Cafe Liz

Thai red curry

In the back of my fridge is a slowly shrinking bag of green mush that I've been guarding jealously. It's the remainders of the half-kilo of handmade green curry paste that we purchased from our favorite restaurant in Chiang Mai, longer ago than I should probably admit (OK, it was a year and a half ago). How could I use it generously when I knew that once it was gone, the only replacement I'd find was something imported in little plastic tubs whose quality and flavor were complete unknowns?

Now, the biggest barrier to making fresh Thai curry in Israel has been lifted -- fresh galangal is here, and I've bought a nice, fat root that should last me a while.

Mind you, there are still other challenges, as there are whenever you try to prepare a foreign cuisine. Beyond the question of whether foreign flavors meet local tastes, there's the whole matter of ingredients -- looking at this list of Thai vegetables, you'll probably notice a whole lot that you'll never find here (well, not yet, at least).

But negatives aside, we now have access to nearly all the main aromatics, the things that set the taste. So I whipped up my very own batch of curry paste, and while they might do it a bit differently in Thailand, it happened to taste quite good. And that's the most important thing. Continue reading Thai red curry...

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Cooking Thai in Israel: Galangal and turmeric enter the market

Traveling through Thailand in 2008, we fell in love with the cuisine -- fresh vibrant vegetables prepared with an exotic array of spices. So exotic, in fact, that you couldn't find them all here. Determined, I asked a few random Thai women at the Carmel Market where they found fresh galangal, a key ingredient in curry pastes and soups, and they told me you simply couldn't find it here.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when I passed by Carmela's stand at the Carmel Market last week and there, next to the ginger, was a pile of strange, burly roots -- not just galangal, but turmeric to boot.

The roots, which have been here for about a month, were imported from Thailand by the Tekoa mushroom farm. The people at Tekoa told me that the imports are still in a trial stage, and it's too early to say what will happen. But for now, the fact is that both fresh galangal and turmeric are available here in Israel, which opens up a world of dishes from Thailand and other Southeast Asian cuisines. (My next post: Thai curry paste!) Continue reading Cooking Thai in Israel: Galangal and turmeric enter the market...

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Brandied loquats

All it takes is one ingredient to turn loquats (or any other stone fruit) into a sweet, alcoholic concoction: sugar. This fabulously simple preparation comes from my sister-in-law Ora, who got the basic concept from the Encyclopedia of Country Living. Ora presented us with little containers of brandied loquats for Purim. We couldn’t stop eating them, and we couldn’t believe they were that easy to make.

Now that loquats are finally coming into season, I gave it a try myself. Fortunately, I found some at the Carmel market, because I’d been eying the various loquat trees around town. The season is just beginning, so loquats are still a bit expensive — the least I found was 8 shekels a kilo — but the price will probably come down within the next few weeks, to 3 shekels or so. This is key, because this is a preparation that’s easy to make in bulk, and becomes ready only after a few months — but then lasts for at least a year. Continue reading Brandied loquats…

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10 days in Egypt

So close yet so far away. We spent 10 days in Egypt last fall, and what better time to post my write-up than during the Passover season? While being a slave in Egypt probably wasn't so fun, being a tourist there isn't bad at all. Cairo is a quick 1-hour flight from Tel Aviv, but to see it, you wouldn't know it. The metropolis with 17 million residents makes Tel Aviv look like a quiet, green suburb. Continue reading 10 days in Egypt...

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Chocolate Passover biscotti

These biscotti have a tendency to vanish. Biscotti are twice-baked cookies, once into a loaf, and the second time after being sliced, and until crunchy. Something about the denseness means they don’t lose much — if anything — from being made with matzo meal instead of flour, and thus kosher for Passover.

I got the recipe from my mother, who explained to me that she never bakes the full batch at once, because however much you bake, it immediately disappears. I baked mine before the holiday officially began, and thus kept myself from eating them — no Passover food until it’s Passover.

So first thing after getting home from the seder, I made a beeline for the cookies — yes, after a four-course meal and all. And it’s only been downhill from there.
Continue reading Chocolate Passover biscotti…

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