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Recipe: Shakshuka with Feta

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Photo by F

When we lived in London, we enjoyed the occasional brunch at BEAM in Crouch End. My friend J always raved about their shakshuka, but I was never in the mood for a spicy, tomatoey brunch. It therefore wasn’t until we moved to Münster that we started making shakshuka ourselves, after coming across this recipe from Melissa Clark at NYT Cooking.

According to Wikipedia, shakshuka most likely originated in North Africa but has been adopted and adapted by many cultures. Melissa Clark implies that adding feta cheese is not particularly traditional, so this version may not be very authentic. What it is, though, is delicious!

Some shakshuka recipes, including Clark’s, call for finishing the eggs in the oven. However, after reading through the “helpful” comments on the NYT recipe, I elected to skip that step and steam-poach the eggs on the stovetop. It works well and saves energy by eliminating the need for the oven.

While it takes patience to cook down the peppers and onion until they are soft and browning, I love how shakshuka is a true one-pan dish. It is also flexible in terms of ingredient proportions (you’ll see in the recipe below that I’ve given generous ranges for most ingredients): you can amp up the spice or tone it down; use more peppers or go onion-heavy; sprinkle coriander over the top or leave it out; go heavy on the feta or crumble sparingly. Make it your own!

F and I often eat this with pita, but if you don’t have any around, you can easily sub in regular bread or another kind of flatbread: we’ve been known to cuisine-mix and have leftover roti on the side.

Shakshuka with Feta (adapted from NYT Cooking; serves 2-3)

Ingredients

  • A generous glug of olive oil
  • 1 large or 2 small-medium onions, halved & thinly sliced
  • 1-2 red bell peppers, seeded & thinly sliced
  • 2-3 garlic cloves, crushed or thinly sliced
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp paprika (sweet or smoked – you choose)
  • to taste: pinch of ground cayenne pepper
  • 2 cans (700-800g) crushed tomatoes (you can also use a combination of crushed tomatoes and passata/tomato puree)
  • to taste: salt & pepper
  • 150-200g feta cheese (we often use an entire 200g block)
  • 4-6 eggs (we usually use 4, but you could easily fit 6 into the pan)
  • optional, for serving: chopped fresh coriander/cilantro & hot sauce

Procedure

  1. Heat olive oil in a large cast iron or stainless steel skillet over medium heat. Add onions and peppers and cook gently until they are very soft and starting to brown.
  2. Add garlic and cook another 1-2 minutes, then stir in the cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper.
  3. Add the tomatoes and season to taste with salt and pepper.
  4. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened to your liking, 10-15 minutes.
  5. Crumble the feta into the skillet and gently mix it in.
  6. Crack the eggs into the skillet, nestling them into the tomato sauce. Season the eggs with salt and pepper then put a lid on the skillet and simmer for 8-10 minutes or until the egg whites are set.
  7. To serve, sprinkle the shakshuka with coriander/cilantro and/or hot sauce. Scoop it up with your favorite flatbread and enjoy!

Recipe: Emma’s Pumpkin Pie

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Once a year I enjoy a slice or two of silky spiced pumpkin pie, ideally with some freshly whipped cream on the side. I wouldn’t eat pumpkin pie all the time, but it’s one of those treats to look forward to at Thanksgiving.

Although it often features on our Thanksgiving dessert table, we haven’t had a go-to pumpkin pie recipe until last year, when my close friend Emma shared her recipe with us. Emma said she adapted it from The Joy of Cooking, and I’ve made a couple of tweaks of my own.

ready for the oven

The filling for this pumpkin pie is super easy: it’s a dump, whisk, and pour strategy that allows you to get the pie in the oven in no time. You are welcome to adjust the spice levels if they’re too strong or weak for your taste (F said he’d prefer a little less ginger, but I quite liked the extra tickle it gave my tongue).

Many people blind bake (pre-bake) their pie crust for pumpkin pie. I tried this last year but the crust sank, so now I skip that step and haven’t had any problems with soggy bottoms – your pie just might need a few minutes’ extra baking time.

