Here’s a quick recipe in honor of the Nine Days before Tisha B’Av. It is traditional in this time to eat foods associated with mourning, to avoid meat, and to avoid alcohol, all in honor of the destroyed Temples – and for many modern Jews, other tragedies as well. Garlic has an interesting duality in traditional Jewish cuisine – it is simultaneously a food of pleasure for Shabbat but also traditional for mourning, along with eggs and lentils. I haven’t found very much on the Jewish history of cashews, but I do know that they are frequently found in the cuisines of Brazilian and Indian Jewry.
Cashew and Garlic Spread
Serves 10-20
6oz/170g raw cashews
2 cups water
16 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon table salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
Soak the cashews in water for fifteen minutes. Then, drain the cashews.
You can optionally saute the garlic cloves whole in the olive oil and then save both. Or you can use them raw for a stronger flavor.
Put all the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth but with some chunkiness. I have a hand-crank food processor and find that I can better get the consistency I want with that. You will get a smoother product more quickly with an electric food processor.
Let it sit for ten minutes before serving. It will keep for up to a week refrigerated.
Thank you to Alex Cooke, Jonathan Bressler, Rebecca Galin, Berakha Guggenheim, Akiva Lichtenberg, and David Hughes-Robinson for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
Pickled kohlrabi and turnip. (Photo mine, July 2017)
It finally happened: I made pickles. It is such a Jewish category of food – and so tasty – and I had simply skipped it. No longer.
Jews have been preserving food since Jews have … been Jews. The pickles that we enjoy today are all ultimately related to methods of food preservation from ancient times. In the Ancient Near East, people Jewish and non-Jewish alike dried, salted, and fermented foods for long-term use. (Some ancient ferments like feseekh in Egypt are still with us today.) Cabbage has been fermented in Eastern Europe since ancient times, and foods have been preserved in vinegar or whey from Iceland to India to Ethiopia since at least the medieval era. As salt became cheaper because of colonialism and expanded trade networks, pickling in Europe and North Africa became far more affordable and thus common. New pickles often joined existing pickles and preserved foods – pickles eggplants alongside preserved lemons in Morocco, pickled radishes alongside sauerkraut in Eastern Europe, pickled herring alongside … other pickled herring in Germany. The invention of the boiling water bath certainly helped. By the early 19th century, a scepter was haunting Europe – the scepter of many preserved vegetables.
Even today, each Jewish community’s pickles have a strong toehold on Jewish tables around the world. In Ashkenazi communities, cucumber pickles are found seemingly everywhere – at Shabbat tables, in sandwiches, as snacks. In the United States, the “kosher dill” pickle has transcended ethnic boundaries to become something of a regional food in the Northeast. (I remember a Catholic friend from New Jersey who brought back a jar to the United Kingdom from a visit home.) In other countries, but especially France and Israel, meanwhile, many preserved Mizrahi foods are popular: pickled eggplants from Iraq, preserved lemons from Morocco, and preserved onions from everywhere among them. Today, in any food shop catering to Israeli expatriates, you can find cans of Kvutzat Yavne pickles for sale. At all stages of assimilation and cultural and culinary change, pickles have accompanied Jews for the ride – even if the pickles themselves have changed.
In an age of mass pickling and a stronger food supply (both of which are good things), fewer people are pickling. I do not hold by arguments that something is lost here: let’s not romanticize a past in which death by food poisoning was common and nutrition more lacking than today. This is a view that Rachel Laudan correctly described as ahistorical in her wonderful book Cuisine and Empire. What is true, though, is that pickling is a lot of fun. The work is satisfying, and a new generation of millennial picklers are bringing new flavors to the table. Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern, for example, included not only classical Ashkenazi cucumber pickles and sauerkraut in their book The Gefilte Manifesto, but also kimchi-like sauerkraut and shallots in red wine. Not authentic at all, totally Jewish, and stunningly delicious. Other cultures, too, are playing with their pickles – I recently found a recipe for Iranian torshi that used Fuji apples!
In this recipe I used some pickling spices from South Africa. The blend includes turmeric and paprika, which lend the pickles I made a spicy undertone and a bright color. You, of course, can have your pickles as plain as possible. Remember to use the freshest vegetables for the best flavor. This recipe is very easy since the fermentation and preservation all take place in the refrigerator. This recipe is suitable for canning – remember to follow safe canning guidelines.
