Cafe Liz
Kosher vegetarian recipes from my kitchen in Tel Aviv
Black bean soup with citrus
February 1, 2010 at 1:00 am | Tags: beans, citrus, dairy, kumquat, orange, parve, soup, vegan
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…
Pan-fried potatoes with kumquat-orange-basil glaze
May 10, 2009 at 1:00 am | Tags: basil, kumquat, orange, parve, potato, vegan
It’s well past kumquat season here, but I’ve been saving a few lonely specimens in my fridge for a rainy sunny day. The problem is that unlike fine wine, fresh fruit doesn’t always cooperate when you try to “save” it. As far as these kumquats and I were concerned, the time was now or never.
I’d been planning to turn the winter’s last kumquats into a citrusy glaze to serve atop golden brown potatoes, and that’s just what I did. The recipe in my mind came out quite well when tried with actual food. Continue reading Pan-fried potatoes with kumquat-orange-basil glaze…
Kumquat pancakes
February 28, 2009 at 1:00 am | Tags: brunch, citrus, dairy, kumquat, pancake 
I don’t usually eat kumquats, but they look so cute that I’m occasionally tempted into buying some at the market (this happens quite frequently, and with quite a variety of different foods). Kumquats are known as “Chinese oranges” (תפוז סיני) in Hebrew, and I have to say I find this much more logical than the English name, as it actually tells you something about what it denotes. For instance, based on the English name, you would never know that kumquats are small, tangy citrus fruit, with a mild, zesty peel and a small amount of tart flesh inside. They happen to be in season right now, along with a huge variety of other citrus fruits, including the “Chinese lemon” (what on earth could that be called in English?) and my favorite, blood oranges.
By the way, the best place to get citrus right now is one of the stands in the Gaza market section of the Carmel market (parallel to the main strip). One of the guys there has a huge selection of different kinds of grapefruits, oranges, clementines, lemons and pomelos. He once labeled pomelit as “bamlat” (במלט — I kid you not — when spelled properly, it’s פומלית), which is really funny if you know some Arabic and Hebrew and appreciate linguistic humor. Anyway.
In any case, I’ve had the kumquats sitting in my fridge for a while now. I guess I bought bad kumquats, because many of them went bad in the time it took me to figure out what I wanted to do with them. In any case, I knew I wanted to throw the survivors into some kind of sweet food, since kumquats would go well anywhere you would think to use citrus zest — it’s merely a milder flavor than orange or lemon. Our pancake brunch presented itself as an excellent opportunity. Continue reading Kumquat pancakes…
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