August 5, 2013 by Marios

Fruit Salad with Sweet Yogurt Cream

I, like seemingly everyone else in the U.S. right now, am obsessed with “Jerusalem: A Cookbook.” It’s so popular that the New York Times have devoted an article on it and ran a Recipe Lab for one of its recipes. I’m here to tell you that all the hype is completely warranted. This book is priceless. Everything I’ve made from it so far has been packed with flavor, easy to make (though a little time consuming at times), and somehow tastes both new and familiar at the same time. But what I love about it the most (and is perhaps my top criterion for whether a cookbook is good or not) is that it’s taught me so many helpful hints. For example, that the combination of cinnamon, paprika, and cumin is dynamite. Or that I shouldn’t be afraid to add a lot, make that a ton of fresh herbs like parsley and cilantro to my dishes.

And it has taught me that yogurt can very easily be turned into a luscious, sweet cream that would satisfy even the most dedicated fan of whipped cream. Once again, what I am giving you is barely a recipe. But I am certain that when you combine these three simple ingredients in a bowl, stir them with a spoon, and watch the yogurt transform into something that resembles whipped cream with stiff peaks and tastes like sunshine, you will agree that its simplicity belies its magnificence.

Fruit Salad with Sweet Yogurt Cream Inspired by “Jerusalem: A Cookbook“

Makes 2 servings

2 cups of fruit, chopped in small pieces
1/2 tablespoon of sugar
1 small 7oz/200g package (3/4 cup) greek style yogurt (preferably whole milk but 2% is fine)
1 1/2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon orange flower water
1 tablespoon of chopped, shelled pistachios (optional)

First, make the fruit salad. Combine the fruit and sugar in a medium bowl, stir and let sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes, stirring a few times.

In a small bowl, combine the yogurt, powdered sugar, and orange flower water. Mix vigorously with a spoon until sugar has dissolved and yogurt has the consistency of whipped cream.

Divide the fruit salad between two serving bowls. Dollop the yogurt cream on top of the fruit salad and serve. If you want a little crunch, you can sprinkle the chopped pistachios over the cream.

August 1, 2013 by Marios

Lentils with Onions and Smoked Fish

I was going through the recipes I’ve posted on this blog the other day and I realized that I probably should have called it “Better with Butter and Sugar” instead of “Better with Lemon.” Most of the recipes I’ve shared have been for things that are baked and sweet and buttery. It’s true, I do love to bake and I do have a really bad sweet tooth. But I also cook. Pretty much every day actually.

The problem is that most nights I cook without a recipe. I use what’s good right now and put together a quick dinner for us. So there isn’t always a recipe that I can share. Unless you want me to tell you about cooking a chicken breast on a grill pan and coating it with olive oil that was pressed with lemons when it’s done (which reminds me that I have to tell you about this olive oil that was pressed with lemons one of these days).

Anyway, this recipe isn’t sweet or buttery or baked. But it’s absolutely delicious. Lentils are kind of special to me because it was one of the only two legumes that I liked to eat as a kid. Granted, there were only four kinds of legumes available when I was growing up: white beans (liked them), dried fava beans (couldn’t stand them), and black eyed peas (hated them).

Don’t get me wrong. I ate almost everything as a kid but there were four things I couldn’t stand. The first were the two legumes mentioned above. The other two were plain cooked spinach (it still makes me gag, unless it’s smothered in cream and cheese and baked in phyllo dough) and tahini. Yes, tahini. I don’t know why but since I was a little kid, tahini made me want to throw up (I think I actually did a couple of times when I was little). Hating tahini for me was the equivalent of a kid growing up in America and hating ketchup. Or mayo. Tahini was everywhere and everyone loved it.

Anyway, my mom’s lentils have always been a dish I love. This is a variation that is slightly different than how she makes them. The final dish is a combination of earthiness, smoke, and tartness, rounded out by the sweetness of the onions. My mom never adds smoked fish when she makes them, but I discovered a few years ago by accident that it’s an amazing paring. Growing up, we always added vinegar to the lentils but I use lemon instead because it goes better with the smoked fish. However, if you make this dish without the fish, you should also go for the vinegar. Don’t ask why. It’s just better.

Lentils with Onions and Smoked Fish

Note: If you want to make this completely vegetarian you can use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock and omit the fish. If you don’t use the fish, substitute the lemon with 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, or more if you like the lentils tart.

1 cup of french lentils (7oz / 200g)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups water
1 medium onion, diced (6-7oz / 180-200g)
1/4 cup olive oil (60ml)
One 3.25oz (92g) tin of smoked kippers, or any smoked fish you prefer, drained and broken into small pieces with a fork
juice of one lemon
1/2 teaspoon of salt

In a saucepan, add lentils, stock, and water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring once or twice. Raise the heat to medium low, uncover and continue to cook for another 8-10 minutes until the lentils are fully cooked.

