There’s a little restaurant in the Yemenite quarter with a wide-ranging menu with flagship dishes from at least four ethnicities — including jachnun, kubbeh, couscous and hummus — and it excels at all. How could this be?

Generally, when I walk into a restaurant that offers both, say, pad thai and sushi (or worse — schnitzel and sushi), I get a little suspicious about ordering either one. You’ll find lots of so-called “Asian” restaurants around here that basically make a mishmash of different ethnicities’ flagship dishes without mastering any of them.

We may not have many Thais or Japanese to lend us their culinary expertise — in one amusing news tidbit, the government is offering to train veterans as sushi chefs in the hope that they’ll replace foreign workers — but we have plenty of Yemenites, Kurds, Iraqis, North Africans and Arabs, to name a few. All these people are an integral part of society, and their foods are an integral part of the local culinary tradition.

An American once commented to me that we don’t have much ethnic food in Israel. Yes, actually we do — just from different ethnicities.

In fact, we’ve reached the point where none of these traditionally “ethnic” foods are exotic anymore. So it’s not surprising that a Tzarum (Yishkon 22, open for lunch, kosher meat) restaurant in the Yemenite Quarter would offer all these dishes, and do them well. After all, this is the mix at the base of Israeli cuisine.

Anyway, one of the secrets at restaurants of this type is that they outsource — they buy food from various expert cooks in the neighborhood.

All this is actually just an introduction to talk about couscous. Among the many dishes that Tzarum serves is couscous — as a main course, or at a steal for 5 shekels as a side dish. I never asked who makes it for them, but it’s handmade, with that special creamy taste and melt-in-your-mouth flakiness that you won’t get from the instant variety.

There’s no comparing the amount of work involved in handmade versus instant couscous, but it’s like pasta — by buying it premade (above left), you’re missing out on that freshness of the handmade version (above right). After all, there has to be some kind of payoff given the work involved.

I should credit a woman named Zohara for showing me how to make couscous. Zohara immigrated from Morocco as a young girl, and now has her own hospitality business, serving Moroccan-Israeli foods at her home in the countryside. Now in her 60s, she’s been making couscous ever since she married and left her parents’ home at age 13. Her instructions were characterized by the nonchalant vagueness of many home cooks, but watching someone work is a fine substitute for a proper recipe.

Handmade couscous is made from semolina mixed with water and oil, which gets sifted through a net several times and steamed over soup for about an hour. It requires some specialized equipment — a net strainer, and a couscoussier, which is basically a double-boiler with a steamer basket. In place of the couscoussier, you could use a metal strainer and a cheesecloth set on top of a large stock pot. (Don’t use your favorite towel, since it will probably wind up stained yellow.)

Couscous being sifted:

In the cheesecloth, ready to cook:

However, I haven’t found a substitute for the sifter. Fortunately, it’s not that expensive or large, and many stores at the local markets stock them — mine cost 30 shekels. That said, if you can’t find one, you could try to find a metal net with 3-millimeter square holes and use that instead.

This recipe makes a lot, because making extra just isn’t that much more work.

For about 8 servings:

For the vegetable soup:
1 large onion (±250 grams)
2 carrots (±250 grams)
2 zucchinis (±500 grams)
1 butternut squash (±500 grams)
±4 celery stalks, with half the leaves (±150 grams)
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cumin
pinch black pepper
(optional: You also could use vegetables such as pumpkin, cauliflower or potato, which have similar flavor profiles.)

1 kilo semolina (2.2 pounds)
1 tablespoon salt
±360 grams water, divided (about 1.5 cups)
±180 grams vegetable oil, divided (about 3/4 cups)

First, start the soup in a pot large enough to hold both the soup and a metal colander with the couscous on top (I used an 8-liter/quart pot).

Chop all the vegetables, put into the pot on a medium flame, and let soften slightly. Add the salt and spices, and top with 2 liters of water. Bring to a boil, then shut the flame until you’re ready to put the couscous on top.

Prepare the couscous: You’ll need a couscous filter (a round basket with a net on the bottom; the net has 3-millimeter square holes), and two bowls large enough to place under the net.

Pour about 1/5 of the semolina and the salt into a bowl. Set aside about 220 grams of water (1 cup) and 120 grams (1/2 cup) of oil. As you mix the semolina with your hand, drizzle some of this water into the bowl as well, until the semolina starts forming crumbs. Drizzle some oil as well. Add more semolina and repeat. When you’re done, you should have added the full 220 grams water and 120 grams oil, and the semolina mixture should look crumbly. If it has clumps, break them up. (If it’s soggy, then you’ve somehow added too much water.)

Pour the crumbs into the couscous filter. Swirling your hand through the crumbs, push them through the couscous filter into the second bowl in order to break up any lumps.

Put your metal colander on top of the soup pot, checking to make sure no liquid is coming up through the bottom. Remove any extra liquid if necessary (it can be added back later, once the soup has boiled down). Put a cheesecloth inside the colander.

Dump the couscous into the cheesecloth, and put a lid on top of it all. Make sure the sides of the cheesecloth aren’t anywhere near the flame; fold them upward if you need to. Let simmer on a low flame for 15-20 minutes, which should be enough time for you to see steam filtering through the couscous (not just around the sides of the colander).

Now, filter the couscous again: Shut the flame, and dump the couscous into the filter (placed over one of the bowls). You want to pass the couscous through the filter again, but it’ll be very hot; let cool for a few minutes and/or use a spatula instead of your hand.

Mix the remaining 140 grams (1/2 cup) water and 60 grams (1/4 cup) oil into the couscous, mixing with your hand and drizzling gradually as you did before the couscous was cooked (you might want to let it cool a bit more first). The couscous should be looking nice and crumbly.

Pour the couscous back into the cheesecloth, cover, and turn the flame back on.

Let cook another 15-20 minutes. Pour the couscous into the filter again, and pass through to make sure there are no clumps. Put back into the cheesecloth to cook for another 15-20 minutes.

If your couscous is clumpy, you can pass it through the filter again before serving. I didn’t find this necessary, though.

Serve the couscous topped with vegetables and a little bit of broth.

I have a new love. Fortunately, my husband approves, because it’s vegetarian and he can eat it, too.

