This dish aspires to combine the symbols of the Jewish new year into a new and creative form. You have your apples and honey cradled in a creamy filling, and enclosed in fresh pasta dough. And the form even looks somewhat like a pomegranate. Ok, maybe if you squint.

This recipe was inspired by one of the best pasta dishes I’ve ever had – a pear/four cheese beggars purse served at the reception when my friend married my cousin. Ultimately, this dish is not just a holiday food; it’s certainly not a traditional holiday food (traditionally, people eat meat on the holiday, after all). It would be good whenever you decide to make it.

The flavors are mild, and the filling is creamy thanks to the ricotta and the apple. Happy New Year, people.

For about 24 dumplings (2 servings):

For the filling:
200 grams ricotta
1 green apple
10 grams Roquefort
1 teaspoon honey
1/8 teaspoon salt

For the pasta:
125 grams semolina flour
125 grams white flour
pinch salt
water — about 1/2 cup

Prepare the pasta dough — mix together the flour with as much water as necessary to make a stiff dough. Knead as you add water — you’ll find that the flour in the bottom of the bowl will get worked into the dough. Knead the dough for a bit — it’ll be crumbly — until it starts to hold together. Set aside to rest.

Cut and core the apple, and nuke, covered, in the microwave (you can also boil it to soften it, but I prefer the microwave). Mash it up with a fork. You can remove the pieces of peel at this point, if you want.

Mix the rest of the filling ingredients with the apple.

Take the pasta dough, knead a few times to soften, and separate it into 2-3 chunks that are small enough to work in your pasta machine. Run each chunk through the machine at the largest setting several times, folding over and repeating, and then run through on increasingly thin settings, until the pasta ribbon is 1.6 millimeters/ 1/16 of an inch thick (setting #5). Setting #6 — slightly thinner — would also be good.

If you don’t have a pasta machine, roll out the dough as thinly as possible with a rolling pin.

You can pack the filling into bundles of pasta however you wish, but here’s how I did it: The strips from your machine will be 15 cm (6 in) wide. Cut off a square, and then cut the square in half, into two rectangles approximately 15 cm by 7.5 cm (6 by 3 in) each. Put a heaping teaspoon of filling in the middle of a rectangle. Pinch together the longer sides — the pasta should now be an even narrower rectangle, as opposed to a square. Now, bring together the short sides — making the pasta bundle squarish — and pinch together. Make sure there are no openings for the filling to escape. Scrunch the connection point a bit, to make the bundle a little more round (as opposed to flat and square).

Once your pasta is stuffed, boil the dumplings for several minutes until they’re cooked through. Remember, you want them to cook through at the thickest point — the place where you closed the bunch — and thus they’ll need to cook longer than the 30 seconds usually required for fresh pasta.

To serve: Drizzle with a good olive oil, and/or sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, and maybe a sprig of sage. Or, use a simple cream sauce.

I recently took a trip to Ramle with my friend Ben of Savor Israel. Admittedly it was my first time, even though Ramle is quite easily accessible from Tel Aviv — 15 minutes on the train and you’re there. And by there, I mean about a 2-minute walk from the market and the center of town. Couldn’t be easier.

Ramle is known for being the only city founded in the land of Israel during the era when it was under Arab rule. It’s been around since 716 CE, and is full of architectural artifacts. Much of the old city is built from pale stone, Jerusalem style. What struck me most was seeing people living among and literally in ancient buildings — you have minarets sticking out of people’s homes.

As a bonus, the city is small and easily walkable — most things you’ll want to see are within five minutes of the train station, and nothing is more than 20 minutes away.

Nowadays, Ramle is a melting pot of ethnicities and religions, which means the market, located among ancient, arched buildings, is quite colorful in multiple ways. You’ll find the usual assortment of fruits and vegetables, as well as food and spice stands of shapes and sizes. Maloukhiyeh (Jew’s mallow) was proffered for sale in massive bunches. There was cucumber-like fakoos (snake melon) here and there. When we asked a juice seller what made fakoos special, he said, “I don’t know, the Arabs like it.”

While we were shopping for grape leaves at the end of the shook, the elderly seller explained how his family prepares them. He also asked me if I was pregnant. I don’t think I look pregnant ….

I also bought limes, which for some reason are a rarity in Israel. They didn’t taste much different from lemons, though.