While the lentils are cooking, prepare the onion. Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for about 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions have softened and have started to turn golden brown. Remove from heat and set aside.

When lentils are cooked, scrape the onions and all the olive oil into the lentils. Add the smoked kippers, the lemon juice, and the salt. Stir and serve immediately.

Serves 4 as an appetizer or 2 as a main dish.

July 26, 2013 by Marios

Chocolate Orange Granola

The weather in New York has been strange this week. A few days ago it was so hot and humid that walking outside felt like having a dryer vent as a permanent escort. Then yesterday the temperatures suddenly dropped and it got cold enough that I needed a sweatshirt to walk outside in the middle of the day. And today we woke up to a dark and cloudy morning, as if it was the middle of November.

This suddenly cooler and fall-like weather has given me back-to-school anxiety. With only a month left before the end of the summer, it seems like it’s going by too fast. Every summer I go through this, until September comes and I realize that just because it’s no longer officially summer, it doesn’t mean it’s winter. In fact, we can have summer-like weather (or even better, beautiful indian summers) all through the end of October.

So, if you are like me and are already dreading the end of summer, take a deep breath and relax. Reward yourself by making (and eating) this chocolate orange granola. Have it for breakfast with milk or as an afternoon snack. Or eat it for dessert if you want. The summer is the time to bend the rules a little bit.

This is based on a recipe that appeared in the New York Times, called “My Favorite Granola.” Unlike the olive oil and maple granola recipe I posted a little while ago, this produces a sticky, chunky granola that comes out in sweet clusters. The original recipe combined orange and vanilla flavors but I found that too cloying and too reminiscent of a panforte. So, I changed it a bit, toned down the orange and added chocolate.

Chocolate Orange Granola – Adapted from the New York Times

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking)
2 cups cornflakes
1 cup steel-cut oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup canola oil
Finely grated zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup of bittersweet or semi-sweet mini chocolate chips (or your favorite dark chocolate chopped into small pieces)

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, combine rolled oats, cornflakes, steel-cut oats, almonds, salt and cinnamon. Mix until well combined.

2. In a small saucepan, combine honey, maple syrup, canola oil, and orange zest. Place over medium heat and boil for 1 minute. Discard vanilla beans, and pour hot liquid over dry ingredients. Using a rubber spatula, mix until well combined.

3. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper, and spread evenly with the granola. Bake until golden brown and evenly toasted, tossing once about halfway through, about 30 minutes. Remove baking sheet from oven and place on a rack to cool; mixture will be soft and sticky while hot, but will dry and become crisp as it cools.

4. When granola is completely cool and dry, break into bite-size pieces and mix with the mini chocolate chips. Store in an airtight container.

July 20, 2013 by Marios

Ispahan Ice Cream (Rose, Raspberry, and Lychee)

This week Steve and I went to the New York City Marriage Bureau to get our marriage license. The city has created a new space in the City Clerk’s building for this purpose, which includes two chapels where couples can get married on the spot. The new marriage bureau is beautiful, with gold crown moulding, marble walls, and gilded light fixtures. It is worlds away from the old room they used as the marriage bureau, where six years ago we went to register as domestic partners .

On that day back in 2007, we were both excited when we arrived and we approached the bored woman behind the information desk. “What are you here for?” she barked at us without looking up. “We’d like to register as domestic partners!” we both exclaimed, smiles from ear to ear. It had been about 2 years since we’d met and this was a big deal. Same-sex marriage was not yet legal in New York state, and in any case, we weren’t at that point yet. The woman thrust a form at us, told us to to fill it out and go to window 2.

We filled out the form right there, in a windowless room, surrounded by walls of peeling paint, harsh fluorescent lighting, and old half-broken chairs. At window 2, a young man in his 20s, wearing a baseball hat backwards, let us through the motions of answering some questions and signing the required documents. When we were finished, there was no congratulations or any other acknowledgement. We needed to get up and let him move on to the next couple.

Despite the decidedly unromantic circumstances and environment, we were elated. We stepped out into the sunny New York day and we walked half way up the Brooklyn Bridge to celebrate. We took a selfie with one of our cellphones, that we never properly saved and promptly lost.

Things were a little different this time. The beautiful room of the new marriage bureau felt celebratory. People who worked there were polite and attentive. There were many couples waiting their turn, sitting on the green couches that the city provided. Others took pictures in front of the large wall-sized photograph of City Hall. Everyone looked happy and excited. About half the couples we saw were same-sex. And we were there to get a marriage license, for our wedding, which would be legal and real in every sense of the word.