I’ve been eating my way through the Persian restaurants neighboring the Levinsky market. While the market was originally founded by Balkan immigrants, it now has a strong Persian presence. Among the many bags of beans, grains and dried fruit at the market’s stores, you’ll find plenty of signs in Persian sticking out from among delicacies like jujubes, large dried garlic flakes and dried Persian lemons. If you venture inside and ask the right questions, you can also find industrial quantities of Basmati rice, saffron and roasted chickpea flour.

This makes it the most natural of places to seek out a good Persian meal, and indeed, there are three lunchtime restaurants within spitting distance on Nahalat Binyamin — Salimi, Nebayev and Shimshiri. All are kosher and operate from about noon to 5 P.M. on weekdays, and all offer classics such as ghormeh sabzi (a herb-filled stew with kidney beans), gondi (chicken-chickpea dumplings in a clear yellow chicken broth) and grilled meat in saffron, with heaping plates of fresh herbs on the side. At all, you’ll pay 30 to 40 shekels per meal, depending how much you order.

Salimi, at Nahalat Binyamin 80, is by far the best-known of the bunch. It also has the most limited selection — just sabzi, gondi and grilled meats. There’s also no written menu. I particularly liked the gondi, in its rich chicken broth.

Nebayev, at Nahalat Binyamin 78, is larger than its neighbor Salimi, and offers at least half a dozen Persian stews and several kinds of rice. It’s also the only one of the three to have an orderly menu with descriptions and prices. I particularly liked the beef stewed in fruit and the yellow rice speckled with mini-raisins (which I tried to recreate — see recipe below). Lunch is 42 shekels for a meat dish, a rice dish and free helpings of salads. If you ask nicely, they’ll give you a bowl of sauce and vegetables from one of the other meat dishes, too (read: these vegetable dishes are obviously not meat-free).

Shimshiri, at Nahalat Binyamin 99, is by far the most vegetarian-friendly of the crew, and was able to offer us meat-free sabzi, beet stew with rice and the most amazing stuffed peppers I’ve ever had (remember the love I mentioned?). It has some form of printed menu, but no prices. The dishes we ordered ranged between 30 and 35 shekels each, and chopped salad is on the house.

View Persian restaurants in the Levinski market in a larger map

So, you can guess where this is heading. Shimshiri’s stuffed peppers are to die for, and I was determined to make my own. And, come to think of it, Nebayev’s raisin rice was quite good, too — so why not attempt to combine the two?

The following recipe draws on the flavors in Shimshiri’s sauce, and takes some of the seasonings from Nebayev’s rice and mixes them with what I tasted in the original stuffed pepper fillings.

These quantities make twice as much rice as you’ll need to fill the peppers. As you can see, I served the extra rice alongside them. (You could also choose to double the number of stuffed peppers.)

These miniature raisins (possibly also known as currants — thanks, Molly) are less than half the size of regular raisins, and can be found at most local stores and markets selling dried fruits. Due to their delicate size, they pair better with the rice grains than regular raisins. If you can’t find them, you could just take regular raisins and chop them roughly.

For six stuffed peppers plus another two cups of cooked rice:

For the rice:
2 cups Persian rice
1/4 cup oil
1 onion
6 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
3/4 cups miniature raisins
1/4 cup dried apricots, chopped finely
2 teaspoons chopped fresh mint (or 1/2 teaspoon dried mint)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons turmeric

For the stuffed peppers:
6 small or medium-sized peppers

For the sauce:
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
small amount of oil (±1 tablespoon)
3-4 dried apricots
1 tablespoon raisins
1/2 cup pomegranate syrup
2 teaspoons tamarind paste
1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste

First, start the rice: We’re making it Persian style, which means immersing it in lots of water (at least 4 cups) in a pot, bringing to a boil and simmering for 8-10 minutes. At this point, the rice should be mostly but not fully cooked. Dump the mostly-cooked rice into a strainer to remove the remaining water, and let drain.

Chop the onions, garlic and apricots. Put 1/4 cup oil into a pot — the same pot, if you like — and add the onions. Let them brown on a low flame. Once the onions are soft and golden, add the garlic and the cumin. The cumin seeds may start popping out of the pot as they toast in the oil, so beware.

Turn off the heat, add the raisins, apricots, mint, salt and turmeric to the pot, and mix the rice back in. Mix until the seasonings are well-incorporated into the rice.

Meanwhile, make the sauce: Chop the onions, garlic and apricots. Add a small amount of oil to a pot large enough to fit the six peppers, and on a low flame, brown the onions for the sauce. Once the onions are golden, add the garlic and brown as well. Add the remaining sauce ingredients along with a bit of water — about 1/4 cup, or as much as you want to get the consistency you desire. Turn off the heat until you’re ready to add the peppers.

Now, stuff the peppers: Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds from inside (you can keep the tops to put back on the peppers, for the sake of presentation). Spoon rice into the peppers until they are mostly full — the rice won’t gain much more volume, since it’s nearly cooked — but don’t pack too tightly. Arrange the peppers with the cut sides pointing up in the pot, and spoon a few teaspoons of gravy onto the top of each pepper (you can now stick the pepper tops back on them, if you want). Cover the pot, turn the flame back on and bring to a simmer. Cook until the peppers are soft.

To finish the rice: Add 2-3 tablespoons of water to the pot with the rice, cover and cook on a low flame for a few more minutes, until the rice is fully cooked.

Serve the peppers alongside the extra rice and sauce.

Is there such a thing as Israeli beer, and if so, what makes a beer Israeli? I’m not the first person to ask that question, but it comes up again on the occasion of Israel’s second-ever beer expo, Beers 2012.

The local industry is young but growing, with a profusion of microbreweries and home breweries — enough of them to fill a stadium (Nokia Stadium, to be precise). But while the beers are brewed here — even the mass-market Danish brands Carlsberg and Tuborg — nearly all the raw ingredients are imported. The malt — made abroad in a water-intensive process; hops — grown elsewhere, since the plant likes cold weather. In fact, as a liquor store owner disdainfully pointed out to me last year, even the beer styles are imported — Pilsner, Stout, Lager, Ale, Tripel. (Of course, the same could be said for “local” beers from many countries, but that’s not our focus here.)

