helenas

How difficult is to get a basic turkish just to be able to read recipes?

green curry with grilled pork tenderloin (marinated overnight with sort of thai spices) i made tonight: fresh baby vegetables from Wegmans played perfectly into the dish.

And both books by Greg Malouf: Moorish and Arabesque - just excellent!

Oh yes, like this favorite but much less known russian dish - deep fried pirozhki with chicken gizzards

I have several Greek cookbooks but i find myself cooking a lot from "Modern Greek" by Andy Harris. Very interesting recipes, most of them accompanied by terrific pictures.

My Kalustyan's order came in no time, and thanks to Paula's pointer, i experienced a pleasure of her salad tonight. As it's a big jar, many thanks for adding the storing instructions to the recipe published in the book.

Two absolute musts from the book: Pork coddled in olive oil - i made it on numerous occasions and last time even used the recipe for confiting whole quails, and then poached quail eggs in the same fragrant oil. Herb jam with olives and lemon - very unusual, fragrant, beautiful color, great texture and taste, almost like a caviar. I served it with baguette and french artisan butter.

Thanks Swisskaese! In fact i checked the Kalustyan's site, found pickled thyme there and immediately mail ordered it, so curious i am

Does anybody have an idea what could this be? Pickled thyme was on a menu of some middle eastern australian restaurant.

Made some hon shimeji yesterday. The idea came from Schneider's Vegetables book: mushrooms are torn in strips lengthwise. I seared them well with cinnamon stick in olive oil, added a splash of apple brandy and ignited it, then finished with some creme fraiche. Sprinkled with chevril before serving. Very satysfying, even too much so (i had Wolfert's smoked greens jam on the side): it should be served as part of some dish. Although it's said that shimeji mushrooms go well with seafood, i think something less intense in flavor and texture will work better, like young slim carrots...

incidentally, there is a new book on the same very subject just published by Kodansha: New Tastes in Green Tea: Novel Flavor For Familiar Drinks, Dishes, And Deserts.

mudbug, there are no leaves in the bag: just stem pieces, pale green and sort of roundish. At the same day in chinese supermarket the following so to speak exotic varieties of allium were presented and i'm quite familiar with all of them: flowering chives, chinese chives, yellow chives, chinese leeks (the ones that started this thread). But this leek sum is none of them.

the pack has stems only, and they're not hollow but sort of round. After the extensive googling around, i think it might be allium ramosum.

One more leek conundrum. I bought today something that was labeled as leek sum in my asian supermarket. Pale green stems with quite a strong garlic smell... Just another one from the chives family?

Speaking of clarity: i initially posted the link to this article (see page 2 of the thread) to which Jason reaction was "...his assertation is bogus...". This was the reason for me to contact Daniel in the first place as i didn't feel it's ok for him not to be able to reply... Helena