So, with weddings on my mind, today I give you a recipe for an ice cream that screams wedding. It’s inspired by ispahan, an amazing dessert created by Pierre Hermé in Paris that includes rosewater cream, raspberries, and lychees, sandwiched between two rose macarons. The first time I had it a Ladurée in Paris I was amazed. The combination of the floral rose with the slightly tart raspberries and sweet lychee, offset by the crunch of the macarons, was ethereal.

I decided that I wanted to recreate the experience in an ice cream. The result is the recipe you see here. It’s a little longer than usual because you have to make the two fruit syrups first, but they are easy to make. You can eat the ice cream on it’s own, but to truly get the ispahan experience, I would recommend serving it in meringue nests for that added crunch.

Ispahan Ice Cream (Rose, Raspberry, and Lychee)

For raspberry syrup:
1 cup raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon kirsch

For lychee syrup:
1 cup peeled, pitted lychees (from about 14-16 lychee nuts), chopped into to small pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon kirsch

For rose ice cream:
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons rose water

First make the raspberry syrup:
In a small saucepan, combine raspberries, sugar, and kirsch. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring continuously for about 6-8 minutes. The syrup should thicken a little. Let it cool a little and then force through a fine meshed sieve to remove the seeds. Take about a teaspoon of the seeds and add them to the strained syrup. Cool completely and chill in the fridge. Can be made several days ahead and kept refrigerated. This makes almost double the amount you will probably need for the ice cream.

Make the lychee syrup:
In a small saucepan, combine chopped lychee, sugar, and kirsch. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring continuously for about 8-10 minutes. The syrup should thicken very slightly . Let it cool a little and then force through a fine meshed sieve. Cool completely and chill in the fridge. Can be made several days ahead and kept refrigerated. This makes almost double the amount you will probably need for the ice cream.

Make the rose ice cream and combine with syrups:
In a small bowl or a 2-cup measuring cup, stir together the cornstarch and heavy cream using a fork, making sure there are no lumps. Place the milk and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring so that the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and stir in the heavy cream mixture. Return the pan to the stove and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. It should coat the back of the spatula or spoon. Taste the mixture: make sure it does not have any floury taste, if it does, continue to simmer it until the cornstarch is cooked.

Remove from the heat and add the rose water. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then churn in your ice cream maker according to your manufacturer’s directions. Place about a quarter of the churned ice cream in the container you will use to store it in. Drizzle about 2 tablespoons of the raspberry syrup and 2 tablespoons of the lychee syrup over it. Repeat the process four times, layering the ice cream and syrups in the container.

July 14, 2013 by Marios

Almond Cake

There’s a great cookbook, called “Baked Elements: Our 10 Favorite Ingredients,” written by the two guys that own the bakery Baked in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In it, they provide different recipes that use their favorite ingredients, including malt, caramel, and bananas. The book is great, the recipes fantastic, and the 10 favorite ingredients are spot on but there is one glaring omission, in my opinion: almonds, or more specifically almond paste.

Something magic happens when you take almonds, mix them with sugar, and grind them into a paste, commonly known as marzipan if the sugar percentage is sufficiently high. They turn into something so addictive (at least for me), that I’ve been known to eat a whole stick of marzipan in one sitting. In fact, making marzipan is the first food I ever prepared.

I was six years old when one day in school, our teacher taught us how to make amygdalota, marzipan that’s shaped into round fruit shapes, rolled into granulated sugar, and decorated with a single clove to resemble the fruit stem. I have never forgotten that day. The excitement of making the delicious amygdalota, bringing them home to show my mom, and then eating them on top of it all was just too much joy to ever forget it.

Since then, I have loved anything and everything that uses almond paste, like this recipe for almond cake. This is an amazing cake. It’s moist and tender, with a distinct, but not overpowering flavor of almonds.

I have good news and not-so-good news about the cake. First, the good news. This is a single bowl cake, so it’s easy to make. The bowl in this case is the bowl of a food processor. Everything is added in order and processed to make the batter. It takes just a few minutes and you have very little to clean afterwards.

Now, the not-so-good news. You know how sometimes you’ll find an amazing recipe that uses really healthy ingredients but somehow makes something that tastes really rich and sinful? Well, this is the opposite kind of recipe. It uses lots of butter and eggs and sugar but the resulting cake tastes light and harmless. I’m not sure why, but I’d like to think that it’s the almond paste. In my book, it makes everything better.

Almond Cake – Very slightly adapted from DavidLebovitz.com

1 1/3 cups (265g) sugar
7-8 ounces (198-225g) almond paste (not marzipan)
3/4, plus 1/4 cup (140g total) flour
1 cup (8 ounces, 225g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 large eggs, at room temperature

1. Preheat the oven to 325ºF (162ºC). Grease a 9- or 10-inch (23-25 cm) cake or spring form pan with butter, dust it with flour and tap out any excess. Line the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment paper.