Now, unlike that liquor store owner, that doesn’t mean that most of us intend to refrain from drinking locally-produced craft beers because there’s nothing distinctly Israeli about them. What it means is that coming up with a truly local, Israeli product is difficult. It demands creativity.

It’s not simply a matter of suiting a beer to the local market. The drinking culture here is relatively undeveloped — Israelis drink an average of 13 liters of beer per year, versus 85 for Americans, 99 for the British and 158 for the Czech, the world leaders — so you can’t really say there’s a beer with a specifically Israeli taste. (Not that Israelis are big drinkers in general: They’re 140th in the WHO’s ranking of alcohol consumption by nation, between Ghana and Djibouti, and close to a large block of predominantly Muslim countries.)

Not all the breweries make “Israelifying” beer their focus — there are plenty that just try to make beer they like. But plenty of others evince conceptual awareness, labeling some of their products specifically “Israeli.” For most breweries, the “Israeli” twist comes through flavorings such as pomegranate, mint or orange peel, all of which are locally grown. Sure, these kinds of additions may make purists cringe, but let’s not be snobs — if it tastes good, what’s the problem?

I’d made a list of “Israeli”-style beers I’d been hoping to try — Butterfly’s pomegranate beer, Herzl’s seven species beer and Binyamina’s watermelon beer, among others — but with the exception of Lone Tree and their pomegranate-date beer, none of these breweries were actually at the expo this year. (About that pomegranate-date beer — it’s a very strong, bitter pale ale that gets a second fermentation with pomegranate juice and date syrup. They said the fruit flavors show up on the aftertaste, but I couldn’t really taste them.)

So that left the breweries making beer for the fun of making beer, of which there were lots.

There were about four dozen local breweries to choose from, many of them looking to build a name for themselves and find customers. I skipped the ones I knew, even those whose beers I particularly like, in the name of finding something new and interesting.

Some were truly spectacular. That’s what I said about Bazelet’s beers after last year’s expo, and I’d say that Bazelet certainly has broken into the market since then. Let’s see if the same happens for the following beers.

Shapiro’s Jack winter ale — this amber beer has a pleasant hops and malt flavor, and the infusion of Jack Daniels-soaked oak adds a lovely wood essence, perfect for people like me who find whisky to be too alcoholic. Miriam and I both agreed that this was one of the best beers we tasted, if not the best. Their pale ale was also excellent. (In the photo above.)

Galil’s pumpkin ale and pale ale. I liked the pumpkin ale, an amber ale infused with cooked pumpkin and spices. It reminded me of pumpkin pie. The brewery’s pale ale, which they describe as American-style, was also enjoyable. (Top photo.)

In short, those are two breweries to look out for.

I also liked the light bitter beer from Libira, which is actually a brewhouse-restaurant in Haifa, and the slightly spicy blond ale from Malka, which has definitely established itself in the local scene already. My cousin-in-law’s Berliner Weiss beer was also notable — this interesting variety contains very little hops and strong natural acidity from bacteria, which makes it almost like an unsweetened lemonade. But he’s brewing primarily for fun; don’t expect to see that one in the market anytime soon.

So, what does make a beer Israeli? That’s something we’ll have to see as the market develops.

Apple cider makes an intro

Also breaking into the local scene this year was hard apple cider — which, unlike beer, is made entirely with local products. Tura, Sideffect and Isra-Ale all were presenting ciders at the expo.

Once again, Isra-Ale wins the naming contest — its two ciders are called ’48 and ’67 (Irreverent names are apparently the new big thing in alcohol, and it’s no surprise this would take a political twist here).

My favorites were Isra-Ale’s ’67, made from Granny Smith and Golden Delicious and the drier of the brewery’s two ciders, with 6.7% alcohol — hence the excuse for the name — and Sideffect’s sweeter cider (surprisingly), made from a blend of half a dozen apple varieties.

And speaking of adapting drinks to local tastes, Isra-Ale’s Denny Neilson said that his sweeter cider, the ’48, appeals more to people who aren’t familiar with hard cider — namely, the Israeli market. So there you have it.

I’ve been going through massive quantities of vegetable sticks and dip, particularly since Hanukkah, after eating my weight in donuts during the first few days of the holiday. I think I was starting to feel a little deep-fried myself, actually. Fortunately fresh, crispy peppers and carrots are the perfect antidote, and that probably holds for most holiday excesses.

A rich-tasting dip makes the crunchy vegetables seem a bit more decadent, and here the base is tahini. In coming up with this recipe, I had in mind a flavor palate more akin to barbecue sauce than your standard tahini with parsley, ubiquitous at every falafel stand and hummus restaurant.

I generally try to stick with ingredients available locally, but I admit that chipotle may be hard to find here — mine was purchased during a visit to the U.S. But smoky chipotle peppers seem to be slowly creeping their way onto restaurant menus, particularly in sauces served alongside hamburgers — the next ingredient trend, if you will — so they must be getting it somewhere.

I haven’t actually tried looking for it here, but I’d start at a store with lots of imports like Eden Teva Market. If that fails you, you can always find it online.

That, and for once, my readers in the U.S. shouldn’t have a problem finding ingredients (OK, aside from the raw tahini, but still).

As you’re making this recipe, you’ll see some great kitchen chemistry in action, a trick that my friend Irit loves when making her own tahini for her restaurant. As you add water to the raw tahini, which is thick and tan, it will become increasingly whiter and liquid, but once you add the lemon it will “sieze up” as if you added gelatin (it may take a few minutes for the full effect to set in). I can’t say I understand the science behind it, but like many other aspects of kitchen chemistry, it makes for great food.

Note: If you’re using the thick dregs of tahini from the bottom of the jar, it will throw off the quantities since it is more concentrated than regular raw tahini.

For two cups’ worth:

1 cup tahini
1 medium onion
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice (2-3 lemons)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chipotle powder (warning: the dip will be a bit spicy!)
1 garlic clove
1/4 teaspoon cumin

Blend all the ingredients except for the lemon in a blender or food processor until smooth. Add the lemon last, and blend until incorporated.

Serve as a dip alongside the food of your choice, such as vegetable sticks or crackers.

Sfenj are marvelous in the way that only freshly baked yeast pastries know how. This modest dessert had top American chefs waxing poetic over the wonders of traditional foods, and understandably so.