i emailed the link to this thread to Daniel; follows the response printed with his permission: "Helena, Hi… After receiving your e-mail with the link to the discussion about Israeli foods on eGullet, I tried responding there but thanks perhaps to my relative computer clumsiness my response was gobbled up by the gremlins of cyberspace. I am thus sending this response to you with the request that you post it on the appropriate thread. Over the years I have been charged with being right and wrong quite a few times but I have to admit that this is the first time I have been accused of having a political agenda to my culinary writing. Fair enough, for the critic who is not open to criticism is a poor critic indeed. That all human acts, including those in the artistic and intellectual realms, have political ramifications has been well demonstrated but in my own defense, my only specific culinary and oenological agendas as I write are social, historical, ethnic, psychological, cultural and philosophical. I think anyone having fully read my little article (referred to above at http://www.stratsplace.com/rogov/israel/ethnic_input.htm ) would have seen that my argument was not against the presence of people (Hebrews, Caananites, Philistines, and later Arabs and Jews) over the last 5,000 years. The argument was to several points: (a) Precisely because the cooking styles of the Middle-East and Mediterranean Basin have been present in Israel for the last 5,000 years, they are Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean and not specifically Israeli. (b) That in modern times the major inputs to the Israeli culinary repertoire have been from Arab lands and Mediterranean lands as well as from the immigrants who have come to the country from more than 80 nations, those as widely dispersed as Afghanistan, Russia, the United States, Argentina, Morocco, Spain, South Africa …. and that those different culinary styles have not intermarried very much at all. That, by the way, is an aspect I see as positive rather than negative, reflecting the maintenance of and pride in individual ethnicity. © There are indeed Israeli dishes, and some of them (e.g. the goose liver in tchina sauce of chef Chaim Cohen) are exquisite. Individual dishes or even a collection of individual dishes do not, however, make a cuisine. They make a national repertoire in the building but not the coherent style required to define a true regional or national cuisine. (d) In general, national or regional cuisines take many hundreds of years to develop. Often what we label a cuisine in everyday language is in fact nothing more than a localized cooking style and not full or coherent enough to make it a true cuisine. Some food historians claim that there are only three true cuisines in the world – Chinese, French and Italian, all others having evolved from those. Others go even further stating that there are only Chinese and Italian, the French having derived their own kitchen from that of the Italians. Personally, I would list a few more, but no matter how generous I might be, and no matter how much I thrive on dining on the dishes available throughout Israel, I cannot add my own little country to that list of “certified cuisines” I do not know the rules of eGullet, so courtesy dictates that I will not SPAM the site with links to my own. Let it be said only that I do have an internet site largely devoted to the history of dining and foods of Israel, that I am the restaurant and wine critic of Israel’s HaAretz newspaper as well as for the Israeli edition of the International Herald Tribune. Should anybody want references beyond that, I can be contacted by email at drogov@cheerful.com and will respond with pleasure to all who care to take up a dialogue. Best wishes, Daniel Rogov"

"Although several food writers (mostly American) have praised what they call "Israeli cuisine", the truth is that the country has not developed a unique cuisine. What those visitors are praising are the varied styles of Mediterranean cookery, many of which have reached high points within Israel but none of which have come together to form what one might call a "true" cuisine. This is not a point of shame. In fact, thinking that a country less than 100 years old might have developed a unique cuisine is somewhat silly." (quoted from Daniel Rogov's )

When NYT published a series of articles on Ducasse, one of them was on so-called Olive Mill Pasta. At the time of the publication, the recipe was discussed quite extensively on eGullet. The origin of this dish can be also found in Wells' Cooking in Provence. And here's a link to the recipe Olive Mill Pasta

Recently i bought several books by australian chefs: all of them are excellent. I have two by Christine Manfield, couple of Neil Perry, Ezard by Ezard, and finally Longrain Modern Thai Food by Martin Boetz (this one i coundn't find in US and wanted badly so i ordered it directly from Australia).

Betty, i had the same question until i found this: Kasma's favorite yellow soy bean sauces. I think she knows a thing or two about thai food.

Seth, very sexy picture

Two resturant books with great photography: Boulud and Second Helpings from Union Square Cafe.

In the meantime i found this recipe for SMOKED SALMON TIKKAS by Lilani where she apperently is using the dhuan technique without naming it. I still have question though as to how to protect pieces of food from direct contact with charcoal: put it on some piece of foil?

The questions are triggered by the recent article in Wine Telegraph The spice is right. Couple of quotes: "...Pinky Lilani is a is an adviser to British manufacturers of Indian supermarket meals, but she has published a cookbook, Spice Magic and holds cookery demonstrations in her kitchen.... ...Besides the recipes, Lilani’s book also offers a guide to the four basic techniques of Indian cooking. They are bhunao, whereby you keep spices simmering until they blend perfectly; dhuan, which is the tradition of placing red-hot charcoal in a dish of chicken or smoked salmon and then sealing the lid so that the smoke infuses the food; dum, in which rice is cooked in its own steam; and tarka, in which spices are added to hot oil to release their flavour...." And now couple of questions: Has anybody read her book or attended the class? What do you think? Can somebody describe the dhuan method? Thank you, Helena

quick update: i used Pork Vindaloo recipe from the latest Jaffrey's Curry book. Halved D'artagnan chorizo, a lot of thinly sliced onions, whole dried small chillies, and into the low oven for two hours. Perfectly plumped sausages, thick sauce from onions almost completely melted down, and amazing aroma - indian spices matched nicely with the spanish smoked paprika.