Smithy

The whole male/female aubergine business was debunked upthread. Still, people are flailing around to find some way to distinguish between what seems to be two different geometries of the large eggplant we find in the U.S. Innies vs. outies?

There's an engineering adage that says, "The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, and the last 10% takes 90% of the time." Dean, the kitchen is gorgeous. Inspectors or no inspectors, you must be ecstatic. I would be! I've forgotten the details of that magic corner. Do those shelves have an interference fit, so they interleave and you have to remember not to take up all the space between shelves on the door? Or does the interior set retract as the door-mounted set moves in? Lovely, just lovely. Congratulations!

This is really interesting. Please forgive some ignorant questions from this shiksa, but I'm likely to have a lot of them! It surprised me that canola oil isn't kosher. Any idea why not? Or is "why not" a useless question? Is olive oil kosher? And what other oils are acceptable, either usually, or even during Passover? For instance: could you drizzle baked potatoes with walnut oil? The potatoes and no-butter thing got me to thinking about substituting oils for the butter. That can be a good substitute, given the right oil. I hope this isn't too far off-topic, but I'd also like to know about the timing of Passover. It doesn't seem to follow the same timing as Easter, and I thought they did. Sorry for asking such basic questions. I look forward to learning a lot this week. Despite my ignorance, I know enough to be impressed - and astonished - that you're willing to blog this week! Thank you!

Are you trying to show your class that good heart-healthy food can be had when cooked by a chef, or that they can do it themselves? I don't know how it is in Norway, but I think your menu would seem so exotic as to be intimidating for most people here where I live (northeastern Minnesota, USA, small town). You might want to consider at least one dish with something more commonplace - a chicken and rice dish, for instance. I also like the previous posters' suggestions about vegetables. Don't forget that olive oil is supposed to be heart-healthy. You might consider a whole-wheat pasta dish. Mind you, I'm not knocking the menu, but I'm considered rather odd in these parts. That being said, I confess that I'm not that familiar with Norwegian cooking. Maybe what you're proposing is not at all exotic to you!

Dant, now you've got me cracking open my Greek cookbook and drooling, and wondering when I can cook some of its other recipes. Your description sounds delicious, so don't disappoint us! My cookbook, by the way, is "Classic Greek Cooking", 1974, and it lists three recipes for moussaka: Eggplant Moussaka, Zucchini Moussaka (just a variation on the eggplant) and Beef and Potato Moussaka. I have to wonder why it took me so darned long to clue in that moussaka is just a layered baked dish. I noted in an edit to a previous post, but I'll say it again here, that this book calls for Parmesan cheese in its moussaka sauces. I hadn't remembered that. I wonder why my other cookbooks call for cheddar? I still think it's pretty much up to the cook.

Thanks. They aren't old at all; I bought them in Luxor, Egypt sometime in the last 5 years. I think they're an old tradition, though. More than once, my husband has gotten excited about finding old broken pots out in the desert, taken detailed notes on them, only to find the exact pots (unbroken) in the souks in town! (Potsherds are not his area of expertise.) It's really fun to see all the different takes on moussaka in this cook-off, and they all look delicious. Even this early in the morning, I'm thinking about getting into my leftovers. Fifi, with regard to the cheese, I think it's as personal as the cook. I don't recall ever having something as tangy as feta with the moussaka I had in Greece, long long ago, nor in Greek restaurants since. In Egypt they don't use cheese at all. I've been happiest with a combination of cheddar and fontina (most untraditional) in my bechamel sauce. I've never heard of parmesan in moussaka before now either, but with my fontina I'm hardly going to knock it. We know parmesan cheese and eggplant go well together. I think you need to pick what you like and call it "Texas-style Moussaka". Edited to add: I just checked my old copy of "Classic Greek Cooking" (1974, Nitty Gritty Productions) and it lists parmesan cheese for its sauce. So much for my memory! They use these proportions in their moussaka sauce: 1/4c. butter, 2T flour, 2c. milk, 4 eggs, 1/2c. Parmesan cheese, 1/2 tsp salt, dash of pepper. They also puts eggs in their meat sauce.