We particularly enjoyed the “authentic Turkish bourekas” in the middle of the market, around Jabotinsky 15. The dough was thick and crispy, and not overly flaky. Facing the stand was a store selling custom perfumes and oils. Once I go back with more room in my stomach, I’ll be looking forward to trying the other “authentic Turkish bourekas” on Herzl Street, too.

Among other groups, Ramle is famed for its Indian Jewish community, and is home to a handful of stand-out Indian restaurants and stores. Most renowned is Maharaja (Herzl 87), near the entrance to the market. The institution, founded by Indian immigrants 30 years ago, features a one-room store in the front and a one-room restaurant in the back. The store has spices, excellently priced spice mixes and all sorts of ingredients you can’t find in Tel Aviv. I took home a 1-kilo tub of jaggery (unprocessed sugar), as well as some barfi candy (in the photo below, what a name) — colorful marzipan-like creations made from condensed milk.

The restaurant itself is dairy (vegetarian + fish), and serves food like it’s found in India. The paneer tali and the appetizer platter was more than enough food for two, and together gave us about a dozen different dishes for about 80 shekels — quite a good deal.

Across the street is another Indian restaurant, Jaipur (Herzl 84). I haven’t tried it, though. (Here’s a review in Hebrew).

Also good for Indian shopping is Kolbo Ofra (named after the daughter of the proprietor), at Hamapilim 32, a side alley coming off the market. The store has all sorts of spices and cooking ingredients, as well as an array of freshly made pakoras and samosas. I got a bag of black cardamom for a rather steep 20 shekels, but given that I couldn’t find it at any spice shop in Tel Aviv, I suppose the price is reasonable.

Back to Middle-Eastern food, another famed eating establishment is Halil, which offers hummus on the picturesque cobblestone Kehilat Detroit Street (Kehliat Detroit 6), near the ancient Radwan hamam. Next door you’ll find a baklava shop, and the surrounding streets also offer a few Middle-Eastern restaurants with lovely, arched, cavernous interiors.

Beyond the food, Ramle has a bunch of interesting sights. The most impressive was Brikhat Hakeshet — the arch pools. A little bit outside downtown Ramle (Hahaganah 12), this is an 8th-century underground reservoir that pulls water from natural sources. It was closed for renovations for a few years, but reopened about a year ago. We walked in, paid the 6-shekel admission (for students and children; it’s 8 shekels for regular adults), and were told, “OK, go inside, you can just take a canoe. Don’t worry, the water isn’t too deep.”

So we did. We paddled among the pillars and arches, around the 20-by-20 meter space, which was lit by small ground-level windows. (The site is open 8 A.M.-2:30 P.M. Sunday-Friday, and 8 A.M.-4 P.M. on Saturday.)

Behind the shook on Kehilat Detroit Street is Radwan’s hamam, an old Turkish bath. It’s long out of use, but you can walk by and look at it. Next door is the Orthodox church (St. George), built in 870 CE. It’s open Saturday (9-11 A.M.) and Sunday (8:30-10:30 A.M.).

Also behind the shook — its parking lot, to be specific — you’ll also find the 12th century so-called big mosque, which started out as a Crusader church 800 years ago, on Shlomo Hamelech Street. The mosque is still in use, but is open on weekdays for a small entrance fee (10 A.M.-1 P.M. and 2:30-4 P.M.).

Jutting into the sky is the 8th century white mosque (next to Heichal Hatarbut), which has a 30-meter-tall square tower and several underground water reservoirs. (open Mon.-Thurs., Sat., 8-4, for a small fee)

As we strolled through the city, we passed by the Franciscan Church (Bialik Street). The church complex was silent and empty, but the door was open. We walked inside. Not a soul was to be seen. The church itself was closed. The entire complex was very pristine and white. Legend holds that when Napoleon was on his way to conquer Jaffa in 1799, he stayed at this church (the previous one at the site; the current one was completed in 1903). Not one for multiculturalism, it seems, he became angry when he was woken by the call to prayer from a nearby mosque and shot the poor muezzin.

Others on Ramle

• Sarah surveys Ramle’s street food for Flavors of Israel.
• Sarah visits the Ramle market.
• Dining Minx interviews Maharajah’s owners.

In Hebrew:

• The Ramle municipal website describes the main attractions.
• Tour of Ramle on Tiuli.
• Tour of Ramle on Ynet
• Sites in Ramle, by Haim Tov.
• Masa Aher on Ramle’s market and Indian food.
• Ynet on Indian food in Ramle.

What’s driving me to bake in the middle of this infernal summer? Maybe it’s heatstroke. Or maybe it’s the surplus of overripe fruit in the house. And it just might have something to do with the cute new cupcake wrappers I ordered off eBay.

