My friend Laurent is French but he grew up in Tunis ( we keep each other company on the treadmill in the mornings), always shares with me his childhood memories about Tunisian cuisine and his culinary experiments (he is a fabulous cook and strangely enough we have the same culinary tastes). Yesterday morning he brought me some delicious molokhia he prepared (which is a typical Middle Eastern dish whose recipe varies from one country to another), and while eating it, It reminded me about my trip to Egypt and cruise on the Nile (the first Middle Eastern country I visited). When you start using some spices, you keep craving for more, and here I am, completely hooked on those exotic ingredients.

Thanks to Laurent, I discovered a wonderful Middle Eastern store Samirami in San Francisco, selling so many spices and Oriental products that became my supplier anytime I am in the mood for Middle Eastern flavors.

These days I have been hooked on Labne, which is a Kefir Cheese, similar to Greek yogurt but thicker, creamier and with a little salty flavor. It’s usually eaten with grilled pita, sprinkled with olive oil and za’atar (mixture of oregano, thyme, savory, sumac, sesame seeds and other middle eastern spices). Labne is delicious, and has little calories. I used toasted baguette, it might not be the most authentic bread to use, but it worked fine since I had no pita. The eggplant purée adds a smooth and velvety touch to this combination of textures. I added some green leafs to the lentils and roasted peppers for a little more robust flavor to the naturally nutty lentils and it was a very nice balance.

Labne, How did I manage to live all these years without you???? I have no idea…My life must have been so incomplete and I didn’t even know…

Ingredients for 2

For the lentils

• 150 g green lentils
• 1 carrot
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 onion
• 2 cloves
• 1 celery stick
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 bunch green cabbage, chards or any greens
• 3 tbs olive oil
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp pomegranate molasses
• 2 scallion, chopped
• 2 tbs cilantro, chopped
• salt and pepper

For the eggplant purée

• 1 large eggplant
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• thyme
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tsp olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper

For the labne tartine

• 2 slices toasted country bread
• 4 tbs labne
• za’atar to taste
• olive oil

Preparation

For the lentil salad

Cook lentils in water with carrot, onion, celery and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and let cook until the lentils are soft but not mushy. Drain and remove all the vegetables from the lentils and set aside

Cook cabbage in salted water. Drain and squeeze excess water. Chop in small pieces and set aside.

Roast red bell pepper under broiler on all sides, until the skin darkens. Remove from oven, let it cool in a plastic bag, peel and remove seeds. Dice in small pieces.

Mix greens, and red pepper with lentils.

Prepare dressing with mixing olive oil, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, salt and pepper. Pour on lentils and add cilantro and scallions. Toss well.

For the eggplant purée

Cut eggplants in two lengthwise. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Add onions on top, sprinkle with thyme and cook in a pre-heated oven at 400F. When soft, remove from the oven, let it cool and scoop out the pulp of the eggplant.

In a mixer mix pulp, add lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and adjust with salt and pepper.

For the labne tartine

Grill each slices of country bread. Spread Labne, add za’atar and sprinkle with olive oil.

Well after about one month of no blogging, and taking a break from it, I had to come back to my old life simply because I am starting to miss it. I apologize for disappearing this way, without really no explanation. I want to send a big thanks to everyone who sent me wonderful little message asking how I was doing. That really brightened my dark days. There are truly wonderful bloggers out there whose kindness really touched me. One more time, Merci infiniment to all of you who got in touch with me and to all of you who kept reading my old posts.

I hope no one thought I was some kind of lunatic (in French lunatique, means moody) who just disappears without leaving any trace. I felt somehow overwhelmed and unmotivated and busy with some other projects and just wanted to take a little break from the blog world.

I hope everyone out there is doing marvelously, happy and in good spirit!

I have always loved octopus, but it seems like little by little, I am really getting addicted to it. Isn’t this a weird addiction? Oh well, I think we all have a weird attachment to something in particular, don’t you think?

I got somehow inspired by the Japanese cooked spinach dish, I believe it’s called ohitashi, but here I used chards instead. Chards have a stronger flavor than spinach but I really like them with octopus. The dense octopus meat goes perfectly well with the leafy texture and flavor of the chards. The whole dish being enhanced with a citrussy and ginger dressing. This is a simple dish, with true flavors that would be perfect as a seafood tapas.