Mabelline, did you manage to take photos before the leftovers went away? I'm really enjoying seeing everyone's photos. I've decided not to bother with the stovetop moussaka I was going to make with my other eggplants; they're just begging to be made into Rachel's cutlets. I've been thinking venison would work well here too, but I was too lazy to grind any. Edited to add: Mabelline, if it isn't too far off-topic, can you tell me how the ranchers are keeping the sheep together? I thought that was the reason for the fencing.

I wonder if the lack of availability of lamb in San Diego is a holdover from the old Range Wars. I wouldn't have expected that to apply down there, but I know it was tough to find lamb in central California when I was growing up because of generations-old hard feelings. This may also be a factor in Texas, that staunch cattle-growing state. Fifi, what do you think? For those of you who don't know, there was quite a prolonged land use argument - I think starting in the late 1800's and going into the early 1900's - between the cattle ranchers and sheep herders of the West. As I understand it, the principle issues were the presence or absence of fences (cattle ranchers didn't want them, sheep ranchers did) and the incompatable grazing methods of the two animals. My grandfather, who never raised either cattle or sheep, nonetheless took the side of the cattle ranchers. To his dying day, he wouldn't eat sheep in any form.

Pretty funny, isn't it? There she was worrying that nobody was reading! Look how many views this blog has garnered!

Burnt cigarette butts, drowned in water? I'm still curious as to what might cause this, but it's strictly an academic curiosity. I hope never again to encounter it in a wine.

Now, for a different take on moussaka, here's what I did yesterday. I started with these ingredients, plus a few I forgot to include in the photo: 2 eggplants, a quart of canned diced tomatoes (approximately 5 tomatoes' worth), 2 onions (no reason for mixed colors - it's just what I had around), nutmeg, salt, pepper, allspice, paprika, ground coriander, and chili flakes. Not in the photo, or added later for sauce adjustments: 1-1/2 lbs ground beef, a small (14-1/2 oz) can of diced tomatoes to balance out all that meat later, and a tube of concentrated tomato paste. I think I ended up using about 2 tbsp of tomato paste concentrate to get the color I wanted. I ended up adding a pinch of cinnamon to the sauce, too, for just that right sweet note. I didn't bother taking photos of the bechamel - ingredients or cooking. I think someone upthread already said this, but I'll stress it again: moussaka isn't really all that mysterious; it's just a layered dish. You can make the layers ahead and assemble it later. When I finally saw a recipe that laid it out that way, a little light bulb went on in my head, and it all became easy. I won't bore the entire readership with the detailed photos, but if anyone wants to see more, take a look at my User album, Cooking Moussaka & Developing my Recipe. Everything has captions if you want to try following step-by-step. I hope this doesn't seem silly, putting in all this detail. Such level of detail has helped me in the past when I wasn't sure what I was trying to do. Cook the eggplant: I like the peel on eggplant, but I often find that it gets tough during cooking and tends to come out of the dish in rings. To get around that I peel the eggplant in stripes. As far as cooking the eggplant goes, see notes above. I fried mine, and the photos show the process. I think Rachel's method looks better, although mine does taste pretty good. I think my oil was a mix of canola, grapeseed, and a bit of olive oil for the flavor. I strain the oil and reuse it on other eggplant dishes, so it isn't wasted. Cook the sauce: I'm really pleased with the way mine came out. I chopped the onions fairly finely, and browned them somewhat in olive and canola oil, then added the meat and let it all brown, stirring as needed. When the meat was nearly done I drained off the excess fat, then added the seasonings and adjusted until I got the right combination of spice and heat. I think I ended up with about 1-1/2 tsp each of allspice, salt, pepper, and paprika; 3/4 tsp ground coriander, a dash of ground cinnamon and a pinch of chili flakes. Then I pitched in the quart of tomatoes (juice and all) and let it start cooking down. At some point I realized I had far more meat than necessary, and added a small can of tomatoes. Then came the tomato paste to get a more reddish color. Finally, as it all simmered, I added about 1 tbsp parsley flakes. (Fresh might be better, but I didn't have any.) I let that all sit and simmer until it was fairly thick. It had a nice heat, some definite sweet/savory spice, but wasn't overly sweet. The cinnamon is easy to overdo, IMO, but just a small shake from the spice jar added the right, er, je ne sais quoi. Make the bechamel: Any standard recipe will do. I used one that called for 4tbsp each of butter and flour, 2-1/2c hot milk, 2 beaten eggs and 1/2c grated cheese (I think I used more like a cup). That made double the amount I needed because of the pots I used, so I could have cut this in half. I'd have needed it all for a 9x13 pan, though. Assemble the dish: Start with a layer of tomato/meat sauce in the bottom, then add a layer of eggplant next. Note, these are my standard moussaka pots because they're the Egyptian moussaka tagine, but they aren't necessary for this dish. A round flat-bottomed casserole dish will work. A 9x13 baking pan will work. Individual bowls or Grab-It™ pots will work. Keep adding layers until you run out of space or layers. I like to finish with the meat sauce on top, and I think that's how it's presented in Egypt where they don't use bechamel. Some of my recipe books call for finishing with eggplant on top, and I see that's what Rachel did. I don't know how much it matters. My meat and eggplant came out exactly right for these, despite my sputterings over too much meat in the sauce. Top with the bechamel. Make a good seal with the edge of the pot. Put the dish on a drip pan before placing in the oven. Bake uncovered at 400F for around 50 minutes, until the topping is golden brown. Let it rest a bit before cutting, if you can, but serve it hot. It does make mean leftovers, and it reheats beautifully. Someday I'll get this photo adjustment business worked out. Sorry some of the photos are a bit faded. Edited to add a small step I'd forgotten.