I had three mushy bananas sitting on the counter that needed to be dealt with. I had the idea to toss them into a muffin of some sort. Since I didn’t have a tried and trusted banana muffin recipe, I figured I’d be just as well off throwing together the usual suspects, er, ingredients and seeing what came out – after all, if you fall back on the more-or-less standard proportions of flour, eggs, fat, liquid and leavening that appear in most recipes, plus some flavor elements such as fruit and sugar, and bake at a rather standard 180 degrees Celsius, you can’t really go wrong.

In fact, this combination of ingredients is so standard that you could probably make this batter, pour it into a loaf pan and bake it into a banana bread, spoon scoops of it into a frying pan and get pancakes, or pour into a waffle iron and get waffles.

Most fruit/vegetable based breads contain oil, but I decided to use butter instead. I wouldn’t say these muffins had a very prominent butter flavor, but they weren’t quite as moist (read: oily) as their peers made with oil.

In fact, these muffins aren’t overloaded with any one ingredient — just enough oats to create a mild bite of texture and flavor, a bit of walnut here and there, and a mild banana flavor. They’re paler than most, because I used baking powder and not baking soda, but they’ll develop a light golden color by the time they’re fully baked. They’re especially nice when slightly warm.

For 12-14 standard-sized muffins:

2-3 ripe, mushy bananas
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup demarara sugar
1/2 cup oatmeal (non-instant is fine)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
1/2 cup yogurt
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon (=1 bag) baking powder

If your oven needs preheating, set it to 180 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit).

Use a fork to mash the butter with the bananas. Both should be soft enough that this is possible.

Beat in the sugar, chopped walnuts, oatmeal, eggs, vanilla and salt. Add the flour, alternating it with the yogurt. Add the baking powder right before baking.

Scoop into paper-lined cupcake tins. I put about 1/4 cup into each paper, filling them until about 1/2 centimeter from the top, which meant the muffins rose into round domes while baking.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out dry, and the tops are golden, about 20 to 25 minutes.

The Levinsky Street market always makes me stop. I pass through nearly every day on my way to work, and regularly restock on coffee beans at David’s spice shop and spices at Pereg (no more than 80 grams at a time — that’s what fits into my jars). I get my olive oil from Oded, where they refill my glass bottle from a big metal tank and I leave with nothing more than freshly pressed oil. And if I’m hungry, then I break down and buy a boureka or fat Balkan pita from Panaso, and if there isn’t too much of a line, I indulge in some cured salmon at Haim Rafael.

Negotiating the morass is a bit difficult; the grid of narrow, tree-less one way streets was not made for modern traffic, and it’s generally gridlocked so tightly that it’s a fight to get a bicycle through. In the middle of it all are a handful of synagogues, where men come and go amid the hubbub outside.

But if one thing can be said for the people who frequent the area, it’s that they appreciate the treasures of the market, which starts at Haaliyah Street and ends rather abruptly just before Herzl, in a colorful explosion of toy shops. Coincidentally or not, the traffic jam ends around there, too.

One day I brought my camera with me. As I stopped in front of Pereg to take a photograph, an elderly man pulled up beside me on his bike.

“What are you photographing?” he asked.

“The stores,” I said.

“Oh, that’s good. The stores are nice,” he said, smiling in approval before he biked on.

Half a block down, as I stopped to photograph Oded’s olive shop, the shopkeeper from the neighboring store approached me. “What, you only photograph olive oil?” he said.

So I photographed him too. I couldn’t see it at the time, because of the sunlight, but he has a genuine, gentle smile visible in his eyes, and every time I see the photo of him, I can’t help but smile, too.

The market was founded in the 1920s by immigrants from the Balkans and it still has a good dose of its original flavor. Unlike most of Tel Aviv’s other markets, like the Carmel market, Hatikva Market or the latest addition, the farmer’s market, there’s no fresh produce here, but there are lots of spices, dried fruit and coffee, as well as prepared foods, including breads, bourekas, olives and olive oil. Chefs shop here. Lately I’ve seen tour groups of Israelis, generally stopped outside one spice store or another, as well as a handful of stray foreign tourists. And no wonder.

Unlike some places, the new vendors here appreciate the atmosphere of the neighborhood, and know that’s what people want when they come here. Thus you have the relative newcomer Niso, a Turkish restaurant that greets diners with a beautiful glass case full of stuffed vegetables, and another relative newcomer whose signs advertise stews cooked on kerosene burners — just like people used to do, and just like people still do in the storied little eateries in the markets.