Back story: Four well-known American chefs were at an army base in the Golan, whipping up dinner for a few hundred soldiers. Four well-known chefs and one Ruhama Ben-David, mother of 10, grandmother of 32 and great-grandmother of several. Eight of those children had already been born when she immigrated from Morocco at age 22 in 1963. In fact, that was one of the first things she told me, I imagine because she realizes how much things have changed. Maybe because she thinks about it often.

Nowadays, she’s an event caterer, and there she was on base, making industrial quantities of sfenj. When family gatherings can mean hundreds of people, cooking for an army isn’t much different, she noted.

Ruhama’s donuts resemble Nawlins beignets, as Chef John Besh pointed out at the time. (above: Ruhama and some of her many sfenj.) Coincidentally or not, they’re often referred to as beignets in Morocco. They also resemble many other kinds of pastries. The concept is universal — sweet, deep-fried dough. Here, though, they’re associated with Moroccan food. Unlike many Moroccan-Israeli foods, these donuts are something we actually saw during our time in Morocco — fried in massive barrels of oil and sold piping hot for obscenely low prices. (Below, a sweets shop in the Meknes market.)

Not related, but some of the many other pastries in that shop:

While not exclusively a Hanukkah food, there’s no better time to think about them than now — they certainly fit the spirit of the holiday, which is about eating copious amounts of fried food (OK, aside from religious and historical aspects). All that oil can be hard to digest, but I believe that the better the food, the more willing my stomach is to make the effort.

Like many traditional foods, there are several schools as to how to make proper sfenj (you should see the heated debates going on in the comments sections of some recipe sites in Hebrew). One says use no sugar whatsoever in the dough, something I’ve seen on English-language Moroccan sites; other recipes, particularly those in Hebrew, include sugar. Some use a standard, soft dough; others use so much water in their dough that it’s more like a batter. Some use eggs. Some, including Ruhama, divide the batter into balls for the second rise; others tear and fry lumps of dough straight from the bowl. Some say the dough needs at least 4 hours to rise; Ruhama went from mixing the dough to frying the donuts within an hour (it was peak summer). That said, I got the best results with longer rising times; dough that rose for only one hour came out tasting like fried bread.

The name sfenj is based on the Arabic word for sponge, but that doesn’t mean these donuts should absorb much oil, so long as you fry them at the right temperature. A thermometer is great for this (if you don’t have one, here’s one just like mine for $5.63, global shipping included). I start frying once my oil hits 200 degrees Celsius (390 F), and try to keep the oil within a 200-220 degree Celsius window (390-430 F). At this temperature, lots of bubbles should immediately start streaming off of any batter dropped into the oil. Don’t let the oil heat up too much past this point, though, or the donuts will turn dark brown very quickly, or worse, burn altogether. My donuts had only a light amount of oil on the outside, and no oil whatsoever inside.

Other notes on frying: My pan of choice is a wok (photo below) — large, easy to clean, and any oil stains merely add to the seasoning. I use wooden chopsticks to maneuver the donuts in the hot oil.

To form the donuts, wet your hands to keep the dough from sticking to them as you form it into donut shapes — I’m very cautious about water around boiling oil, but I didn’t find that this created any splatters. Just don’t get your hands so wet that they drip, and you shouldn’t have a problem. If you prefer, you could use oil instead of water.

For about 10 donuts:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Canola oil for deep-frying (about half a liter)
• more granulated sugar for sprinkling (also optional)

Prep time: 4 hours. Cook time: 10 minutes.

Mix together the flour, the water, the 1/4 cup sugar (if using), the yeast and the salt. It should make a shaggy dough that’s too soft to knead. At this time of year, I warm the batter in the microwave for 30 seconds (before adding the yeast) to give it a head-start on rising.

Set in a warm place to rise, ideally for four hours. At this time of year, I turn on the oven for a few minutes, turn it off and then put the dough inside. Otherwise, you’ll be waiting until spring for the dough to rise.

If you’d like, after an hour you can mix the dough with a fork (in place of kneading) and then split it into egg-sized balls, coat them in oil and arrange them on a plate to rise for the remaining three hours. Alternately, you could just leave the dough in a bowl. Ultimately, it needs to triple or quadruple in size at the least.

After the dough has risen, heat enough oil to deep fry in your pot of choice (I need about half a liter to get a decent depth). Once the oil is 200 degrees Celsius (390 Fahrenheit), wet your hands slightly with water or oil and take an egg-sized ball of dough — either prepared on the plate, or rip it straight out of the lump in the bowl — form it gently into a disk and poke your thumbs through the center. The hole should stretch wide enough for your wrist to pass through as you lay the dough into the oil (it’ll shrink as it fries). Don’t handle the dough too much, since you want to preserve the air in it.

Monitor the oil temperature to make sure it stays between 200 and 220 degrees Celsius (390 and 430 Fahrenheit). Once the donuts are golden on one side, flip them. Once golden on both sides, remove to a paper towel to blot up the extra oil.

Repeat with all the dough, in batches if necessary.

Before serving, sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Walking through the Yemenite quarter one Friday morning, I passed an open window advertising fresh lahoh. What more of an invitation do I need?

But there was no one there. Peering inside, I couldn’t even see any bread — none of the telltale bags of stacked lahoh or saluf, full of condensation that keeps the flatbreads moist and fresh as they cool.

Across the street there was another sign in a window advertising lahoh. Eitan’s lahoh, it said. I’d passed it before, but I’d never stopped to check it out.

By then my mind was set on fresh bread, so I found my way inside, through a run-down courtyard into a dark little room. It was a veritable Yemenite pita factory. Piles of lahoh lined a table next to the door — they were finished making lahoh for the day. Flat griddles lined a wall, where the saluf were being made — handfuls of gooey dough were pulled from a mass in a plastic bucket, smeared into a circle on the griddle and then covered with metal hats until baked through. Men were crowded inside, buying bags of fresh bread — for a very reasonable 2.50 shekels per lahoh, and 3 shekels per saluf. In my excitement, I didn’t even think to ask to take a photo. Here they are at work:

The guys were nice enough to let me shoot a video, which hopefully shows the process — I didn’t realize my phone’s video option was quite this bad. This is the last of the saluf batter for the day.