I too was going to suggest mushrooms for the vegetarian version. My Egyptian cookbook has one stovetop moussaka recipe that doesn't use meat but does have lots of onions, pine nuts and raisins in the sauce. I haven't tried that one yet but I may before this is all done. I have my doubts about the raisins, but I think chopped nuts would do wonderfully. What is TVP?

Rachel, that looks lovely. I've been experimenting with various ways to cook the eggplant for moussaka, but your way is new to me. Here are the ways I've cooked it before: Maybe do a salt treatment, or maybe not: a. Salt the slices, let them sit in a colander for at least a half hour, then rinse and drain; or b. Soak all in a bowl of salted water, at least 1/2 hour, or a day if I'm busy and distracted; or c. Neither of the above, no salting beforehand. I've read that it isn't necessary to salt eggplant if it's going to be roasted or grilled (high-temperature treatment) but that it is necessary to salt and/or soak it to remove bitterness if it's going to be baked, as in moussaka. I haven't tested enough to agree or disagree. I've also read that salting and soaking the eggplant in water prevents it from soaking up as much oil if you choose to fry it. That does seem to work. Then cook: 1. (the low-fat way): lay the rounds on a baking sheet, brush with olive oil, and broil. This goes very, very quickly and requires rapt attention lest you burn it, but it meters the fat in a properly miserly fashion. 2. (the oilier way): fry the eggplant in 1" deep oil. I use a combination of canola and grapeseed oil, the point being to have a high smoke point. I've discovered that if the oil is hot enough the final product isn't really oily. 2a. (an Egyptian modification) my cookbook says to fry the eggplant as above, then rinse it in running water to wash off the excess oil. I haven't tried this method yet. 3. (the oiliest way): barely coat the bottom of a pan with oil, and try to saute the eggplant in it. This is the recommended method from something like The Silver Palate, because they say that eggplant is spongy so you have to be sparing with the oil, but I've never had much success with this. The eggplant always soaks up the oil, and I'm left with a choice between adding more (against recommendations) or cooking the eggplant in a dry skillet. Until recently I used method 1, broiling, but lately I've taken to doing method 2 (frying in 1" of oil), then placing the cooked eggplant between paper towels to soak up excess oil. The eggplant slices are definitely oilier than by the broiling method, but they're pretty good. I'm going to try the cutlets soon. That method sounds really good. Torakris, you can pretty much use your choice of cheeses. Tonight I mixed cheddar and kasseri because I needed to get rid of the kasseri. The kasseri is a sheepy cheese that, by itself, is a bit too sharp for my tastes, but in this sauce, with the rest of the layers, it really does well. I have a note in my cookbook where I mixed cheddar and fontina, most definitely a non-traditional mix, and I loved it. Photos and recipe to come after I have everything uploaded.