The area is packed full of narrow, grid-like streets, and stretching off the market street in both directions you’ll find an array of interesting things, including a large concentration of small and large kitchen stores, lighting shops and the occasional restaurant.

I’m not going to start naming individual dried fruit, nut and grain shops — first off, they’re endless, and they’re hard to miss. Second, I usually go to a different place every time, picking based on the price of the nut or fruit I’m looking for, which often varies due to variables including size and production country, as well as the selection available.

So here begins my list of Levinsky street institutions. It’s by no means comprehensive, and you certainly shouldn’t be afraid to try out places that don’t appear here, since I often do.

Yom Tov Deli (Levinsky 43, photo at right) — This little nook attracts customers with a colorful display of olives and olive spreads out front. Inside you’ll find local white cheeses, filo dough and kadaif pastry, among others.

Haim Raphael (Levinsky 36, top photo in post) — This popular deli always has quite the line waiting to buy their selection of cold salads, cured fish and picked olives, not to mention their wall-full of wines. While I can’t attest to the quality of the wine, the smoked fish has a reputation that precedes it, and the stuffed grape leaves are fabulous.

Pereg (Levinsky 46, above photo) — While Pereg means poppy seed in Hebrew, the store is actually named after its founder, who had a fitting name for a spice shop. Spotted easily by the meter-tall towers of paprika lining the front of the shop, this store could be considered one of the country’s most reputable spice shops. It sells dozens of fresh spices in containers and by weight, along with fresh halva, and various mixes to spice up rice and couscous. They even have some strange blue stones to ward off the evil eye.

Ginger (Levinsky 50) is a new, well-stocked spice shop right near the corner of Haaliyah Street.

David’s (Atlas) (Levinsky 49, above photo) — This little business roasts its own coffee, and you’ll find at least a dozen different types, all for very reasonable prices. You can also get unroasted coffee beans here, if that’s your thing, cocoa beans, and a strange concoction known as Yemenite coffee. Plus, there’s the usual range of spices, dried herbs for tea, flavorings for baking and food coloring.

Oded (Hahalutzim 13/Levinsky 57, above photo)– They usually have one or two varieties of freshly pressed oil. A liter currently costs NIS 55, and prices vary for other quantities. The olive oil is literally on tap, flowing out of huge metal tanks. You can bring your old bottles for a refill, and get a slight discount in exchange. Personally, I love the concept of going to the store to buy olive oil, and acquiring nothing more than, well, olive oil. No new packaging, nothing.

Mixed in are a few newcomers I haven’t checked out, including an Asian food store next to Pereg, and a Nazareth baklava shop that my friends say is expensive but very good.

Panaso (Levinsky 43, above photo) — a true Turkish bakery, they’ll sell you bourekas, and they’ll sell you bourekitas, but they won’t sell you bourekasim, because as any self-respecting Judeo-Spanish speaker knows, bourekas are already plural, and these guys are the real thing. Inside is a caseful of Turkish-style balkava, made with walnuts and without rosewater, as well as various fresh breads. They also sell filo and kadaif pastry.

Niso (Levinsky 47) — For some reason, I thought this place was new. It turns out it’s been there for a full four years, which in terms of the market, is actually quite new. Evoking the flavor of the neighborhood, the restaurant offers a range of salads and stuffed vegetables, all on display behind a broad glass case. It’s quite vegetarian friendly.

Kitchen stores in the area

Of course, there’s 4chef (Nahlat Binyamin 100), which stocks basic and not-so-basic tools for chefs, including kitchen equipment, simple white dishes and baking ingredients. I stock up here on 73% cacao baker’s chocolate, which I buy by the kilo, and most of which, I must admit, never finds its way into any kind of baked good.

Across the street from 4chef is a newcomer that opened within the past year or so — another large kitchen store that has more decorative dishware as well as a large collection of pots and storage containers.

Two stores on Hahalutzim street were recommended to me — Grubstein at Hahalutzim 18 (03-6824619), and Hakol Lekonditor at Hahalutzim 12 (03-6828444). Rumor holds that they’d be excellent places to buy baker’s chocolate, too, but neither has ever been open when I’ve passed by.

Others on Levinsky

• Sarah tours the shook for Flavors of Israel, and writes a post full of lovely photos.
• Tea and Oranges visits the shook.
• The Royal Excursion eats out at Kaymak.
• In Hebrew: Mako, Masa and Haaretz.