Catch them if you can: They’re open until 8 every weekday — 8 A.M., that is — and until 1 or 2 P.M. on Fridays. In case those hours didn’t tip you off, they stock restaurants.

Lahoh and saluf are similar in spirit, round flatbreads made from a moist yeast dough that may include ground fenugreek seeds. Lahoh is basically made like an unflipped pancake, and I’ve had British people note that it resembles crumpets. Saluf is a relative of lafah, another kind of flat pita you’ll find here. Their prominence varies depending on the region of the country, and the number of Yemenite immigrants who settled there generations ago — while saluf rules the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, it’s impossible to find in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market, where lafah reigns supreme.

Both kinds of Yemenite pitas can be eaten alongside salads, soups or stews, which is generally how they’re served at the restaurants in the Yemenite quarter. I’ll often fry lahoh filled with egg to make a Yemenite omelet, a quick meal that I learned from my friend Irit, who has a tiny restaurant in the neighborhood. Saluf I’ll eat as is — in theory it could be used with spreads, but it doesn’t usually last long enough.

You can make lahoh and saluf at home, although I often find it more convenient to buy them — I generally don’t want more than one or two at once, and they’re best fresh. But then again, not everyone has this as an option — maybe you don’t live close enough, or maybe you simply can’t make it to the Yemenite quarter before noon, at which point most places run out.

And there is one striking advantage to making your own saluf — that fresh, yeasty flavor that dissipates within minutes.

Saluf, alternately spelled salouf or saloof (or סלוף in Hebrew), was traditionally made in a taboun oven — the wet dough would be slapped against the taboun wall, and you knew the pita was ready when it fell off. Or so the story goes — I certainly don’t know anyone who makes it this way anymore. In the Yemenite quarter neighboring the Carmel market, you’ll find people who make saluf on a massive griddle under a grill pan, like at Eitan’s place — those metal domes contain an electric heating element. You can buy a simpler one that can be placed on top of a stovetop frying pan, so that the saluf browns on top as well (this thing, or to see it in use, look at the photos in this post, in Hebrew). I’ve seen them selling for about 80 shekels at the Carmel market. If you want taboun saluf, you’ll have to go to the Hatikva market on the other side of town.

For those making saluf at home — and not serious enough to own a grill pan — your options include a simple frying pan with a lid, or an oven. I’d imagine a pizza stone would be great for this. I used a frying pan, and while my pitas lack the brown spots that characterize professionally made saluf, they taste just as good.

I’ve also seen two techniques for making saluf, and I’m detailing them both here. The main variable is the quantity of water. You can add enough to get a sticky batter that you smear into the pan — at Eitan’s, they start with about two handfuls of gooey dough, and then smear it with a water-fenugreek seed mixture as they flatten it onto the griddle (as in the photo). The water keeps your hands (or rubber gloves) from sticking to the dough. They told me the griddle is oiled only once, when they start work; apparently that’s enough. On the other hand, they remove the bread from the grill with a huge metal spatula that would destroy my nonstick pans.

The other option is to use less water in order to get a dough stiff enough to knead and shape. This goes along with what my friend Irit told me, that saluf dough has the same consistency as jachnun dough. The few grandmothers whose recipes were recorded online seem to prefer this method, too.

I personally prefer using wetter dough, since for me it produced softer pitas, but both are reputable methods. There’s my saluf, bubbling up in the pan. I removed the lid only to take a photo.

This recipe is based on the guidance of my friend Irit, along with my observations from my favorite saluf.

For about 6 smallish saluf pitas:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cups water (alternately, for dough you can roll out: 1 cup water)
• 1 teaspoon ground fenugreek seeds (hilbe in Hebrew)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast

Prep time: 10 minutes. Cook time: 30 minutes.

Mix together the ingredients to form a wet dough. It will be slightly too soft to knead. Mix with a fork or spoon instead. (ALTERNATELY: Use only 1 cup water, form a ball of dough, and knead for a few minutes),

Cover the bowl and set aside to rise, until the dough doubles in size. Stir again with the fork or spoon (this takes the place of kneading). Sit aside again. (TIP: In this cold weather, I heat my oven to the lowest setting for a few minutes, turn it off, and let the dough rise in there. Otherwise it’ll take all day.)

Heat a frying pan on a medium-high flame. Once the pan is relatively hot, turn down the flame to medium-low, and wipe with an oil-soaked paper towel. (If you put dough or batter into a cold pan, it’ll stick and you’ll have a messy disaster.)

IF YOU USED 1 1/4 CUPS WATER: Wet your hands so the dough won’t stick to them, and pull a big handful of dough off the mound in the bowl. Spread it into a round shape in the pan (if the pan is too oily, the dough won’t stick at all and this will be difficult). It doesn’t need to be excessively thin; some thickness gives a nice chewiness. Put a lid on the pan and let the saluf bake on low heat until dry on top — as long as 5 minutes. It should get thick and bubbly as it bakes.

IF YOU USED 1 CUP WATER: Punch down the risen dough and form into 6 balls. Flour and let rise again, briefly. Roll out each ball into a disc, though not too thin — you can just use your fingers to gently prod the dough into a fat circle. Put this disc into the oiled pan, cover, and let bake on a low flame until dry on top — as much as 5 minutes.

ALTERNATELY, USE AN OVEN INSTEAD OF A FRYING PAN: Heat your oven, and put the saluf — either the wet dough or the drier dough — onto a baking stone or tray in the oven. This will let the saluf brown lightly on top as well, giving it a more traditional appearance. You also could put pan-baked saluf into the oven to brown a bit on top.

Repeat your cooking method of choice with the remaining dough.

Let the saluf cool a bit. Store in a plastic bag so that they maintain their moisture and softness — every saluf you’ll buy comes out of a bag full of condensation, and if it doesn’t, there’s a good chance it’s stale.

Places to buy saluf/lahoh in the Yemenite quarter:

• Erez, Nahaliel 28 — this restaurant reliably has a nice stack of saluf and lahoh well into the late afternoon and even early evening hours, something that cannot be taken for granted. 3 shekels each.
• Eitan’s Lahoh, Nahaliel 18 — catch them while you can, if you happen to be in the Yemenite quarter before 8 A.M. on a weekday or 1 P.M. on a Friday. If you are, it’s worth it. 3 shekels for saluf, 2.50 for lahoh.
• There are a spattering of other Yemenite restaurants that also sell breads. I don’t recommend buying them from anyone in the main Carmel market strip. Consider yourself warned.