Add me to the list of people thinking, "No, really, we're reading, we just don't know what to ask or say!" Even praise along the lines of "you're awesome" or "I'm stunned" is nice to hear/read, but it doesn't necessarily generate discussion. Thanks for showing the petit fours en masse trick. I'm just a home cook with little chance of needing that, but I fantasize about making something, say, for a bake sale. That's a great trick. How do you get the layers of your cakes so incredibly thin? The joconde comes to mind, but the petit fours have multiple thin layers too. I suppose you bake them separately. How do you transfer them without breakage?

She also said clove, but it was clear she didn't want to tell us all of them. I think I detect nutmeg. Basically it is a sweet spice blend, powdered. ~~~ Thanks Smithy, great timing. It smells like the Arabian blend, but that's only five, so I'll guess it also has the cardamom and coriander seeds, I don't detect any cumin, paprika or pepper. Shout out to the Jews: It smells like the spices in the scent box at havdalah. ← I don't know the scent box at havdalah, but oh, how I love spice markets! At last, some of the grocery stores around here have little stands with packets of spices in small cellophane bags. The smell is wonderful. I think that bodes ill for the longevity of storage in those packages, but I sure do love to stand and sniff. Hmm, you think no cumin, paprika or pepper, and Jason cited a link listing all three. Looks like you two have some testing and discussion ahead!

My Egyptian cookbook doesn't list a 7-spice mixture, as such, but lists a number of typical combinations for bohar or boharaat, the spice mixture generally used in meat dishes. The author notes that the combination is as individual as the person selling it. Here are a few: "Boharat" 2T pepper, 1T coriander (seeds), 1T ground cloves, 2T cumin, 1/2t ground cardamom, 1 nutmeg grated, pinch of cinnamon; "Arabian" 2T allspice, 1T cinnamon, 2t nutmeg, 2t cloves, 1t ginger (optional) "Kuwaiti" 4t pepper, and 1t each of paprika, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, & cardamom Do those spices sound more or less like what you have, Jason?

Jackal10, those look like ramps to me. Lucky you! Edited to remove sniveling.

I am continually fascinated with the role of serendipity in science. Thanks for posting that link, Scott. It is indeed an informative and entertaining article.

I hope there's no such thing as a spitting slug! It's bad enough to lie out, listening to those things chewing dry leaves, without worrying about their spitting on me! :laugh:

