Lavender is often associated with Provence, fields stretching into the horizon, saturating the air with fragrance and perhaps hearts with love as folklore has us believe. It is the aromatic nuance of France, blossom filled sachets scenting countless drawers or dabbed behind the ears as a romantic perfume, but it is also an indigenous plant of the Middle East although nobody conjures up that side of the Mediterranean when drinking lavender tea.  There are four species of lavender growing wild in Israel, yet it never became a prominent culinary herb such as za’atar or thyme, despite being known from antiquity. Perhaps this can be attributed to its restricted area of growth,  or it may have simply fallen out of favor for use as a medicinal herb, as it is neither cultivated or found fresh in local markets.

Lavender is from the mint family (Labiatae) which also includes a plethora of aromatic herbs such as sage, za’atar, mint, marjoram, thyme and melissa all of which grow wild in Israel and have both culinary and medicinal value.  Chefs, breaking away from tradition, have transferred aromatic lavender from the boudoir to the kitchen, a switch that confuses the senses if used in excess.  Only the most discrete amounts, a ghost of a scent, should be used otherwise toiletries and pharmaceuticals are instantly evoked.  The reverse is also true, after eating a pint of lavender scented “soap” ice cream I was surprised with another sensory flip- each time I used my lavender scented soap I couldn’t help but imagine lathering with ice cream. Despite causing Proustian mind games, chefs have begun to use it in a wide variety of ways including in coffee, macaroons, cookies,  creme brulees, cakes, chocolate, and in the mixture herbes de Provence  adding a bit of romance and intrigue.

Traditionally lavender has been used as a disinfectant rinse for cuts and scrapes, a method taking advantage of its antimicrobial properties.  It is also a natural remedy to relieve stress, a widely accepted fact that has been scientifically proven and should be more widely implemented.  I like to imagine lavender farmers in a state of perpetual stress free bliss. The most prevalent wild species in Israel is Lavandula stoechas which also grows throughout the Mediterranean and into Turkey and is often used as an ornamental.  In Portugal specialized honey is produced from bees that collect exclusively from this plant.

Although fresh lavender is not sold in Israel, many municipalities grow Lavandula angustifolia (also called English lavender) as an ornamental plant along with rosemary because it tolerates arid conditions. This is the preferred species for culinary purposes and when I need it all I have to do is walk a block or two to harvest a few flowers.

It should be used with caution as lavender essential oil can be allergenic.

Lavender Cupcakes

This recipe is based on the recipe by Zahavah of Kosher Camembert who has a nondairy (parve) version of it. It has a very subtle lavender scent, which disappears before it can be identified.

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter (250 grams)

1 cups milk

4 large eggs

2 tablespoons dried lavender

Zest of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 180 C (380 F). Grease 2 English cake pans. I used one English cake pan and one 12 unit cupcake pan.

Lavender infusion

Melt butter in a small pot over low heat and add lavender. Heat until fragrant, approximately 7-10 minutes. Drain butter through fine sieve, pressing lavender on mesh. Discard lavender. Allow butter to cool slightly, but it should remain liquid.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl and mix.

In another bowl add eggs, milk, lemon zest and while continually mixing, the scented lavender butter.

Add the liquid mixture to the dry one. Mix until there are no lumps (this I did by hand)

Pour batter into prepared pan(s) and bake for 40-60 minutes, depending on size of pan. Cake is done when toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Cool and serve.

Pasta alla Norma is a traditional Sicilian recipe, consisting mainly of tomatoes, fried eggplants and salata ricotta, a version of ricotta which can be grated over the pasta adding creamy flavor and brightening the color of the dish. It is supposedly named after a beautiful and famous opera, Norma, composed by Vincenzo Bellini in 1831.

I first learned of the provenance of this famous pasta from the social media site twitter after Carmelita (@cookitaly) asked about everyone’s favorite Italian dish. When I mentioned that I liked tomato and eggplant pasta she informed me that it is considered quintessential Sicilian (of course with the 140 character limit she did not use that term to describe it). However, only the soft ricotta cheese is available in Israel, not salata ricotta which is needed to make the classic variety.  Others on twittter (@thandelike and @lovesicily) suggested I use Turkish lor or Cypriot anari cheese as a substitute. With twitter, I went from knowing nothing about Pasta alla Norma to being a Connoisseur on the subject, at least theoretically. For me twitter has become an effective tool to gain insight on international cuisine although once I thought it was completely useless.