2. In the bowl of a food processor, grind the sugar, almond paste, and 1/4 cup (35g) of flour until the almond paste is finely ground and the mixture resembles sand. It will only take a few seconds but make sure there are no clumps of almond paste left.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 3/4 cup (105g) of flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Once the almond paste is completely broken up, add the cubes of butter and the vanilla extract, then process until the batter is very smooth and fluffy.

5. Add the eggs one at a time, processing a bit before the next addition. Scrape the sides down as needed.

After you add all the eggs, the mixture may look curdled (mine didn’t). It’ll come back together after the next step.

6. Add half the flour mixture and pulse the machine a few times, then add the rest, pulsing the machine until the drying ingredients are just incorporated, but do not overmix.

7. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake the cake for 65 minutes, or until the top is deep brown and feels set when you press in the center.

8. Remove the cake from the oven and run a sharp or serrated knife around the perimeter, loosing the cake from the sides of the pan. Let the cake cool completely in the pan.

July 9, 2013 by Marios

Progressive Cherry Pitter

The Union Square market has been full of cherries the last couple of weeks, both the sweet and the sour kinds. Sweet cherries are great for eating but sour cherries are really great for two things: sour cherry jam and cherry pie. I made the jam two weeks ago and last week, for July 4th, was the pie’s turn.

The only problem with using cherries to make anything is that you have to first pit them. There are all kinds of opinions out there on what is the easiest way to do that (using a paper clip seems to be really popular) but I’m here to tell you that the absolutely best tool for the job is the Progressive International GPC-5000 Cherry-It Multiple Cherry Pitter.

If you want to make anything using cherries, you have to get one of these. You place four cherries in each of the four holes (there are four large holes for sweet cherries and four smaller one for sour cherries), press the white top down and presto! You have four cherries pitted in less than a second. The pitter stays folded for storage and it’s dishwasher safe. With it, I was able to pit two and a half pounds of cherries in less than 20 minutes. Which is actually a lot longer than it took our July 4th guests to finish up their cherry pie slices.

July 3, 2013 by Marios

Quick Lemonade

When I came to the U.S. as a freshman in college, my English was already very good but there was one area where I had problems: American idioms and expressions. Having been taught British English, I knew some British expressions but next to no American ones at all. This led to many hilarious moments where I either misused an expression or misunderstood one. Like the time when we were all hanging out in our dorm during my freshman year, playing a game of “how much would it take for you to?” when someone asked how much money it would take to wet yourself in the middle of campus. I, thinking that “wet myself” meant pouring a bucket of water over my head, said that I would do it for no money at all, just for the fun of it, what’s the big deal. Hilarity ensued.

Or there was the time, when, in complete seriousness, I announced to my friends that I was going to go have a douche. It took a few minutes for them to be able to stop laughing and explain to me what a douche is in American English and for me to explain to them that douche is what we call a shower back home.

So, after a few of these incidents, a group of my close friends decided to play a prank on me. They were going to teach me an American expression that was completely wrong and then wait until I used it at an inappropriate, but appropriately hilarious time. Let me preface this by first saying that these were amazing friends, people who welcomed me in their lives and loved me and with whom I stayed in touch for years after college, some even until now. The prank was not malicious, but just good-natured and silly freshman fun.

So the phrase they taught me was “lizards on the wall,” which they said meant that a meal was really good. They then sat back and waited until at some point, at a dinner, perhaps at one of their parents’ home where they invited me for Thanksgiving or Christmas or spring break, I would put my fork and knife down and proclaim: “Mrs. X, this dinner was amazing. It was like lizards on the wall.”

Alas, to their disappointment, I never used the phrase and in fact forgot all about it or even that they ever taught me such a phrase. It wasn’t until years later that one of them told me about it that I vaguely remembered it.

My command of the American English language has definitely improved over the last 25 years though sometimes I still stumble on idiomatic expressions. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I learned that the correct expression is not “happy as a clown” but “happy as a clam.” Personally, I think a clown makes a lot more sense.

In any case, one of my favorite expressions is “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” It captures perfectly my cooking philosophy of working with what you have and making it work. So, for this 4th of July I give you a super simple and quick lemonade recipe. Barely a recipe really. But it’s how my mom would use up the many lemons from the tree outside our house in the summers. I have many memories drinking lemonade to cool down from the unbearable heat, sitting in the shade, happy as a clown.

Quick Lemonade

1 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2-3/4 cup of sugar (depending on how sour the lemons are and how tart you like your lemonade)

In a 2-cup measuring cup or a small bowl combine juice and sugar and stir with a spoon for a few minutes until the sugar dissolves and the juice is syrupy. If you want to speed up the process, you can gently heat it, but the sugar will dissolve even at room temperature. Taste it and adjust the amount of sugar or lemon juice to your liking.

In a glass, add 2-3 tablespoons of the lemon syrup and fill the glass with ice cold water (still or sparkling). Stir with a spoon.