Happy Pickling!
Easy Refrigerator Pickles
Makes one quart
2 cups chopped and peeled vegetables (I used kohlrabi and turnips for one pickle, onions for another, cucumbers for another, and lettuce – yes, lettuce – for the last. The recipe is easily scalable.)
1 cup water
1 cup vinegar (any should do)
1 tablespoon coarse salt (do not use table salt)
1 tablespoon pickling spices of choice (optional)
Wash thoroughly and dry a liter- or quart-sized container with a lid. This can be a jar, Tupperware, former peanut butter vessel… you name it.
Stuff the chopped vegetables into the container, leaving room between them and at the top for the brine.
In a saucepan, blend the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. This makes the brine.
When the brine is boiling, stir again, then turn off the heat.
Ladle the brine into the container with the vegetables until full, leaving a bit of space at the top. Close the container completely.
Place the container in the back of the refrigerator for three days at least before eating. The pickles keep for up to six weeks.
Remember to can safely if you can!
Thank you to Evan Bialostozky and Jessie Thompson for selling me the vegetables used in this recipe.
There are some Ashkenazi Jewish dishes that I can easily explain to people who are not familiar with that style of cooking. Kneidlach are a classic case of “carbs in soup,” latkes are giant hash browns, and even p’tchais a sort of 1950s aspic, but far older. (And generally tastier.) Cabbage soups make sense in many cultures, as do soft and sweet breads like challah. But then there are the ones that find confusion among Americans – the pickled herring and poppy seed filling, for example. But none have caused quite as many perplexed looks as kasha varnishkes – roasted buckwheat groats with noodles.
“What is buckwheat?” “Is that a health nut thing?” “You eat grains with noodles?”
Before roasting…
…after roasting (photos mine, May 2017)
Kasha varnishkes is a delicious dish – nutty and savory, with hints of carbohydrate sweetness and a touch of tannin from the buckwheat. Though it has dropped off the mainstream radar in recent years, other than a reference in Seinfeld, it is still a treasured treat for many Jews. The dish itself has a fascinating history. Kasha, or buckwheat, has been present in Jewish cooking since the 12th century, when Mongol and Tatar invaders introduced buckwheat to Eastern Europe from Siberia and China. The plant – grain-like, but botanically not a grass like wheat – was well-adapted to the climate of northeastern Europe, and quickly became a mainstay of the local diet. The groats were usually roasted for better flavor, easier digestion, and longer storage time – roasted groats can keep for months in cool and dry spaces. Kasha varnishkes initially began as vareniki, or pierogi, stuffed with buckwheat. However, the dish soon became buckwheat with onions and strips of pasta, which skipped the laborious process of stuffing the dumplings. In the United States, the recipe then became popular with bowtie pasta, made initially in imitation of the Italian farfalle. Today, kasha varnishkes is almost always made with this pasta.
Cooking the roasted buckwheat groats!
Mushrooms, onions, and garlic – Ashkenazi goodness.
Mushrooms, onions, and garlic – cooked. (Photos mine, May 2017)
In this preparation, I made the kasha varnishkes with mushrooms. Kasha with mushrooms is another Jewish recipe with a long history – it was a particular favorite in pre-war Lithuania. Today one does not encounter kasha varnishkes with mushrooms too often in Jewish spaces, but the meatiness of the mushrooms complements the buckwheat quite well. Alone this dish is a delicious meal – especially with an egg – but it also makes a wonderful side dish.
Kasha Varnishkes with Mushrooms
2 cups buckwheat groats
1 lb bowtie pasta
1 lb white mushrooms, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon white vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Water
Vegetable oil, schmaltz, or butter
If your buckwheat groats are not roasted, roast the buckwheat groats first. Preheat your oven to 400F/200C, and lay out the groats flat on a cookie sheet or a big pan. Roast the groats for 15 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Remove from the oven.
Cook the bowtie pasta according to package instructions – generally speaking, about nine minutes in briskly boiling salted water. Set aside.
In the meantime, heat a pan. Add oil, and then the onions and garlic. Sauté for a minute or until the onions begin to soften.