The Chinese market I go to sometimes, have cut and pre-cooked octopus, so you don’t have to buy a whole one, that is perfect for small portions.

Ingredients for 4

• 400 g octopus
• 4 bunches chards

For the vinaigrette

• 1 tsp ginger, grated
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp shoyu
• 1 tbs orange juice
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Bring salted water to a boil in a large pot. Remove stems from chards. Add chards to boiling water. Cook for about 7 minutes, then drain and let it cool. When completely cooled, squeeze extra water with your hands and form a small oval shape ball.

Cook octopus until soft (about one and a half hours) or if you use pre-cooked octopus, just place it in boiling water and let it cook for about 15 minutes. Slice each tentacle in about 2mm thick slice and place  it on top of each chard ball.

Combine all the vinaigrette ingredients together, mix well and spoon some of it on top of the octopus and around the spinach.

I had a conversation with my mom this morning, she told me she made passatelli, suddenly I got the irresistible urge to make them too. When I lived at home, I was never a fan of them, probably because that soup was served way too often. Between my grandma and my mom, we ate passatelli maybe once a week. When you eat something all the time, the excitement goes away. I guess tastes change when you grow up and move out of your country.

This is a regional soup very common in Romagna and Marche regions of Italy, it’s traditionally made for some festive occasions, but then people end up making them when they feel like it. It’s another peasant dish made basically with breadrumbs, parmesan, eggs, nutmeg and if you want lemon peel (I like it better without it, I think the lemon is too strong).

The original recipes is made with a chicken or beef broth (or sometimes a combination of both). I like it also with just a vegetable broth. Here, the broth has been enhanced with chards and carrots “en julienne” (cut in tiny strips), so you get a little texture and color and of course the benefits of eating vegetables.

I always ate broth made with hen instead of chicken, hen is fatter and takes hours to cook, so it’s mainly used in broths. Nowadays people use chicken in their broth, probably because it takes less time to cook. It’s important to “degrease” the broth from the deposits and fat the meat produces (if you’re using meat) while cooking, so you’ll get a clear and healthy broth. When making passatelli usually, you eat the boiled meat along with the soup called “lesso“, I have never been a fan of it, and remember my dad pouring tons of black pepper and olive oil on top of his meat.

You need to have that particular kind of potato masher (schiacciapatate) like this one, to make those little round and long threads (not sure how to describe them).  There is another tool used to make passatelli but I don’t think it’s available in the US.

I like to make my own breadcrumbs with old and hard baguette or what is called “Italian bread”, I grate it and get great quality crumbs. The ones you buy already made in stores tend to have an unpleasant taste, and for the passatelli home made crumbs work much better and hold the paste together well, so when you drop them in the broth, they don’t break.

Ingredients for 4

For the broth

• 4 cups or more of water
• 1 leek
• 1 carrot
• 2 celeri stalks
• 1 turnip
• 1 onion with 4 cloves
• 1 bay leave
• 1 thyme sprig
• 1/2 hen or chicken, or beef
• salt and pepper

For the passatelli

• 250 g parmesan, finely grated
• 250 g breadcrumbs
• 3 tbs flour
• 4 eggs
• nutmeg
• lemon peel (optional)
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the broth

Using a large pot, mix ingredients with water and let it simmer for a while at least an hour. If using hen, it might take over 2 hours. Regularly, remove the deposits you get on the surface of your broth (especially, if you are using a meat based broth).

When the broth is cooked, remove all the vegetables and residues and drain it through a sieve to get a clear broth. Add carrots and chopped chards, and let it cook for a few minutes, until the carrots are cooked.

For the passatelli

In a mixing container, mix, breadcrumbs, parmesan, eggs, flour, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Mix well and let it rest for about an hour. You need to have a hard enough mixture, but not too hard or it will not go through the potato masher.

Fill the potato masher with the dough mixture, bring the potato masher on top of boiling broth and squeeze to produce the passatelli, then cut the base with a knife. The passatelli will drop on top of your pot. Cook for one minute or so. Remove from the stove, sprinkle wit olive oil and serve hot.