And, at the Hatikva market: Saluf Bakery, Hatikva 1, where they make saluf in a real oven.

Cholent season has officially begun. By that I mean it’s raining, it’s pouring, we’ve had nearly half a winter’s worth of rain in about two weeks. This is what an average day has looked like in Tel Aviv, that is, during the hours when it’s not pouring and the streets have turned into rivers flowing more rapidly than the Yarkon at most times of the year.

And if that’s not bad enough, Katherine and I visited Ariella in Jerusalem. There, not only the streets were rivers; the sidewalks were, too.

So that’s my case for a steaming-hot brunch that you set up a day in advance and let simmer all night, filling your house with warm smells. I generally close the door to the kitchen; otherwise we’d be waking up and drooling all night long.

Cholent, by the way, is the Yiddish name, but this dish is not exclusive to Ashkenazi communities. Many different Jewish communities have their own version, since this cooking technique gives you hot food on a day when Jews traditionally don’t cook. It’s called hamin in Hebrew. Based on the word for hot. It sounds warm and cozy to me.

The base of cholent is slow-cooked beans. The long cooking time lets all the flavors blend and caramelize. Actually, I’m not sure whether they’re caramelizing or doing something else in there, but the flavor definitely is nothing like what you’d get by throwing everything into a pot and cooking only until soft.

Cholent is traditionally made in the oven, baked at a low temperature (100 to 120 degrees Celsius), or left on a Shabbat hot plate. I make my cholent in a 6-liter slow cooker (crock pot), which seems to work just as well.

The big challenge when making vegetarian/vegan cholent is finding ways to pump up the flavor without using meat. To me, this mix of flavors fits the bil. The usual suspects — beans, barley, potatoes, onions — are supplemented with coriander, cumin, bay leaves and freekeh, ideas that came from Phyllis Glazer’s recipe for Ynet (in Hebrew). Phyllis explains that coriander and cumin aid digestion, which sold me. I also added a pinch of asafoetida for good measure (Wikipedia defines it as a “digestion aid and antiflatulent”). It or the spices did the trick.

As for the freekeh — smoked wheat berries — it adds a lovely chewy texture and layer of smoky flavor that goes well with this dish. I use whole freekeh, as opposed to cracked wheat. If you don’t have any, you could use plain whole wheat berries instead.

Hard-boiled eggs are a traditional addition to cholent, but they’re my least favorite part, so I left them out. If you want, you (non-vegans) could nestle some clean eggs, in their shells, into the pot among the other ingredients. Traditionally, it’s one egg per person.

For those who want to experiment, other things I’ve seen in cholent recipes include: all sorts of legumes, root vegetables (sweet potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes) and other vegetables that can sustain prolonged cooking, dried fruit, and beer or wine. I haven’t had good success using delicate leafy greens such as spinach and fresh herbs, but if someone wants to serve me a version that proves my preconceptions wrong, I’m ready and waiting.

I’m embarrassed to say how many servings it made for us in practice. So yes, let’s say this makes 6-8 servings.

• 2 cups beans of your choosing: I used 1 cup white beans and 1 cup red beans (I happened to have Azuki)
• 1/2 cup barley
• 1/2 cup whole freekeh (smoked wheat; alternately, use wheat berries)
• 2 onions
• 5-6 garlic cloves
• oil for frying
• 3 medium-large potatoes
• 2 carrots
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 7-8 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
• pinch asafoetida (optional, but you’ll thank yourself!)

Prep time: 15 minutes. Cook time: 12 hours or overnight.

Note: This recipe takes lots of advance preparation. The pot goes on the flame about 12 hours before you want to eat, and the beans should start soaking at least several hours before then. Also, you need a slow cooker, an oven-safe pot or a Shabbat hot plate that will be on all night, as well as a cloth cooking bag.

Let the beans soak in advance. Ideally start them a day in advance, so they can start to sprout (soak 8-12 hours, then drain, and rinse every few hours for the remainder of the time). I like keeping different kinds of beans separate, because I arrange them in different parts of the pot. Note: If you forget to soak your beans, no big deal; they’ll cook anyway.

Chop the onion and fry in some oil in a pot (if you’re using an oven-safe pot, use that). Once the onions start browning, crush the garlic and add it, too. Let the garlic brown. (The lazy could skip this step, and just add the raw onions/garlic into the mix.)

Chop the potatoes, carrots and tomatoes. Rinse the freekeh well, and put it into a cloth cooking bag. (If you don’t have one: You could mix it in with everything else, but you sacrifice some nice texture.)

Arrange all the ingredients in the pot: I like to coat the bottom of the pot with beans, with each kind on its own side, and then pile the barley in the middle. Arrange the potatoes on top of the legumes, add your spices, and top with carrots, tomatoes and the fried onions. Nestle the bag of freekeh into the mix, so that it is level with the top layer.

Top off the pot with enough boiling water to cover everything — about 2 liters. At this point, many recipes call for bringing the pot to a boil on the stovetop, but I just turn my slow cooker on (it took 2 hours for it to start boiling).

Start cooking your cholent via your method of choice — in the oven (at 100-120 degrees Celsius), in a slow cooker (automatic setting), or on a hot plate. Slow cookers and pots on hot plates may be covered with a kitchen towel or two to improve insulation (my slow cooker was nowhere near hot enough to start a fire, and the towel quickly became damp from escaping steam).

Let cook overnight. An hour before you plan to eat, check to make sure there’s enough water in the pot — I like to see some liquid simmering a few centimeters beneath the surface. Add more boiling water if necessary.*

Serve, scooping out the different kinds of beans from the different areas in the pot. Add a few spoonfuls of the freekeh to each serving.

* Different kashrut authorities vary regarding the restrictions on adding hot water into a pot of cooked food during the sabbath. I consulted with a kashrut supervisor who found a source saying that Ashkenazi rabbis generally believe it is allowed (the case at hand specifically was boiling water and cholent), while some Sephardi rabbis say it is not because it may violate the restriction against cooking during the sabbath (the water may heat up and be cooked). If this issue is relevant to you, you could get around this problem by adding hot water to the cholent once it is not on the flame anymore, so it will not have any chance of cooking.