Add the mushrooms, vinegar, salt, and pepper to the onion-garlic mixture. Sauté for another five to ten minutes, stirring regularly, or until the mushrooms have softened. When the mushrooms are soft and the onions very soft, remove from the heat.
In the meantime, bring four cups of water to a boil. When the water is boiling, add the buckwheat groats. Simmer, stirring regularly, for ten minutes, or until the buckwheat has absorbed all the water and is soft to the tooth.*
Mix the components together: pasta, buckwheat, and the mushroom mixture. They should be evenly distributed. I mix the pasta and mushrooms first, then the buckwheat. Serve hot or warm.
*Some people claim that coating the groats in beaten egg helps them not to stick together. I counter that if your buckwheat is too sticky, you have added too much water. Besides, fluffing with a fork is a very easy way to fix this problem.
Thank you to Ziva Freiman for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
BONUS: For another great variation on kasha varnishkes, check out The Gefilte Manifesto‘s version with crisp Brussels sprouts!
Eggplant salad with peppers and garlic. Photo mine, April 2017.
Recently, I have found myself craving eggplant all the time – and I have perhaps become addicted to the tannic and earthy taste of a vegetable that is actually a giant berry. And so, given my passions and my interests, I have also been researching the Jewish history of this most extraordinary plant. Today, the eggplant is so associated with Israel that it is difficult to believe that eggplants were not, in fact, present during the First and Second Temple period. Rather, the plant is from India – and the word “aubergine” in English and French comes via Arabic and Persian from the Sanskrit vatiga-gamah, which might be related to the word for flatulence. I cannot speak to that effect, but I can say that eggplants reached the Jewish Mediterranean in about the 7th century CE.
Flower of a wild eggplant. (Photo Michael Khor/CC-Flickr)
Eggplants have long been a beloved mainstay of Sephardic cooking – and show up in all sorts of pastries, stews, and salads. Folk songs wage a fight between the eggplant and tomato (another newcomer), which were long considered the two favorite vegetables of the Sephardi community. In Morocco, Jews and non-Jews make a pungent and delicious salad called za’aloukwith eggplant, as well as a lovely eggplant jam. Moroccan Jews even candy eggplant! Ashkenazi Jews historically only ate eggplant in Hungary and Romania, but developed an attachment to the plant there as well. Eggplants were one of the first foods adopted by settlers in Israel and Palestine in the early 20th century, and today eggplant might as well be a food group in Israel.
Delicious eggplant, before cooking. (Photo mine, March 2016.)
This salad is a riff on a recipe more typical in Israel today – one often called a “Moroccan” eggplant salad, though it is somewhat different from typical salades cuites. As in North Africa and Turkey, “salad” in Hebrew, or salat, can also refer to small plates of vegetable dishes served at the beginning or as part of a meal. Even in English, the term salatim is now frequently used among Hebrew-speaking Jews. The eggplant used in Israel is smaller and fried more deeply in oil, whereas I have used the larger Mediterranean eggplant. I also have added more garlic, because garlic is delicious. In any case, this eggplant salad – though given that it is cooked I hesitate to say “salad” – is easy, delicious, and goes well with many other dishes.
–
Fried Eggplant Salad (Salat Khatzilim Metuganim)
2 small-to-medium eggplants, chopped into 1cm/ 1/3 inch slices (optionally salted)
1 bell pepper, finely chopped
1 chili pepper, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp lemon juice
Salt, to taste
Olive or vegetable oil
Heat a wide skillet or pan, then add about 2cm/1 inch of oil. Fry the eggplant in the oil until soft and darkened on both sides, flipping as necessary.
Remove the eggplant with a slotted spoon, leaving the oil in the pan. Set the eggplant aside to cool.
In the same oil, sauté the peppers and garlic until the pepper begins to soften and the garlic is thoroughly browned. Remove, with the oil, from the heat. Set aside to cool.
Mix the leftover oil-garlic-pepper mixture with the lemon juice. Then, pour this “dressing” over the eggplant, and mix well.
Add salt to taste. Serve warm or at room temperature.