At the very beginning I thought I was talking to myself because I was, I had no followers and tweeted into thin air, but that slowly began to change. I found friends by using keyword searches, Mr. Tweet and finding like minded individuals through their blogs and by Follow Friday recommendations. There are countless food sites around the world; some I enjoy for the pictures, others for the connections and still others for the interesting articles. Twitter however is a bit different because the community needs to be built by you for it to be effective and this takes time and effort. A multitude of lists have already been written about why and how twitter is used, but at the end it all comes down to sharing information, connections and conversations.

Pasta Alla Norma, Middle Eastern Style

This is not a traditional Pasta Alla Norma, instead of friend eggplant slices, I roasted them whole and used the smoky pulp in the sauce. I also replaced the cheese with spiced ground meat which I was going to use for lachmajoon but did not have the time assemble. Although this is a Sicilian dish, the Arabs are credited on introducing this new crop to Europe where it once was considered poisonous.

7 ripe tomatoes, peeled

2 tablespoons tomato paste if tomatoes are not red enough (optional)

4 tablespoons of olive oil

5 cloves of garlic

2 eggplants (roasted)

One bunch of fresh za’atar

Ground meat mixture:

500 grams ground meat, lamb or beef

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon baharat (Arabic spice mix, cinnamon can be used instead)

2 tomatoes, chopped

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

Olive oil

500 grams spaghetti such as barilla brand

Tomato sauce

Peel the tomatoes by making a shallow crisscross cut on each side of the tomato and plunging in boiling water until peel begins to curl (about 30 seconds), chop the tomatoes. In a medium sized pan (not aluminum) add the tomatoes, garlic and olive oil. Cook until the tomatoes disintegrate into a smooth sauce and the olive oil rises to the top, about 35 minutes. (this technique I learned from a recipe by Marcella Hazan)

Meat Filling

Preferably in a cast iron skillet fry onion until just beginning to brown, add the garlic and stir for a few moments. Add the meat and cook until it changes color, add the lemon juice, and chopped tomatoes and cook until most of the juices have evaporated and the meat begins to brown. Add the spices and mix well.

Roast eggplant

Poke eggplant in several places with a fork and roast in the oven or over an open flame. The eggplant’s skin will char a bit, this is normal. Rotate the eggplant to cook evenly until the flesh is soft. Split one side open and let liquid drain in a colander. When the eggplant is cooled, scoop the flesh out with a spoon.

Prepare spaghetti according to package directions.

Assembly

Combine spaghetti with tomato sauce, top with roasted eggplant and ground meat mixture. Sprinkle with fresh za’atar leaves. As my kids don’t like the taste of roasted eggplant, I assembled each dish separately.

In high school many years ago I was a fencing champion and was written about in the local paper- the Daily Freeman, which I once thought was so worldly and sophisticated. Everyone was always so impressed when I told them “I won the gold in the New York State fencing championships” as they made a show of raising their eyebrows and tilting their heads in slight surprise and perhaps awe, I would like to think. But of course it was all a joke since there were no other female contestants at this prestigious event.  The organizers scoured the auditorium and found two bewildered nine year olds whom I was told to compete against as it was hardly ethical to present me with a marble mounted trophy for just sitting there. I swiftly put down my young opponents with one lunge and happily accepted my well earned trophy which I have until today. Last summer I visited my fencing teacher, Umberto and his wife Elene who also own a horse farm near the Ashokan Reservoir and who still practice periodically in the nearby town of Woodstock.

Umberto teaching my son tricks in archery

Umberto's and Elene's farm

This is why my carrot fritters are truly the best- it is the only ones that I have eaten in my entire life, there is nothing to compare to them. I passed over the recipe dozens of times while leafing through my Kurdish cookbook but it seemed too simple to bother with, a typical amateur mistake as only quality produce is needed for a delicious meal. When I called my mother to ask if she ever had carrot fritters she told me that her grandmother used to make it often for school sandwiches. That would be a lot of fritters as she has six brothers and sisters.

The Best Kurdish Carrot Fritters

Although carrots can be obtained in Israel all year, their flavor is undoubtedly better during the winter season.

