Cafe Liz

Buckwheat pancakes

Sometimes ideas come out of nowhere. For some reason, I had the idea to make buckwheat pancakes. I’m not sure I’ve even had them more than two or three times, but it’s an American southern classic, and I guess the sound of the name just said breakfast to me. So we made buckwheat pancakes.

Buckwheat is not actually related to wheat; in fact, it isn’t even a grain. It plays a role in different cultures around the world, and my favorite use is probably in Japanese soba noodles. It also appears in Breton crepes and polenta variations. Plus, it’s gluten-free. Continue reading Buckwheat pancakes…

Purim special: Hamentaschen-shaped bird’s nest baklava

Purim is approaching, and while I haven’t decided on a costume, I did decide to dress up my hamentaschen in Middle Eastern outfits. Hamentaschen are traditional Ashkenazi Jewish cookies notable for their three-pointed form, which according to tradition resembles the three-cornered hat of Haman, the holiday’s antagonist. (In Hebrew, for some reason, they’re called oznei haman, or “Haman’s ears.”) Last year I dressed up my hamantaschen as Japanese-inspired mochi cookies, this year I they resembled Middle Eastern pastries.

The Purim story is set in first-century Persia, so it’s unlikely that Mordechai, Esther or Haman ever had baklava. While the Persians (or Ottomans) are thought to have invented baklava, filo came into being only somewhere between the 6th and the 10th centuries. But still, it’s a twist that makes me smile. Continue reading Purim special: Hamentaschen-shaped bird’s nest baklava…

Eggplants stuffed with herbs and rice

Here in the Levant we like to stuff things. It’s a habit picked up by all the places that used to be part of the Ottoman empire and its neighbors. Because rice is never so good as when it’s cooked packed inside a vegetable, and picks up its flavors and aroma during cooking.

Since stuffing isn’t limited only to peppers, which are born hollow and ready to be stuffed, there are special tools to help with the job. Previously I used a paring knife, but inspired by Sarah and Miriam’s posts on Nazareth, I picked up a special hollowing tool, for seven shekels (Photo after the jump). I got it from a little store on Jaffa’s Jerusalem boulevard, where the shopkeeper showed me an Egyptian pound someone had passed off as 10-shekel coin earlier that day — both have a bronze disc surrounded by a silver border, except the pound has a picture of a pharaoh and is worth, um, about 1/20th of a 10-shekel coin. Continue reading Eggplants stuffed with herbs and rice…

Black bean soup with citrus

It’s a simple black bean soup, but with a citrus tang — from oranges, kumquats or both. I first encountered a similar recipe about 10 years ago, and while I’ve long since forgotten which cookbook it was in, the mix of flavors has etched itself a place in my mind.

Most such recipes call for orange juice, but I see no reason not to throw in the whole fruit — the zest goes in during the cooking stage, then I remove the white pith, and blend the flesh into the cooked soup. It’s like juice, but with extra fiber.

Kumquats also make an excellent addition, as the sweet little balls of zest are in season, too. I added a few sliced up as garnishes to the finished soup, kind of like fruity croutons, but you could substitute them for the oranges entirely, if you want. Continue reading Black bean soup with citrus…

Grape leaves stuffed with mozzarella and sheep cheese

Why restrict your grape leaf stuffing to rice alone? Rice or other grains are traditionally the base for many a stuffed grape leaf, perhaps because they swell up during cooking to make the leaf dumpling round, fat and firm. But that’s no reason not to expand into more unusual territory. Cheese, for instance.

I got the initial idea for this recipe — if you could call two ingredients a recipe — from a restaurant in Bat Shlomo, which serves cold grape leaves wrapped around a firm labaneh. Call me immodest, but I have to say that my version is way better — there’s no cold cheese that can compare to warm, gooey mozzarella. I’d know, since I probably ate about half of my grape leaves while photographing them. Continue reading Grape leaves stuffed with mozzarella and sheep cheese…

Restaurant review: Lunch at Bat Shlomo’s Schwartzman dairy

Every so often, us city dwellers get a craving for a little bit of country, and go scouring the countryside for a place that meets our bucolic idyll.

One such place is the Schwartzman family dairy on Moshav Bat Shlomo, a few kilometers north of Zichron Yaakov. The dairy sits in an 100-year-old stone house on South Bat Shlomo’s only street (one street!). You walk beneath the canopy of trees and enter an unassuming yard full of bric-a-brac, clay pots, Hebron glass and a chicken coop. There you’ll find a small store, and a little seating area for the “restaurant.” Massive clusters of garlic hang everywhere.

As soon as we entered the store, we were bombarded with little slivers of cheese — taste the sfatit, taste the aged goat cheese, here’s a scoop of labaneh and one of yogurt. After all, you’re probably there for the cheese, because this is a dairy, after all, and cheese is the main thing on the restaurant menu. Continue reading Restaurant review: Lunch at Bat Shlomo’s Schwartzman dairy…

Orna & Ella’s sweet potato pancakes

I guess I lack holiday spirit. It’s Hanukkah, but I haven’t been able to get in the mood for grease. After making six types of latkes last year, and frying them in more than enough oil to keep a hanukkiyah burning for eight days, I went a different route this year — potato pancakes that don’t have much in common with the Hanukkah staple, beyond the name.

These sweet potato pancakes are the signature dish of Orna & Ella, a fabulous establishment on Sheinken that has been producing creative, quality dishes since 1992. This recipe can be found all over the Web in Hebrew, and is also featured in their cookbook.

Basically, it’s mashed-up sweet potatoes mixed with flour and fried in butter. There are no eggs, so it’s the butter that helps the pancakes brown and solidify somewhat, although they’ll always be soft and creamy in the center. Continue reading Orna & Ella’s sweet potato pancakes…

Chai ice cream

The mix of spices in this ice cream may not be the definitive recipe for masala chai — if there even is such a thing — but it produces a taste that I associate with the Indian tea, and is quite good. The light brown demarara sugar rounds out the flavor with a light molasses kick. Now, let’s enjoy some ice cream while it’s still warm. Continue reading Chai ice cream…

Blue cheese lasagna with figs and zucchini

Now that it’s getting cooler, lasagna is a great dish to serve guests: It’s a meal, in that it needs no side dishes, and most people enjoy it. After all, it’s rich and cheesy, so how couldn’t you?

I’ve been making lasagna with a blue-cheese bechemel sauce, not tomato sauce. I got the initial recipe from the Barilla Web site, and tweaked it over the years. This year, I decided to add figs, in the name of the holiday. Figs and blue cheese are a great combination, one my cheese guy has been pushing all through fig season in order to boost blue cheese sales (it worked). Continue reading Blue cheese lasagna with figs and zucchini…

Rice pudding ice cream

Yes, really. I could just call it rice ice cream, but then you’d think I’m weird. If you think about it, rice ice cream is pretty much just cold rice pudding — the cooked rice takes on a chewier texture, and the dairy-based pudding forms a soft, creamy ice cream. After all, rice pudding contains all the ingredients you’d put into a basic vanilla ice cream, plus rice.

I can’t take credit for this idea on my own.We encountered it at an ice cream shop, Arkino, on north Dizengoff. I don’t recall what exactly Arkino put into its rice ice cream, but it was quite good, and unfortunately, not one of their regular flavors. Well, no better excuse to borrow an idea. Continue reading Rice pudding ice cream…