I was recently asked by a friend of a friend if there are any Jewish rhubarb recipes – he had found good rhubarb and wanted to make some for Pesach (Passover). Initially, I was stumped – rhubarb is not even mentioned in Gil Marks’ otherwise encyclopedic Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. So I went to the various corners of the academic food internet to do some research – expecting to find a Greek, Russian, or Iranian Jewish rhubarb sweet, given that those are rhubarb-laden areas that historically had many Jews. Instead, I found something savory: a series of rhubarb sauces used for fish and meat in Greek and Turkish Sephardic communities. Some sources noted that this dish is, in fact, traditional for Pesach. It sounded intriguing – and delicious.
In honor of this history and the season, I made a stewed rhubarb side dish that is kosher for Passover. It is based on the rhubarb sauces from the Mediterranean, but with the addition of rosemary, which complements the tart rhubarb nicely. Though you may still prefer sweet rhubarb in a very-much-khametz pie, I hope you enjoy this method of preparation as well.
—
Rhubarb with Rosemary and Garlic (for Pesach)
1 pound/500 grams fresh rhubarb stalks (about 5)
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
1 cup water
Wash the rhubarb, and discard the ends. Then chop into 1 cm/1/2 inch chunks.
In a shallow pan, melt the butter (or heat the pan and add the oil). Add the rosemary and garlic and sauté for thirty seconds.
Add the rhubarb and mix thoroughly with the garlic and rosemary. Distribute evenly flat across the pan.
Add the salt, sugar, and water, and bring the mixture to a boil.
Simmer for ten minutes, or until the water has cooked down and the rhubarb has just started to disintegrate. Serve hot or cold.
Purim is soon upon us; in true Leibowitzian fashion, Purim is quite possibly my least favorite holiday in the Jewish calendar. The noise! The gaudiness! The drunken shenanigans! I am perhaps too serious to truly appreciate Purim as anything other than a day for calmly reading the story of Esther and eating some delicious traditional foods. The famous food here in the United States is hamantaschen, for which I gave a recipe last year – delicious cookies that really should be consumed whenever it is not Passover or a fast day. (Including Hanukkah.)
A chickpea field in Israel – notice the luscious green of the leaves! (Photo Eitan F via Wikimedia commons)
The chickpeas – completed. I prefer to chop the onions very roughly; you can dice them if you would like. (Photo mine, March 2017)
Anyway, here is a simple and delicious recipes for chickpeas that you can make for Purim – or whenever. The hearty beans are paired with a piquant tomato sauce not unlike that served with chickpeas or other beans in parts of Turkey. It is very easy to make and is a good weekday dish that will also keep well for leftovers for lunches. On the other hand, it is also a very good and reliable dish for a dinner party that can please folks with many habits of diet – it is vegan and gluten-free. Even Esther, I hope, would approve in all her glory!
Spicy Garlicky Chickpeas
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
8 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more, to taste – I like a bit more)
1 teaspoon white wine or apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup water
6 cups cooked chickpeas (1 pound dried*)
Olive oil
Heat a saucepan and add the olive oil. Then, add the onion and garlic and sauté for two minutes, or until the onion begins to wilt.
Add the salt and red pepper flakes and stir in thoroughly. Sauté for another 30 seconds, then add the vinegar. Sauté for another minute, or until the onions are softer.
Add the tomato paste and mix in thoroughly, then add the cup of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the sauce has thickened.
Remove from the heat and add the chickpeas. I recommend that the chickpeas be hot when you add them. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature. When hot, the chickpeas go well with rice or noodles; when at room temperature they are particularly good with a dense bread.
*If you are using dried beans, soak the chickpeas overnight or for eight hours in water with 2 inches/5 centimeters to cover. Then, drain the beans and boil in four quarts/four liters of salted water for one hour or until soft.
A quick recipe this week for a delicious item I tried for the first time in a Palestinian restaurant many years ago – fried zucchini with the tart thyme-based, sesame-laced spice blend za’atar. The recipe is Palestinian in origin, but is similar to many zucchini-based dishes that come from Greek and Turkish Jewish communities. Like other Palestinian foods, fried vegetables with za’atar have been appropriated and reworked by Israeli culture in the past fifty years.