5 medium sized carrots (about 2 cups), finely grated

1 onion, grated

2 eggs

1/2 cup bread crumbs

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

1 teaspoon salt or to taste

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together until homogenous. Create about 15 flat, round, fritters from the mixture, about 1 cm thick. Heat oil in a pan, enough so that it comes half way up the fritters. Fry fritters until golden brown, on both sides. Remove on to paper towels to absorb excess oil. Serve with labneh or yogurt. Variations: Ground coriander goes well with carrot fritters, either in the mixture or added in the labneh, try adding a variety of herbs such as parley and thyme.

Whenever I am shopping at the shuk I see art, the subtle curve of the eggplant, texture of the cauliflower, smooth green of the zucchini, ruby reds of cherries.  These are not commodies but things of beauty- telling tales of the sun and rains (and ok, perhaps the pesticides and fertilizers as well).  It is more beautiful than anything in a museum so it is not surprising that I regularly buy too much. For me it’s like finding a Picasso or Cezanne on sale for only four shekels a kg which always seems to me like an incredibly good buy even while my neighbor says “Four shekels a kg! a ripoff, I bought it for three!”. Then I get home and am confronted with reality- how am I going to cook all the zucchini, eggplants, cauliflower herbs and other seasonal produce?

Back in the golden age of the Ottoman Empire there would be only one answer to this question- stuff it. And indeed the Ottoman Turks, who were heavily influenced by the Medieval Arab cookery, set up a magnificent kitchen of their own at the Topkapi palace of Istanbul.  They loved all variety of stuffed vegetables and fruits and left a lasting culinary impression throughout the lands which they occupied- The Middle East, Levant and North Africa and even in areas beyond its borders.  Contrary to the heavily spiced and sweetened dishes of the Middle Ages, the Turkish food was more subtle in flavor and included the newly discovered crops such as tomatoes and peppers from the New World.

Stuffed vegetables, or dolmas as they are known, have the simplest of ingredients- just wholesome vegetables, rice, sometimes ground meat, herbs and spices. In many recipes, such as this Iraqi one, stuffed vegetables are simmered in tomato sauce, a vegetable which the Spaniards introduced to North Africa and the Turks later incorporated into their cuisine. Cooks soon relied heavily on tomatoes which replaced many of the traditional ingredients in Middle Eastern cuisine such as lemon juice, sour grapes (unripe), sumac liquid, vinegar and sour plums. However, there are still areas where “white sauce” is preferred to the ubiquitous tomato such as my grandmother’s Kurdish stuffed grape leaves whereas in Mosul of Northern Iraq, they prepare it red. This recipe is from the food historian and cookbook author Nawal Nasrallah whose book Delights from the Garden of Eden is a wonderful compendium of recipes, culture, history and folklore of Iraq from the ancient times until today.

In the kitchen there is a tool for every job, and a proper vegetable corer is needed for this recipe. I have bought several but my favorite is the one I bought in Nazareth which has a bladed edge for easy removal of the pulp. When I first presented these dolmas to my son he said “this isn’t the regular kind that you make”, in an accusing tone, but once he tasted he simply said “Mmm, these are good”

Stuffed Vegetables- Mosuli Style Dolma

(Al-Dolma al Mosuliya)

Filling:

500 grams (1 pound) lean ground meat

2 1/2 cups rice (Jasmine is preferred as it is stickier than other long grain rice such as basmati), washed, soaked in water for 30 minutes and drained

1 medium onion, chopped and lightly fried in 1-2 tablespoons of oil

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

1/2 cup fresh dill, chopped

1/4 cup fresh mint, chopped

4 garlic cloves, grated (or crushed)

2 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon baharat (Arabic five spice powder)

50 grams (3 tablespoons) tomato paste

Juice of two lemons

For sauce:

50 grams of tomato paste diluted in 2 1/2 cups of water, or more as needed.

Vegetables that can be stuffed:

Grape leaves

Zucchini

Onions

Peppers

Eggplant

Filling:

In a big bowl combine all the ingredients for the filling and mix well.

Stuffing the vegetables:

Core the vegetables such as eggplant and zucchini.  Properly cored zucchini should have walls thin enough to allow light to pass through it (I am still practicing). If using onions make one slice into the core of the onion and put it in the microwave for a few minutes to soften it. Check periodically to see if the layers of the onions soften and can easily be pulled away from one another.