Lovely, Rachel. Absolutely lovely memories, and writing about them. Maybe I'll get around to posting photos of some of my treasures. I have a few from my grandmother, and as of the last year a lot from my parents as they downsized. I'm not sure which are the absolute favorites, but here are the three that come to mind: The Wearever lemon squeezer that Mom rescued from a Navy bride about to ship back to the States. She didn't know what a treasure she had, but Mom knew a good deal when she saw one. Even though she was an Army Air Corps bride, she rescued that USN juicer. We made a lot of lemon juice and lemon meringue pies when I was growing up, and it's in almost constant use around my house now. My grandmother's Wearever aluminum pot set. It has two cookpots that mate together to make a roaster, a lid that fits either pot, and a flat steamer insert that will fit either pot or fit between the two if they're mated. The bottom of one pot pooches up in the middle so it doesn't sit level, and water put into it tends toward the outside; the bottom of the other pot pooches out so the pot rocks on the burner. But that set cooked green beans of proper southern style - breaking every rule in the current cookbooks (except perhaps Southern cookbooks) by cooking too long, turning the beans army drab, and so forth - and the beans were meltingly tender, unctuous, and good. My cousin-by-marriage followed Nana around the kitchen more than once, taking notes, trying to work out how to cook those beans. I asked for, and got, the pot set after Nana passed on to Heaven's Kitchen, hoping the pots were somehow the secret. Nobody has managed the trick. A few years ago, Mom and Dad were visiting me here in Minnesota, and I pulled out the pot set to start dinner. Dad looked at the pot and said, "I remember when Mom got those." They were the hostess gift Nana had received for throwing a Wear-ever party - forerunner to the Tupperware parties of later years. Dad was 10 at the time. That makes these pots 75 years old. I cherish them. The Ovenshire pot set that my grandparents gave my parents some decades back. Until recently I thought it had been a wedding present, but Mom has corrected me on that; it only dates back to the late 1940's or early-to-mid 1950's. It's pretty heavy. My sister thinks it's cast aluminum. There are some photos of it in action in the braising labs. The lid doubles as a skillet. Neither the pot nor its skillet lid has a handle; what they have instead is a spot to insert the handle, so both the pot and skillet-lid are oven proof. The handle is made of bakelite and metal. You'd swear that squiggly thing couldn't manage to hold onto the pot in question, but in all these years I've only dropped something once. That set was the main cooking utensil in our house for years, until Mom got an electric skillet and, eventually, "better" cookware. Then the set went into the camp kit, where it served us well for more years. When I moved out, Mom gave it to me, where I used it until I hooked up for far too long with a snooty boyfriend who didn't like that beat-up set. (That should have been a big clue to me, but I was younger and dumber then.) By that time Mom and Dad were seeing the continent in a travel trailer, so they took the set back. Recently I reclaimed it yet again when they downsized and sold the trailer. I don't know how old it is for sure, but I'm quite sure it dates back to the mid-1950's at the latest. I have higher-tech cookware, and it serves its purpose well, but this is the stuff with memories.

I am absolutely gobsmacked by all this. It's so beautiful, and so detailed, and I keep thinking how long it takes me to assemble a simple casserole, much less make it look pretty. Do you know, if I were confronted with that wonderful mosaic of pastries, I'd dither in indecision until either (a) I died of starvation or (b) someone in line behind me throttled me. Which one to take? They all look so good! But how can I break any of those lines and wreck the mosaic??? Ah, me, it's beautiful stuff. OK, enough praise. Now for a practical question from a non-professional: what's in those joconde-wrapped minis? More specifically, what's joconde?

That's kinda the feeling I had about the recommendation, but I wanted to hear more from a local. Thanks.

I'll play. Here are my guesses: Djeghlelou bsal Tomatiche: Escargot with onions and tomatoes, tomatoes making the main sauce constituent. Djeghelou b'zaatar: Escargot with zaatar as the main seasoning - I suppose in a lemony or buttery sauce? At first I thought boudjeghelou bel qedid would be escargot with flour, i.e. coated and fried, but now I've remembered that flour is daqiq - consonants reversed. New escargot?? No clue here. I'm still trying to get my throat wrapped around 'djeghlelou'. It's something to practice while I'm driving, so nobody has to listen to me. Competent Arabic speakers may feel free to laugh at my guesses. This is fun, even as I blush. Edited when I remembered the word for 'flour'.

I wonder if this is what my husband and I encountered recently, even though we didn't think of burnt rubber. We tried a bottle of Long Neck red of some sort - Shiraz, I think - and it was so incredibly bad I took it back to the store. The replacement bottle was just as bad, so I got my money back. The smell reminded me of stale cigarette smoke, and the flavor had the same thing, but far more strongly. I imagine that if you were to douse a bunch of burning cigarettes in water, then pour that water into your wine and drink it, you'd have the flavor. Russ said it tasted like the janitor was leaving the winery anyway and decided to empty the spittoon into the vat. It was nasty, totally undrinkable stuff. Granted, Long Neck is an inexpensive wine, but I'll never try their stuff again. Does it sound like this is the same South African thing y'all are talking about?

It's the same in Levantine Arabic. Cute, I never thought of that. ← In Egypt, I've learned that "silk" means "wire". Wouldn't that be confusing in the souk?