For more: An interesting article about cholent in Jewish Magazine.

There are few experiences more fun than a wine expo. Good wine, cheese and a crowd that gets progressively friendlier as the day (and night) wears on. As a bonus, Israeli wines tend to be particularly alcoholic — the climate makes for sugary grapes, which in turn leads to alcohol content of as much as 14% versus 11% to 12% in Europe.

I’d been waiting excitedly for Sommelier 2011, the annual wine expo for the food industry, which was held last week. Dozens of wineries from around the country set up stands to woo restaurants and reviewers with their latest offerings.

More Israeli wineries are offering wines made with grapes beyond Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay — there was lots of Malbec, Petit Verdot and Barbera, to name a few. This is a trend I thought I was noticing, and my friend Irene, of the Golan Heights winery, confirmed it — more wineries are trying new things, and some are doing it better than others. For instance, her winery unrolled a wine made from Portuguese grapes, named 2T — for the Touriga Nacional and Tinta Cao varieties.

As usual, there was a surplus of good red wine — lots of wines I’d be happy to drink a glass of, but few of which stood out in my memory. While you could probably taste slight differences if sampling one after the other, I couldn’t describe most of them for you — many would just blend together under the general description of oaky tannins with berries. Irene noted that differentiating between these wines is where real wine expertise comes into play — something I admit I lack.

On the other hand, I can tell you which wines stood out to my non-expert palate. I particularly liked many of the white wines. Mind you, I skipped right over the Chardonnays and Roses and went for the less common varieties, and this list reflects that. Most are midrange in terms of price, meaning 60-70 shekels, and all but those by the Tulip winery are kosher. (Update: Tulip is kosher as of 2010.)

Tulip White 2010 — a blend of 70% Gewurtztraminer and 30% Sauvignon Blanc (OK, I pretty much like any Gewurtztraminer) creates a mix of tropical fruit and crispness.

Tulip Franc 2010 — this wine is made from a mix of Sauvignon Blanc (35%) and Cabernet Franc (65%), which actually happens to be a red grape. But the peels aren’t left in contact with the juice, enabling the winery to make this into a white wine. The winery describes this wine’s flavor as containing strawberries, apples and citrus.

Agur Blanca 2010 — a mix of 55% Viognier and 45% Johannesburg Riesling, this dry wine has a sweet smell — something I like in white wines — and a taste I found grassy and earthy (the winery describes it as dried fruit and citrus).

Yatir Viognier 2009 — I thought this wine had a fruity apple bouquet and a grassy licorice taste, which I found interesting.

Golan Heights Heightswine 2008 — Am I uncreative for liking this wine? It only won top award at the wine “world cup,” as Irene put it. This Gewurtztraminer dessert wine is styled after a German ice wine, but since the climate here is not such that the grapes freeze on the vine, the winery freezes them itself. It’s a very sweet wine, but it has an amazing mix of flavors including tropical fruits, vanilla and flowers. 2008 is on its way out, but later vintages are available.

Binyamina Reserve Gewurtztraminer. Have I mentioned I like Gewurtztraminer? I enjoyed drinking this one too.

And here’s one red wine to end the list: Recanati Reserve 2009 Petite Syrah/Zinfandel. The winery describes it as a characteristic “Israeli” wine, but I think it’s better than average, with a prominent smell of cloves and spices. It’s made from 80% Petite Syrah and 20% Zinfandel.

I was joined at the expo by a great group of bloggers — the usual suspects — some of whom already wrote about the event. You can read Katherine’s blog post and wine reviews, and Yael’s review (translated from Finnish).

It took me years to realize that my husband liked Jerusalem kugel. Once I did, I turned it into his birthday cake.

This might be because I only recently discovered the dish myself. Wandering through Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market sometime last year, I encountered — let’s be honest — unappealing murky brown slices of God-knows-what wrapped in plastic wrap at one of the deli stands, alongside the various cured fish. After verifying that it did not contain meat, I bought a slice.

Imagine my surprise when I brought the mysterious brown thing home and discovered that not only did Eitan know exactly what it was, he was quite excited to see it and ate the whole thing up.

Jerusalem kugel is a traditional Ashkenazi Sabbath food, a local variation of what Jews ate in Eastern Europe. One version holds that the Vilna Gaon’s followers started making this sweet noodle loaf in the 18th century. Another (equally unsourced) story says Jewish residents of pre-state Jerusalem learned to use spices thanks to their Arab neighbors, and thus the kugel has a sharp, peppery flavor. Either way, it relies on the short list of seasonings used in Ashkenazi food — sugar, salt and black pepper. At this point, it’s a dish you’ll find mostly in ultra-Orthodox delis, which is to say, not anywhere I’ve seen in Tel Aviv.

But it turns out that Eitan’s aunt used to own one such deli, and this is a dish he remembers from his childhood. Once he found out it was available in Jerusalem, he’d ask me to bring back a slice every time I visited. But the steep 24-shekel-a-kilo price tag was incentive enough to make my own.

As Sabbath food, it can be left in the oven for 12 hours at a time, so it is ready for lunch on the day when observant Jews don’t cook. In an interesting cross-cultural twist, Jerusalem kugel is often made in a jachnun/kubaneh pot, a round metal pot with a tight-fitting lid that is a staple in the Yemenite Jewish kitchen. But any oven-safe pot or baking dish will work.

And about the birthday cake? This kugel, cooked in a jachnun pot, happens to have a cake-like form. And if you bake it at a higher temperature, it can be done in an hour, not 12. And then you can stick candles in it. It’s sweet and starchy, so why not?

He loved it, by the way.

There are many Jerusalem kugel recipes out there, and nearly all include varying quantities of the same ingredients. Like any dish based on white flour, oil, sugar and salt, this is poor man’s food and comfort food. Fortunately, you can swap the spaghetti for whole-wheat noodles and the white sugar for demerara without really impacting the flavor, thus replacing many of the empty calories with less refined alternatives. (Not that I’d call the outcome healthful, but still.)