Stuff the zucchini 3/4 full to allow for rice to expand. Stuff grape leaves as described here. For onions, separate the layers and put a small amount of rice mixture at one end and roll the onion firmly to completely enclose the filling.

Prepare a wide pot:

Coat a wide pot with a thin layer of oil and cover the bottom with grape leaves, slices of carrot, zucchini or onion. I didn’t coat the bottom but this helps to keep the bottom layer from burning or sticking  if cooked too long.

Add the vegetables to prepared pot and cover with sauce. The sauce should barely cover the vegetables. Lay a heavy plate on top of the vegetables, pushing down to remove air bubbles and to keep them from moving and opening during cooking. Make sure there is enough sauce to barely cover the vegetables once the plate has been pushed down.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook for about 1 hour. Remove from heat and leave covered for an additional 15 minutes.

I have never attempted to unmold a pot of stuffed vegetables but to do this, remove the plate from above the vegetables and invert a large plate or platter on top of the pot. Flip the pot quickly while holding the plate in place. Hopefully the dolmas will slip out beautifully.

Not the best picture but still a tasty dish

Jews from Morocco are the largest ethnic group in Israel and it is not surprising that elements of their cuisine have become popular throughout the country. Typical of the melting pot which Israel had become, one of my first introductions to Moroccan food was at my Kurdish Aunt’s house. She had married a Moroccan man from Casablanca and according to tradition was taught the secrets of Moroccan cooking from her mother in law.

This same Aunt and Uncle, upon hearing I didn’t intend to have a henna ceremony before I was married decided to organize a small celebration at my grandmother’s house.  Here’s the thing, since he was the one organizing he wanted to do it Moroccan style, but my grandmother was hosting and that side of the family thought  it only respectful to do a Kurdish ceremony. As a compromise, half the evening I was adorned like a Kurdish princess, the other half like a Moroccan. I don’t remember exactly what we ate, except for the extraordinary variety of colorful cookies flavored heavily with almond and rosewater but I do know that dressing and being treated like Moroccan royalty suited me very much.

But that was wishful thinking and I was soon scrambling and bewildered in Israeli society where I had become a permanent resident. As the years passed I began to learn more about Moroccan culture through the aromas of their cooking and the festivals they held at nearby parks.  Along with couscous, chicken with olives and preserved lemons (Djej Emshmel) is one of the earliest Moroccan dishes I remember eating.

Marcelle selling homemade warka leaves at the shuk

Moroccan Style Meatballs with Olives and Preserved Lemon

Here is an adaptation using meatballs instead of chicken based on a recipe by Israeli cookbook author, Benny Saida. The Moroccan picholine (picholine marocaine) is Morocco’s most prevalent olive cultivar and according to Paula Wolfert is the preferred olive in dishes such as these. These are not available in Israel and instead I use manzanillo, after I boil them a few times to reduce the bitterness.

 Meatballs

600 grams ground beef or lamb

1 large onion, coarsely grated

1 egg

2-3 tablespoons breadcrumbs or 2 slices of bread without the crust, soaked in water and squeezed dry

1 small bunch mix of coriander and parsley leaves (about 1 cup)

1 flat teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cinnamon

2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Sauce

4-5 tomatoes, crushed (I usually peel them by making an x at the bottom and covering them with boiling water for a minute or two before peeling)

1 tablespoon tomato paste (if tomatoes are not completely ripe)

200 grams (about 1 can) of manzanillo olives, pitted

1/4 cup olive oil

6 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon spicy Moroccan paprika

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon ginger

Salt/pepper

4 preserved lemons (in Israel limequats are usually used)

1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves for serving

Meatballs:

In a bowl combine all the ingredients for the meatballs and knead well until the mixture is homogenous. Make about 16 meatballs and fry in a small amount of oil, until golden brown, flip and fry the other side. The meatballs will continue to cook in the sauce and do not have to be completely cooked at this point.

In a small pot, cover the olives with water, bring to a boil and discard the water. Repeat. Drain and reserve.

In a pot add the olive oil and fry the tomatoes and garlic for several minutes, until they begin to soften. Add the tomato paste, spices and mix well. Add the meatballs, olives and one cup of water. Bring to a boil. Cover and cook for 30 minutes. Add the preserved lemons and continue cooking for an additional 20 minutes. Serve over couscous, sprinkle with chopped coriander leaves.

References:

Couscous and other Good Food from Morocco, Paula Wolfert