Zucchini with za’atar (Photo mine, January 2017)
Two large zucchini, chopped into thin medallions of about ½cm/1/5” inch
Olive, coconut, or vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp za’atar
Heat a skillet and add about 3 tbsp of oil. Then, add the zucchini flat on top of the oil in the pan – you may need to fry multiple batches. Fry on each side for two minutes, or until browned, then remove from heat and lay out on a plate. Mix your spices together and sprinkle liberally over the zucchini pieces. Serve hot or at room temperature.
Thank you to Jay Stanton, Daniel Moscoe, and Alex Cooke for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
Happy New Year! Let us hope that 2017 is less terrible than 2016.
Lentil soup with a challah roll. Ugly but delicious! (Photo mine, December 2016)
Lentil soup is one of the oldest Jewish dishes – it is probably the “pottage” mentioned during the story of Esau and Jacob in Genesis, and we have recipes from ancient Greece that may date back as far as the second millennium BCE. It has remained a “classic” – and one that I was recently asked to make.
Red lentils. (Photo Brian Snelson via Flicker/CC, February 2007)
The question became then, what style do I use? Until recently, lentils were viewed as a food of mourning and famine in the Ashkenazi world, and were thus disdained until the early 20th century – though by 1938, when Fania Lewando’s vegetarian cookbook in Yiddish was published, lentils were common enough in Lithuania to appear in several recipes. A soup recipe was among them. In the Sephardic and Mizrahi realms, however, lentils were an everyday, quotidian, and celebrated food. The lentils used in the Mediterranean – and in Claudia Roden’s Egyptian recipe – were red, but brown and green lentils are more common elsewhere. And, of course, seasoning differed across the Jewish world – as well as the carbohydrate or presence of meat or dairy in the soup. There are as many Jewish lentil soups as Jewish communities.
I recently made my own lentil soup – a throwback to my grandmother’s recipe, but with more vegetables and a slightly sharper flavor than her very meaty and saltier soup. This soup is probably closest to a French lentil soup, but with Palestinian seasoning. I used the green lentils common in France, along with the very Nordic split peas and leeks in the place of onions. Leeks go well with lentils: their sharpness and vegetal flavor balance out the lentil’s starchy meatiness. Meanwhile, the sumac and za’atar add a pleasant bitterness to the soup – and the fenugreek adds an irresistible aroma.
Green lentils in a jar. (Photo mine, December 2016)
Sauteing the leeks and tomatoes. (Photo mine, December 2016)
Enjoy!
Lentil Soup with Leeks and Split Peas
Serves 12-25
Vaguely based on the recipe of Esther Katz
2 medium-sized leeks, washed, diced, and washed again
2 tablespoons table salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon ground smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon sumac
1 teaspoon za’atar
1 teaspoon fenugreek (dried seeds or ground)
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon vinegar (rice wine or apple cider should do)
13oz/370g canned diced tomatoes (about one medium-sized can)
1 large turnip, peeled and diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups vegetable stock (you can use water)
2 cups dried green or brown lentils
1/3 cup dried split peas
1 cup rice (sweet brown or another short-grain rice is best)
1 tbsp rosemary, chopped if fresh
2-3 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
8-10 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste
Grated cheese for garnish (optional)
In a large, deep soup pot, sauté the leeks in olive oil until they begin to wilt and soften, about two minutes.
Add the salt, pepper, sugar, paprika, thyme, sumac, za’atar, fenugreek, and nutmeg, and mix in thoroughly. Sauté for another minute or until the leeks are uniformly soft.
Add the vinegar and stir in thoroughly. Then, add the tomatoes and stir in thoroughly. Cook for another minute, stirring throughout.
Add the turnip and garlic and mix in thoroughly with the tomato mixture. Then, add the vegetable stock. Bring to a boil.
Add the lentils, split peas, and 8-10 cups water. Mix in thoroughly, then bring to a boil.
Simmer for 45 minutes, or until the lentils are thoroughly cooked and the water has reduced slightly. The turnips should also be soft to the fork or tooth.
Stir in the rice and the rosemary and another cup of water. Simmer for another 45 minutes, or until the rice is soft. The soup should be quite thick.
Turn off the flame and let it sit for fifteen minutes. Then, serve hot with salt and pepper to taste. You can add a bit of grated cheese. The soup tastes best on the second day.
