 50-60 minutes until the cheese starts to brown and bubble. You may want to cover the crust halfway with a pie shield or aluminum foil.

6) If desired, pit some Souri olives (or substitute for more commonly found Calabresi olives) and put on top of the pie. Just don't ever feed canned olives to an Israeli because Israelis take their olives seriously. Plus all Israelis serve in the army, so you don't want to tick of an Israeli with crappy olives.  Serve pie warm if possible, but this pie is still quite tasty cold.

I took this to a BBQ where one of my friends in attendance has celiacs.  She really appreciated having food she could eat, but everyone else there raved about it, too. No one could tell it was gluten-free!

Taiym!  Translation: nom nom nom.