]]> http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/12/the-poor-soup-passatelli-revisited-with-chards-and-carrots/feed/ 20 http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/10/rock-and-rolls-purple-rain-rolls-with-chards-and-goat-cheese-heirloom-tomato-dipping-sauce/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rock-and-rolls-purple-rain-rolls-with-chards-and-goat-cheese-heirloom-tomato-dipping-sauce http://citronetvanille.com/blog/2009/10/rock-and-rolls-purple-rain-rolls-with-chards-and-goat-cheese-heirloom-tomato-dipping-sauce/#comments Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:00:39 +0000 silvia http://www.citronetvanille.com/blog/?p=4068 Rock and Rolls purple rain – Rouleaux aux blettes et chèvre, sauce aux tomates anciennes

I consider those to be Mediterranean tapas, actually tapas don’t have to be Spanish, or do they? …a small bite can be a tapas in my opinion.  I am not too familiar with Spanish traditions but it seems like it. When I went to Madrid, what they called tapas were basically small portions of all different things.

One of my greatest pleasure is to entertain, so appetizers, hors d’oeuvres and small bites are my favorites. Those are so perfect because they are not too time consuming (a little but not too much) and taste delicious. You could also use filo dough instead of those egg roll wrappers, it would be a great substitute but I didn’t have any.

Purple being the color of the moment, anytime I got asked “what is your favorite color?”, I realized that it all depends on my mood. I had the red craziness phase last month, now it’s the purple. I buy anything purple, I got myself a pair of purple corduroy pants, purple scarf, t-shirt, etc.., and I have been wearing my purple pants for over a week, without an ounce of weariness.

Obviously as soon as I saw this purple pepper I bought it, I have never used purple peppers before, I fall in love with its color, not really knowing what to do with it. When a fruit of vegetable is too pretty, I usually don’t eat it, I just look at it, so I didn’t want to do the same thing with this beauty.

As pretty as this pepper is from the outside, the inside is shockingly ugly, it’s the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pepper. As soon as it’s broiled, the skin turns brownish and its pulp whitish. So, if you buy a purple pepper, don’t expect a purple pulp, just buy it for its color while uncooked, not for its taste. This pepper has nothing to do with the regular red or green bell pepper and has somehow a flavorless side to it. I am glad I bought one, so now I know I will not buy it again! It’s just pretty, but when dealing with food, pretty isn’t enough!

As for the chards, I only used the leafy part, not the stem. The French throw away the leaves and make gratins out of the stems. Italians do the opposite, my mom always made those as a side dish everything combined stem and leaves. I think it’s a shame to throw away the stems, but they’re not really used in these rolls, so you can sauté them with garlic and serve them as a side dish.

Ingredients for 8 rolls

For the rolls

• 2 bunches chards
• 8 tsp goat cheese
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 8 wrappers
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• chili oil
• 1 tbs olive oil
• Szechuan pepper
• salt

For the dipping sauce

• 3 yellow heirloom tomatoes, seedless and diced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 sprig fresh oregano
• 1 tsp butter
• vegetable bouillon
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Wash chards, remove the stems, and place in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain well, squeeze extra liquid and chop them. In a pan, heat olive oil and add garlic, stir well to get the flavors out, then add chards and sauté them quickly. Add salt and stir. Set aside and let it cool.

Broil pepper under broiler. When the skin is charred, remove from broiler and let it cool. Peel and remove seeds. Cut in long strips.

Using a large egg roll wrap, place chards in the middle, add one bell pepper strip, pepper, red bell pepper, goat cheese and chili oil. Continue the wrapping process. From about 10 cm rolls.

Heat olive oil in a pan, and place rolls. Let them brown evenly all around. Cut them in half and serve with dipping sauce.

For the dipping sauce

Peel tomatoes and remove seeds and dice them finely. In a pot, melt butter, add garlic and oregano sprig. Stir for a few minutes to get the fllavors out. Add tomatoes, bouillon, salt and pepper. Reduce the tomato until it thickens. Remove oregano sprig and let it cool.