Thank you to Jay Stanton and Julia Clemons for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
Khoresht-e beh, freshly prepared. A little caramelized onion from the base is peeking out! (Photo mine, October 2015.)
Firstly an apology: for the past while, this blog has been very, very Ashkenazi. I of course did not mean to fall into a trap of Ashkenormativity, but alas, I did and I am sorry about that. Many readers have complained that this blog can skew “too Ashkenazi” and I agree. Ashkenazi numerical dominance does not play out into Ashkenazi cultural monopoly. I will make more of an effort to be “balanced” in the future – especially because – contrary to popular misconception – Sephardi and Mizrahi ingredients and customs have informed Ashkenazi cooking for hundreds of years. One need only look at a chickpea soup recipe in Yiddish, which uses a Turkic word – via Russian – for the bean.
Quinces on a tree. (Photo Hans Braxmeier via Pixabay/Creative Commons)
Sukkot, which is happening now, is a pretty fabulous holiday, and fruit is only one tiny reason for it. The holiday is of course better known for the waving of the lulav and etrog, and the eating in huts (sukkot), but it started out as an a harvest festival on the ultimately very agrarian Jewish calendar. This tradition is still maintained in that many choose to eat a “new” fall fruit (or spring in the Southern Hemisphere) in the sukkah – which may be apples, pears, or my favorite, the quince.
I talked about the Jewish history of quinces last year, when I made quince jam. These fruits have been part of the Jewish imagination since the time of the Talmud, and have remained common on Jewish tables from Morocco to Spain to Iran. Quinces have also stayed as a Sukkot treat – the fruit is in season in the fall, and smells like the etrog (citron) used in the holiday’s ceremonies.
Quinces being candied for future use in pastries. (Photo mine, November 2015)
We in the West normally think of quinces as an ingredient in sweet dishes, but in many Jewish cuisines it is also a savory ingredient – for example, the Moroccan quince tagine (link in French). This recipe is from Iran, where quinces are also cooked with rice or in a tas kabob stew. Other Persian recipesalso make good use of fruits and nuts that Westerners or Ashkenazim would normally place into savory dishes: for example, the deliciousadas polo, a lentil pilaf with raisins. The use of fruit in savory dishes is a culinary habit shared with Ashkenazim – one need only look at the red cabbage and apple recipe on this blog.
Though this recipe is normally made with meat, I made this khoresht-e beh vegetarian. It is traditionally cooked with beef and is absolutely delicious that way as well. Persian cooking and other Iranian cuisines, however, have a long vegetarian tradition as well – and in this form, a kosher-keeper could pour delicious Persian yogurt on top. (Recommended! – but with that said, the recipe itself happens to be vegan and gluten-free.)
Stirring the khoresht-e beh after adding the quinces. (Photo mine, October 2016.)
Vegetarian Khoresht-e Beh (Quince and Split Pea Stew)
2 large quinces (you can peel, core, and dice them in advance but I will tell you why not to do that)
2 tablespoons table sugar
Juice of 2 large lemons
1 bunch fresh spinach, chopped
Grapeseed or olive oil (about 4 tablespoons)
Fresh cilantro for garnish (optional)
1. Heat a deep saucepan or 4-quart pot. Add 2 tablespoons or so of oil to the bottom, then the onions and garlic.
2. Sauté the onions and garlic for 3-4 minutes, or until the onions are soft and translucent. Add the salt, paprika, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, nutmeg, sumac, and honey and mix in thoroughly.
3. Sauté for another minute, or until the onions begin to brown.
4. Add the split peas and mix in thoroughly, then add the hot water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. While the split peas are cooking, peel, core, and dice the quinces. You can do this in advance but they tend to oxidize fairly quickly.
6. Heat a skillet, then add 2 tablespoons of oil. Then, add the quinces, sugar, and juice of one lemon.
7. Sauté the quinces for 8-10 minutes, or until the pieces turn golden and have softened.
8. By this time the split peas should be quite tender and the water will have reduced somewhat. Add the quince mixture and the juice of the other lemon, and mix in thoroughly. If a lot of water has cooked off, add a cup of water.