NB: As with my dad’s apple pie, I have not included a pie crust recipe here, because there are so many recipes already out there and/or you might have your own. I use this recipe from smitten kitchen.

Emma’s Pumpkin Pie (adapted from Emma, who originally adapted it from The Joy of Cooking; makes 1 standard 9-inch pie)

Ingredients

  • 1 9-inch pie crust (your recipe of choice; I use smitten kitchen’s “all butter, really flaky pie dough”)
  • Pumpkin filling:
    • 3 eggs
    • 2 generous cups (500g = 1.25 cans) pumpkin puree
    • 1 tbsp cinnamon
    • 1 tbsp ginger
    • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
    • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
    • 1/4 tsp ground allspice
    • 1/2 tsp salt
    • 1/2 cup (70g) brown sugar
    • 1.5 cups (350g) heavy cream

Procedure

  1. Preheat oven to 375F/190C (convection setting).
  2. Roll out your pie dough and transfer it to a standard 9-inch pie dish. Pat it into the dish and crimp the edges in your preferred style (I press down with a fork around the edges).
  3. Make the pumpkin filling: Combine all the filling recipes in a mixing bowl and whisk until well-combined.
  4. Pour the filling into the pie dish.
  5. Bake the pie for 45-50 minutes, or until the filling has a slight wobble and the crust is cooked through (it helps to use a glass pie dish so you can peek underneath). If the crust’s edges brown too quickly, cover it with foil.
  6. Remove the pie from the oven and let it cool for at least 2 hours. Store at room temperature or in the fridge (I prefer the latter), and enjoy plain or with whipped cream.

Recipe: Terry’s Apple Pie with Crumble Topping

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I’ve tried a number of apple pie recipes over the years, but I’ve never really found one that I loved enough to return to regularly. 

Then I remembered that my dad has been making the same apple pie for years and it is always delicious. In fact, I even blogged about that tasty apple pie 8 years ago, in this post. I only recently realized that I never posted the recipe for it. Well, it’s high time to remedy that.

my dad’s delicious apple pie, 8 years ago!

My dad adapted this recipe from the Betty Crocker Cookbook and it has become his own; I simply think of it as “Terry’s apple pie.” It has a short ingredient list and is quick to put together. If your crust is ready to roll out, you can have the pie in the oven within half an hour, and in your mouth within 3 hours!

NB: I have not included a pie crust recipe, because there are so many recipes already out there, and you might already have a go-to crust recipe. I usually end up using this recipe from smitten kitchen; Serious Eats also has a good crust recipe here.

Terry’s Apple Pie with Crumble Topping (adapted from the Betty Crocker Cookbook; makes 1 standard 9-inch pie)

Ingredients

  • 1 9-inch pie crust (your recipe of choice; I use smitten kitchen’s “all butter, really flaky pie dough”)
  • Apple filling:
    • 1/2-2/3 cup (100-135g) white sugar
    • 2 tbsp (15g) plain/AP flour
    • 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
    • 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
    • 6 cups pared, cored, & sliced tart/baking apples (6-8 apples; fewer if your apples are very large)
  • Crumble topping:
    • 1/2 cup (64g) plain/AP flour
    • 1/4 cup (50g) white or brown sugar
    • 1/4 cup (57g) unsalted butter

Procedure

  1. Preheat oven to 400F/200C (convection setting).
  2. Make the apple filling: Pare, core, and slice your apples, then put them into a large mixing bowl. Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and cardamom & stir into the apples.
  3. Roll out your pie dough and transfer it to a standard 9-inch pie dish. Pat it into the dish and crimp the edges in your preferred style (I press down with a fork around the edges).
  4. Turn the apple mixture into the pie dish.
  5. Make the crumble topping: Combine flour and sugar, then cut in the butter until the mixture reaches a crumbly consistency. Sprinkle the topping over the apples.
  6. Bake the pie for 45-50 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly, the crust is cooked through (it helps to use a glass pie dish so you can peek underneath), and the crumble topping is starting to turn golden brown. If the pie browns too quickly, cover it with foil.
  7. Remove the pie from the oven and let it cool for at least 2 hours. Enjoy plain or with whipped cream, ice cream, or yogurt (for breakfast – yum).