For one 16-centimeter diameter loaf:

• 500 grams noodles (regular or whole wheat)
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (yes, it’s supposed to be sweet — you can use demerara/light brown sugar)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 teaspoons pepper (my pepper was very fresh; if yours isn’t, you might want to use more)
• 5 large eggs, or more if they’re smaller

Prep time: 15 minutes. Cook time: 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

Cook the noodles according to the package instructions until they are fully cooked, not just al dente (see above note). Strain but don’t rinse, and dump back into the pot or a heat-safe bowl.

Meanwhile, heat the oil and sugar in a light-colored pot (so you can see how dark your caramel is). Stir as the sugar browns. Remove from the flame right when the oil and melted sugar shows the first signs of boiling. The sugar should be a dark caramel by this point. Don’t let it overcook, or it will burn and turn bitter. Immediately dump the oil and sugar into the pasta, and stir. (Be careful — the oil and sugar could splatter and burn you.)

Add the salt and pepper, taste, and adjust the seasoning. Careful — the noodles are very hot at this point.

Let the noodles cool for a minute or two. Crack the eggs into a separate bowl, beat, and mix into the noodles. Stir until well incorporated.

Oil your baking dish. If you want, put a layer of baking paper or tinfoil in the bottom — this will help you remove the finished loaf later. Pour in the noodle mixture, and cover — either with the lid or with tinfoil. Let bake covered for 45 minutes.

Uncover and let bake another 15 minutes so that the top can brown. Alternately, if you want to make this for Shabbat, leave covered and lower the temperature to 100 degrees Celsius, and leave in the oven all night. Uncover shortly before eating so that the top can brown.

This is a different kind of sambusak. One I’d never seen before.

Sambusak is one of those ubiquitous snack foods around here, somewhere next to burekas. While these deep-fried or baked pockets of dough have a strong association here with Iraqi Jews, many of whom consider them an integral part of their culinary heritage, they’re made throughout the Middle East by people from a range of cultures. Not too surprising, no?

Sambusak are sold at every cheap bakery in town, making it easy to forget their rich cultural heritage. Fat and massive, you’ll find them stuffed with watery potato mash mixed with soup powder, watery cheese mash mixed with soup powder … well, you get the picture. Due to the nature of most cheap bakeries, this also makes it easy to forget that sambusak can be, well, good.

But a while ago, I had a sambusak revelation.

We were at my friend’s mother’s house in Nazareth for lunch. Every dish had been painstakingly prepared — stuffed grape leaves, stuffed eggplant, stuffed squash. And every one contained meat.

Eitan was happily eating salads, but my friend’s mother, Teres, is not one to leave any chance that a guest might go hungry. So she pulled some pastries out of the fridge and quickly fried them for Eitan. They were exquisite little croissants stuffed with gooey white cheese, with flakes of zaatar leaves rolled into the dough.

Sambusak, she said.

I’ve never seen sambusak like this, I told her. Usually they’re much bigger.

Sambusak, she said, as if to say, there is no sambusak but this.

I can’t tell you how common this style of sambusak is — whether it’s a Nazareth thing, or Teres’ own twist. I certainly haven’t found any record online of similar delights. Teres served them at a family wedding, both to honor the guests and to wow the neighbors. She was generous enough to share her recipe, or should I say, describe her recipe. I tried it at home and came up with some measurements.

The charm of these sambusak is threefold — first, their tiny size and croissant shape makes them into a delicate snack; second, their aromatic flavor comes from whole zaatar leaves as opposed to the dry, powdery zaatar spice mix that all too often seasons commercial pastries; and third, the filling is from firm chunks of cheese that becomes gooey when the pastries are cooked, not from some mashed paste. As a bonus, you can prepare them in advance and store them unbaked/unfried in the freezer, to serve to guests (or yourself) at a moment’s notice.

In short, it’s another level of sambusak.

A note on the ingredients: Teres used jibneh, a firm sheep cheese common in Arab towns (and whose name happens to mean “cheese” in Arabic). Since it’s harder to find in Tel Aviv, I used something similar from the Carmel Market that my cheese seller called “Iraqi cheese.” If you can’t find a firm, unaged sheep cheese, the closest alternative would be mozzarella.

Also, I used fresh zaatar (hyssop) leaves in the dough. An alternative would be fresh oregano. Dried whole zaatar leaves would be fine, but powdered zaatar spice mix would not.

For 36 small sambusak (3 cm long):
Dough:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons fresh zaatar (hyssop) leaves (not packed tightly; alternative: fresh oregano, or 1 tablespoon dry oregano or zaatar. Note: This is not the powdered zaatar spice mix.)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon yeast

Filling:

• 200 grams semi-hard unaged sheep cheese — jibneh or Iraqi cheese (alternative: mozzarella)

For frying:

• Enough oil for deep frying

Mix together all the ingredients for the dough. It will be shaggy and crumbly. Kneading, add enough water so that it comes together as a dough — about 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons. Form into a ball, cover and place in a warm place to rise until it doubles in size — about 1 1/2 hours.

Once dough has risen, knead two or three times to remove the air. Divide into three balls. On a floured surface, roll out one of the balls into a circle no more than 2 millimeters thick and ideally 1 millimeter thick. (It doesn’t need to be perfectly shaped.)

Cut the circle like a pizza into 12 wedges. Place a small block of cheese — about 1 inch by 1 centimeter by 1 centimeter — at the fat end of each wedge. Fold a bit of dough over the cheese, tuck in the sides and pinch if necessary so that the cheese is fully concealed, and roll up the dough toward the thin end, as if making a croissant.

Repeat for the rest of the slices and the rest of the dough.

At this point, you can fry the sambusak to eat immediately, or freeze them to eat later.

Heat oil to deep-fry the sambusak. (I do this in an iron wok, where the oil residue adds to the wok’s seasoning instead of making a gummy mess that later needs to be cleaned off.) The oil should be hot enough that bubbles immediately start coming off the sambusak when they’re dropped into it, but not so hot that they immediately turn a dark brown. Fry for 2-3 minutes until they are a light golden brown, remove with a slotted spoon onto a paper towel to absorb excess oil, and serve.

Alternately, you could bake them. I tried this only with the frozen sambusak: I stuck them in my toaster for about 12 minutes, until they browned lightly and the cheese was melted (my toaster does not actually have temperature settings). If you bake them fresh, they probably will be done much quicker.