9. Bring to a boil again, then simmer for 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
10. At this point, the water should be reduced, the stew thickened, and the split peas should be very tender. At this point, you should stir in the spinach so that it is evenly distributed throughout the stew. Cook for one minute, then remove from the heat. (You can also stir in the spinach with the heat off, it will still cook in the heat of the stew.) Serve with rice or a good bread – the traditional noon-e barbarior another doughy flatbreadwould work really well for this. Garnish with fresh cilantro if you so desire.
*Do not use canned or soaked split peas! They tend to fall apart in this recipe and in other Persian stews. You don’t need to soak split peas before cooking, in any case – it is a common misconception that that is needed.
Thank you to Ariel Goldberg, Francesca Littman, Jessica Belasco, Abigail Teller, and Benjamin Chaidell for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe.
First, a note of housekeeping: there will be a brief hiatus of blog post for the next three weeks, due to the onslaught of Jewish holidays. I will continue to link holiday-appropriate recipes on the Facebook page for Flavors of Diaspora, the Instagram page, and my personal Twitter. I wish all readers a shana tova u-metukah – a Happy and Sweet New Year.
Here is a stew, filled with the flavors of autumn, that is Jewish in character but somewhat of my own creation – and it makes for both a delicious weeknight dinner and a Rosh HaShanah centerpiece! Moreover, it is that rare combination: vegan and gluten-free. Thus I present a Chickpea and Pumpkin Stew, interspersed with the lush color of collard greens.
This recipe comes from requests from several readers. Adele M. in Oxford has requested more vegan-friendly recipes for a vegan member of the family, and Amram A. in New York requested additional pumpkin recipes. Emmett T. in Toronto also requested more gluten-free recipes – a sometimes difficult task in the gluten-heavy world of Jewish cuisines. This recipe is for all of you. Though it is my own creation, it is based on several ingredients and recipes common to Jewish and non-Jewish traditions in Turkey: collard greens (karalahana) has been grown in the Black Sea region since ancient times, and chickpeas (nohut*) have been eaten throughout the country for millennia too. Pumpkin (kabak) became a hit across the Mediterranean after it was introduced from the New World in the 16th century. Italian Jews called it zucca barucca – a Hebrew-Italian mishmash meaning “holy squash” – and Turkish Jews made fritters from the squash. Even today, a delicious pumpkin halva is popular in Turkey. This is an inauthentic combination of familiar ingredients.
Chickpea and pumpkin stew with collard greens on a bed of rice. (Photo mine via Instagram, September 2016.)
Chickpea and Pumpkin Stew with Collard Greens
Serves 5-10
1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon table salt
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 teaspoons za’atar
1 teaspoon ground sumac
1 teaspoon oregano
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar (any white vinegar should do)
3 cups chopped collard greens, both leaves and stems (about 300 grams/10 ounces – you can also use another green, leafy vegetable)
2 cups cooked pumpkin, chopped (you can also used canned pumpkin, which changes the final texture)
2 cups cooked chickpeas (this is one drained 400 gram/15-oz can)
2 cups diced tomatoes (also, one 400 gram/15-oz can)
1 tablespoon ground kuzu root, arrowroot starch, or cornstarch mixed in 3 tablespoons water
3 cups water, separated into one cup and two cups
Olive oil for sautéing
Salt and pepper for final garnish
1. Heat a deep saucepan, paella pan, or wok over a high flame. Add the oil, then the onions and garlic. Saute for one minute or until the onions begin to soften.
2. Add the salt, pepper, za’atar, and mix in thoroughly with the onions and garlic. Continue sauteeing for another minute or until the onions are becoming translucent under the spices.
3. Add the chopped collard greens and mix in thoroughly. Then, add the vinegar and one cup of water.
4. Cook, stirring frequently, for two minutes, or until the collard greens have begun to wilt.
5. Add the pumpkin, chickpeas, tomatoes, and remaining two cups of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. Stir every few minutes.
6. When the collard green stems are soft to the fork, the leaves are wilted, and the liquid has reduced, it is time to add the starch. Mix the starch with water, and then mix in thoroughly with the entire stew. Simmer for 2 more minutes.
7. The sauce should now be thicker and hang longer on a spoon held sideways. Season the stew with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot with your preferred carbohydrate. For the non-vegans, the stew goes well with a dollop of fresh ricotta, fromage frais, queso fresco, or tsvorekh.