Recipe: Winter Salad Variations

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It’s nice to spend the cold, dark months of the year cooking and eating hearty comfort foods like stews, soups and roasted vegetables. But sometimes I am in the mood for something fresh and crunchy to lighten things up: enter the winter salad!

Fennel, green apple, kohlrabi, orange

There are number of robust winter vegetables that, when paired with a zesty dressing, make for a delicious salad. Adding something sweet and something salty to the bowl brings the flavors together and balances things out. I’ll list some of my favorite ingredients below, followed by my lemon-dijon dressing recipe and a few suggested salad combinations.

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Radicchio, fennel, apple, celery, walnut, parsley

Ingredient ideas:

  • Carrots
  • Chicory
  • Kohlrabi
  • Radicchio
  • Fennel
  • Apples (Granny Smith or other tart ones best)
  • Oranges
  • Dried cranberries
  • Feta cheese
  • Goat cheese
  • Lentils (green and brown hold up best in salads)
  • Chickpeas
  • White beans
  • Walnuts or other nut of choice

Lemon-Dijon Dressing (a classic I learned from my mom)

  • Whisk together (I usually do it straight into the bottom of the salad bowl) the following ingredients, to taste: freshly squeezed lemon juice + olive oil + dijon mustard + salt/pepper. You can add some white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar for extra zing, or if you don’t have enough lemons around.

Salad Variation 1: Fennel, green apple, & kohlrabi with orange

  • Thinly slice 1 fennel bulb, 1 green apple, and 1 kohlrabi bulb. Peel and cut an orange into bite-sized chunks. Add some white beans (butter/cannelloni) for protein. Don’t forget the dressing!

Salad Variation 2: Chicory & radicchio with dried cranberries & green lentils

  • Cook some green lentils in salted water with 1 bayleaf. Drain and set aside.
  • Thinly slice 1 chicory head (bulb?) and 1 radicchio. Add to the salad bowl with dressing, then add in lentils and a handful of dried cranberries.

Salad Variation 3: Grated kohlrabi, carrot, & apple

  • Instead of thinly slicing, you can grate kohlrabi, carrots, and apple straight into the salad bowl. Toss with dressing and enjoy!

Or make up your own combination. Happy salad making!

Recipe: Herbed Israeli Couscous Salad with Dried Apricots & Preserved Lemon

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F was away for work this week and I don’t usually feel like cooking when he’s not around, tending to gravitate towards salads, grains, and other quick-prep dishes. Melissa Clark’s recipe for couscous salad with dried apricots and preserved lemon had caught my eye recently and sounded like the perfect thing for a healthy weeknight dinner. I read the recipe to get a general idea of flavors and then improvised from there, using lemon juice rather than white wine vinegar, parsley instead of dill, and adding almonds for protein and crunch.

Health in a bowl

The salad turned out really well: I’ve fallen in love with the combination of sour-salty preserved lemon and sweet, chewy dried apricots. Finely chopped herbs make a great green base for salads and a nice alternative to lettuce.

This dish is light, fresh, and healthy. I enjoyed it so much that I made it again when F got home, adding some grated carrot and diced cucumber for extra veggie points. Feel free to add or subtract ingredients as you’d like — it would work equally well with small couscous or a grain like barley, buckwheat, bulgur, or quinoa.

