Cafe Liz

Cabbage salad with soy sauce and raisins

This cabbage salad is simple, quick and generally popular — as are most sweet, salty things. As the cabbage absorbs the soy sauce and vinegar, it wilts and softens. As a bonus, this is one salad that can be left in the fridge for a few days, to no ill effects. It’s supposed to be wilted, after all. Continue reading Cabbage salad with soy sauce and raisins…

Braised hijiki salad, and a Japanese-Israeli picnic

I had the honor of being invited to the semi-annual picnic of the rather small Japanese-Israeli community this week. Aside from the dozens of interesting people and oodles of adorable children were plate after plate of fabulous food — several kinds of tamago, various onigiris and sushi rolls, iced roasted rice tea and uncountable stir-fries. In fact, this was probably the first picnic I’d been to in Israel where only one person brought pitas and hummus (guilty as charged).

Good Japanese food is rather hard to find in Israel, let alone Japanese home cooking — the majority of the restaurants paint themselves as upscale, with prices to match. I think the large majority of the country’s Japanese home cooks were present in the park that afternoon.

Who attends a Japanese-Israeli picnic? Aside from our little group, everyone there was intermarried couples and their children. Needless to say, most people were fluent in both languages and cultures. As one 12-year-old girl explained to us, she was born in Israel, and is completely Israeli, except that she’s Japanese.

So, what does Japanese Israeli picnic food look like? Continue reading Braised hijiki salad, and a Japanese-Israeli picnic…

Sprouted lentils in olive oil and herbs

The combination of sprouted lentils and herb-infused oil produces a dish with a rich, nutty taste. I was inspired by a very similar dish we had at a brunch in Zichron Yaakov. Continue reading Sprouted lentils in olive oil and herbs…

Cross-Mediterranean caprese with fried onions and sumac

This version of a caprese salad takes a trip around the Mediterranean: The classic Italian mozzarella and tomatoes, plus Middle Eastern seasonings — fried onions, sumac and cumin.

I used cherry tomatoes (plum cherry tomatoes, to be precise), which tend to be sweeter than regular tomatoes, and thus work very well when tomatoes are the centerpiece of the dish.

Sumac is a burgundy-colored spice with a light tangy flavor. Obviously, this spice is not the same plant as poison sumac or poison ivy; it’s a benign relative. (More information on sumac.) If it’s not something you keep around your kitchen, you could leave it out of this recipe. Most of the seasoning comes from the fried onions anyway. Continue reading Cross-Mediterranean caprese with fried onions and sumac…

White cheese with capers and herbs

We are blessed by a wealth of fresh, young cheeses as well as healthy herbs, so I threw all of the above together, along with my home-pickled capers, to make a quick salad.

I happen to have Thai basil and pineapple sage growing quite robustly on my patio. These herbs have different flavors than their more standard counterparts (basil and sage), which you’re more likely to find around here, but any combination of fresh herbs that suits your fancy would be quite good in this dish.

The cheeses — a 50-50 mix of diced mozzarella balls and tsfatit — are from my favorite cheese stand at the Carmel market, which gets them from the Sharon dairy. They’re at their peak for all of two days after purchase, but so good that you won’t want to leave them any longer than that. Continue reading White cheese with capers and herbs…

Vegetable salad with buttermilk and dates

This is kind of like an Israeli salad bathed in buttermilk. I was inspired by all the creamy salads we had in Hungary, except there they use sour cream, and I prefer buttermilk. And fresh vegetables. The effect is creamy but light. Continue reading Vegetable salad with buttermilk and dates…

Happy Independence Day!

Today is Israel’s Independence Day. Like all Jewish holidays, it starts in the evening, which means it makes an excellent opportunity for fireworks. We celebrated with a picnic on our roof. For whatever reason, every municipality has its own display or two, and since Gush Dan is so crowded with cities, and we’re so centrally located, we saw no fewer than a dozen different firework displays over the course of the evening. Givatayim started things off, followed by Ramat Gan, possibly Bnei Brak and a few other municipalities off in the distance that we couldn’t identify. Tel Aviv, of course, took the cake — possibly because we were on a roof a block away from city hall. If we’d been any closer, we’d have been singed.

In any case, parties must have food. Independence Day is traditionally a barbecue/meat holiday, but since I was in charge of things, I pulled together a few simple salads to keep us going between firework displays. The following provided steady supply of light food for 10-12 people. Total preparation time: No more than an hour. Continue reading Happy Independence Day!…

Roasted red pepper salad

This is a very simple roasted pepper recipe I learned while I was living in Madrid, from my landlady/host Sra. Pilar in her high-ceilinged apartment in the upscale neighborhood of Salamanca. That was quite possibly the most I’ve ever paid to rent a room, but I guess it was worth it, since I’m still making her recipes nearly a decade later.

Red peppers are an amazing thing. Roast them in the oven, and they come out as a dish, nothing else needed (I’ll be adding a bit of seasoning anyway). Continue reading Roasted red pepper salad…

Tabouleh — chopped parsley salad

Tabouleh is parsley salad worth its weight in gold. Each individual ingredient needs personal, painstaking preparation. Cutting the vegetables is an art form. This is another dish I learned during my time in Haifa, from my roommate Naifeh. We would have tabouleh days, and the girls would sit around together, metholodically chopping ingredient after ingredient.

You can’t cheat by using a blender — it simply won’t work. I had an ex-boyfriend who didn’t believe me, and he wound up with parsley pesto. May that serve as a warning to you all. Continue reading Tabouleh — chopped parsley salad…

Beet salad with bay leaves and wine vinegar

This beet salad was inspired by a very enjoyable dish we had at Mitbahon, a cute little restaurant behind the Carmel Market. I do believe our friends call it “the best-tasting beets ever.” Needless to say, I liked it enough to try to make something similar at home. The Mitbahon version was seasoned with bay leaves and allspice, but for some reason, allspice is one of the few spices I don’t actually have, so I went with cloves and peppercorns instead.

The result was mild, lightly seasoned, and quite good. As a bonus, I used the seasoned water from cooking the beets to make rice. Continue reading Beet salad with bay leaves and wine vinegar…