Cafe Liz

Israeli chopped salad

There’s nothing more debilitating to a food blogger than having no appetite. And frankly, in this oppressive summer heat, not only have I not wanted to cook, I haven’t even wanted to eat. I have a theory that when your body needs less energy to warm itself, you don’t need as many calories. I wonder if science backs me up.

In fact, one of the few things I’ve been eating as of late are Israeli salads. Some people call them Arab salads (it’s all politics, ultimately), while in Hebrew, they’re often simply called chopped salads.

The base is always the same — little chopped cubes of tomatoes and cucumbers. That’s the basic salad you get at falafel shops. In order for cucumbers and tomatoes to carry an entire salad, they have to be fresh and ripe. Now that it’s summer, you can expect to find plenty of these — the cucumbers here are no longer greenhouse-grown, and the tomatoes are bright red and juicy — as they were once, people like to say. Americans, read: No tomatoes picked green and unripe, and then transported two weeks. That will make your salad taste like cardboard.

Once you’ve got your base, you can dress it up with all sorts: Continue reading Israeli chopped salad…

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Cherry tomato jam

Lately, I’ve been buying a big 1-kilogram carton of cherry tomatoes every week. And every week, I go through the entire thing, minus 20 little tomatoes or so. And since week-old tomatoes don’t compare to fresh ones, I’ve been accumulating little cups of wrinkling cherry tomatoes in my fridge.

What to do? I turned them into a jam. While the concept of tomato jam may sound a bit strange, since most jams are made with fruit, it’s actually quite good when done correctly. Some of my favorite breakfast places, including LovEat, serve cherry tomato jam. Plus, tomatoes are indeed fruit.

This jam is great warm, and quick to make — I made it while preparing an omelet for brunch. The whole cherry tomatoes come out wonderfully spreadable. Continue reading Cherry tomato jam…

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Happiness is stuffed vegetables when it’s raining

Nothing like a cold, rainy day to make me want to turn on the oven and whip up a massive tray of stuffed vegetables of all shapes and sizes. It takes about an hour to bake, and you’ll find me here, huddled next to the oven door the entire time.

You can stuff way more than just peppers — I started with six peppers, then moved on to two zucchini and four tomatoes. You could give onions the same treatment; I just wasn’t in the mood. Baking all these vegetables together in the pan adds flavor to the entire dish, though.

There they are, hot out of the oven and overflowing with rice Continue reading Happiness is stuffed vegetables when it’s raining…

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Tangy tomato okra soup

If you’re like me, and you don’t see 33-degree Celsius weather as a reason not to indulge in a hot bowl of soup, this recipe is for you. It’s simple, and it doesn’t have too many seasonings. It doesn’t need to — summer’s fresh bounty adds flavor enough.

One thing this soup is not is gummy. One of the excuses people have for not liking okra is the viscous sap. Fortunately, that can be done away with by frying the okra. The okra is fully cooked in olive oil before it is added to the soup, which leaves only the okra flavor, and none of that gumbo-type texture. Continue reading Tangy tomato okra soup…

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Simple eggplant tomato stew

This is somewhat of a classic dish in these parts, and super-simple: Fresh tomatoes meet an interestingly shaped baladi eggplant, and all of the above are in season right now.

You’ll find a version of this eggplant salad just about everywhere here, sometimes served cold, sometimes spicy, and frequently made with tomato paste instead of fresh tomatoes. You can find it at luncheon cafes, served with pita, alongside falafel, or, my favorite, with rice. (OK, my real favorite is homemade, but you get the idea.)

I favor taking advantage of the fact that tomatoes are in season, since bright red tomatoes, sweet and juicy, add something to a dish that no processed tomato product can do.

The baladi eggplants are one of the four major kinds grown around here, alongside the basic club-shaped eggplants and two kinds of mini eggplants. They’re more squat than your usual eggplant, with rippled skin. Continue reading Simple eggplant tomato stew…

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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…

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Authentic Spanish gazpacho

This is another recipe I learned from my time in Madrid, in Sra. Pilar’s kitchen. Summer was at its peak, the days were regularly 40 degrees Celsius, and she’d keep a big, glass bowl of cool gazpacho in the fridge. We’d put a few ladlefuls in a bowl and eat it on the oilcloth-covered table, with a handful of crunchy mini-breadsticks. Simple food.

The key to good gazpacho is in the tomatoes. They have to be rich, ripe and red; otherwise the soup will have no flavor. That’s another reason that gazpacho suits the summer. Continue reading Authentic Spanish gazpacho…

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Pumpkin stew

I made this pumpkin stew because I had a block of pumpkin sitting in my fridge for close to a week, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I bought it out of habit, since all winter long I’d been making pumpkin soup — nearly a batch a week — but as the weather becomes warmer, the thought of soup isn’t always as appealing as it was a few months ago. Furthermore, I could have made it into a pumpkin bread, which was once my signature dish, prompting a former roommate to ask with bewilderment, “do you also make lettuce cake?” You see, vegetables aren’t usually served as dessert in Israel. But for some reason, my sweet tooth wasn’t interested this time around.

However, I did want some solid food for dinner, particularly something that could be eaten with rice. This pumpkin stew has a Middle Eastern-style, tomato-pepper based sauce, and makes for a good meal. It also keeps well in the fridge, and is an easy dinner on the go, or after a long evening of class — just add rice or another grain of choice, and eat. Continue reading Pumpkin stew…

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Patatas bravas with vitelotte potatoes

I fondly remember my time in Madrid, which was marked by many a visit to various tapas bars, frequently for the ubiquitous patatas bravas — gently crispy potatoes in a hot tomato sauce. In fact, I liked the dish so much that I still have a bottle of salsa brava that I brought back from a trip more years ago than I’d like to admit. The brand is “Uncle William,” a subsidiary of Heinz. Authentic? I think not.

Lo and behold, like many ethnic comfort foods, patatas bravas are not hard to make yourself. I found a simple description on a Spanish blog, Directo al Palador (in Spanish), which explains that while this dish can be found all over Spain, the most authentic version is in Madrid, where they forgo the mayonnaise. The discussion that follows is about how the dish is served in Mallorca, Valencia, etc. It’s interesting to observe these regional variations in cuisines, where a region is often less than a 2-hour trip for the busy traveler. But how convenient when authenticity is also better for you. Continue reading Patatas bravas with vitelotte potatoes…

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Tomato sauce with spinach, wine and pine nuts

This is a simple tomato-based pasta sauce with wine, spinach and pine nuts. We tend to have open bottles of wine around, since we never finish them. One word of caution regarding the tomatoes: Since the sauce is based on them, they need to be ripe and sweet; otherwise the sauce will be lacking. Fortunately, tomatoes are just starting to come into season. Continue reading Tomato sauce with spinach, wine and pine nuts…

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