Herbed Israeli Couscous Salad with Dried Apricots & Preserved Lemon (inspired by Melissa Clark at NYT Cooking)

Ingredients

  • 1 dry cup Israeli couscous
  • olive oil, to taste
  • Juice of 1-2 lemons (to taste)
  • 2-3 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 bunch fresh parsley, finely chopped
  • 1 bunch fresh mint, finely chopped
  • 3 preserved lemons, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup dried apricots, diced small
  • 1/2 cup almonds (roasted & salted are best), roughly chopped
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • Optional additions: 1-2 carrots (grated), 1/2 cucumber (diced)

Procedure

  • Cook the couscous by bringing salted water to boil, adding the couscous, and letting it simmer for 8-10 minutes. Drain.
  • While the couscous is cooking, whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, and cumin in the bottom of a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Chop/dice the parsley, mint, preserved lemons, apricots, and almonds. Grate the carrot and dice the cucumber, if using. Add everything to the bowl with the dressing and mix well.
  • Add the couscous to the bowl and mix until everything is combined. Enjoy warm or cold!

Baking with Hot Bread Kitchen: M’smen

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Hello and Happy New Year! Long time no blog… I lost a bit of energy and motivation for it last fall, but now it’s a new year and I have a new project that I hope to blog about regularly. Read on to find out more…

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As the holiday season approached last year, I stumbled upon a review of some new cookbooks, one of which caught my eye: The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook. The review explained that Hot Bread Kitchen is a social enterprise in New York City, helping migrant women share bread-making skills from their cultures while providing them with training and jobs. As some of you may know, working with migrant women is a passion of mine (as well as my job!). The fact that the cookbook included bread recipes from around the world had me sold. I sent the link to F, hinting that I might like the book for Christmas. He willingly obliged.

So, armed with a beautiful cookbook made up of a plethora of “multi-ethnic” (their words) bread recipes as well as extensive tips and techniques, I have made a 2016 intention to try two new bread recipes per month from the book. That’s roughly every other weekend, so it should be manageable. As I make my way through breads of the world, I will write short posts about my experience with the recipes (I will not post the recipes themselves). I hope you’ll join me on my bread-making adventures: “Baking with Hot Bread Kitchen.”

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Baking with Hot Bread Kitchen #1: M’smen

The first section of The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook is titled “Primordial Bread: Unleavened Flatbreads.” I have tried my hand at flatbreads before and make naan pretty often. I like the general simplicity of flatbreads — they don’t usually need much resting time and cook quickly in a hot pan on the stovetop. For my maiden foray into The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook, I decided to cook the very first recipe in the book: m’smen, a Moroccan flatbread.

The only ingredient for m’smen that I didn’t already have at home was semolina, which was easy to find at our local greengrocer or big Tesco. The other ingredients were plain (all-purpose) flour, salt, water, neutral oil, and salted butter.

Making m‘smen required a few stages of dough shaping and resting before cooking, so the whole process took me almost two hours. I started around 11am with a vigorous 6-minute arm workout of mixing the dough by hand (must get a stand mixer one of these days!), before dividing the dough into 12 balls and setting them on oiled baking sheets to rest for half an hour. I left to do some errands and ended up out longer than expected, so the dough actually rested for almost an hour.

Next, the recipe called for more oiled workspace (I guess my hands were well-hydrated by the end of the process?) to stretch each dough ball out, sprinkle it with butter/oil and semolina, then fold it over onto itself to create a neat little pocket:

post-stretching & folding

post-stretching & folding

Finally, each pocket must be stretched and cooked in a hot skillet for a couple of minutes on each side. The author of the recipe recommends drizzling hot m’smen with honey and having alongside mint tea. F and I did share the first bread with honey — yum — and reheated the rest in the evening to serve alongside falafel and yogurt sauce and Moroccan carrot salad. Once the m’smen cooled down, they were a combination of crunchy and chewy, with a pleasant flavor and a hint of sweetness.

cooking the m'smen

cooking the m’smen

I enjoyed the process of making m’smen. It was a relatively involved recipe with a lot of hands-on time, but the flatbreads turned out delicate and delicious — worth the time investment. The dough was quite sticky and very stretchy; it helped to keep my hands oiled. I’ll definitely make m’smen again and may freeze some to use as an alternative to sandwich bread.

Have you ever heard of “m’smen”? Have you every made it yourself?

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