Chinese by Indians. A simple yet strange concept, I was introduced to this cuisine when my friend Iris returned from a year in India. It was one of her favorite things to eat there. It came to into existence thanks to Chinese who migrated to India, and adopted their native cuisine to suit the local palate. I was inspired to try it myself by a post on Hakka noodles by Soma on eCurry.

What makes this dish explicitly Chinese? Well, there are the egg noodles and the tofu, as well as the soy sauce, sesame oil and sugar. What makes it Indian? There’s the cilantro, the tamarind and the tomatoes. The rest of the ingredients can be found in both cultures.

What distinguishes this from another east-west fusion dish? Couldn’t this same dish have been made, say, by Westerners cooking Thai? It seems so to me, at least. Particularly because this recipe is my interpretation of Indo-Chinese dishes. Indo-Chinese by a Westerner? That definitely describes it.

But regardless of how you look at its cultural identity, this is a fabulous combination of flavors — tart from the tamarind, sweet from the sugar, salty from the soy and spicy from the chili (all key flavors in Thai cooking, mind you). Plus, it’s rich from the plump egg noodles, and chock full of vegetables. In short, it’s now one of my favorite ways to stir-fry egg noodles.

For about 4 servings:

250-300 grams dry egg noodles (2 spirals; I buy them for 30 shekels a kilo at East-West; vegan alternative = wheat noodles)
6 garlic cloves
1 thumb-sized piece ginger
200 grams tofu
1 pepper, or 1 thai eggplant (they’re palm-sized)
1 carrot
1 onion
1/4 cabbage (or 10 napa cabbage leaves)
3 tomatoes (these reduce and form part of the sauce)
oil for frying

The sauce:
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons tamarind paste
1/2 teaspoon chili paste, or to taste (or a red chili or two)
2 tablespoons sesame oil

Topping:
1 bunch fresh cilantro (100 grams, before stems are removed)
Fresh chives

Bring water to a boil and cook the noodles until al dente. Strain.

While the noodles are cooking, pour a swirl of oil into a large wok. Chop the onions, and fry for a minute or two. Crush the garlic and ginger (with a mortar and pestle or by knife), and add to the onions. Fry until lightly browned.

Chop the pepper, carrot and/or eggplant, and add to the wok and fry for a few minutes. Add the tofu and the tomatoes.

Once all the vegetables have softened slightly, add the noodles (if they’re not yet cooked, turn off the flame and wait for a minute or two). Add the sauce ingredients and mix well. Chop and add the cabbage, stir-fry for another minute and then shut the flame.

Chop the cilantro, discarding any hard stems, and add to the stir-fry. Chop and add the chives, too.

There’s nothing more debilitating to a food blogger than having no appetite. And frankly, in this oppressive summer heat, not only have I not wanted to cook, I haven’t even wanted to eat. I have a theory that when your body needs less energy to warm itself, you don’t need as many calories. I wonder if science backs me up.

In fact, one of the few things I’ve been eating as of late are Israeli salads. Some people call them Arab salads (it’s all politics, ultimately), while in Hebrew, they’re often simply called chopped salads.

The base is always the same — little chopped cubes of tomatoes and cucumbers. That’s the basic salad you get at falafel shops. In order for cucumbers and tomatoes to carry an entire salad, they have to be fresh and ripe. Now that it’s summer, you can expect to find plenty of these — the cucumbers here are no longer greenhouse-grown, and the tomatoes are bright red and juicy — as they were once, people like to say. Americans, read: No tomatoes picked green and unripe, and then transported two weeks. That will make your salad taste like cardboard.

Once you’ve got your base, you can dress it up with all sorts: Chopped onion, red or green pepper, and a wide assortment of herbs, including parsley, chives, garlic chives and mint. If you want a more Italian feel, try basil, oregano or marjoram. Mimi recently introduced me to purslane (a.k.a. regelah in Hebrew, and also known as rejlah, its Arabic name); juicy and lemony, it grows in the street, but I prefer to buy it from my greengrocer. Sometimes I like to grate some salty cheese on top, like feta, Bulgarian or jibneh (a sheep’s cheese).

Then comes the dressing — juice of a fresh lemon, and a generous swirl of top-quality olive oil. The resulting salad is rich, flavorful, and bursting with life.

For one chopped salad:

2 ripe tomatoes (say, 160 grams, for those who like precision)
2 crisp cucumbers (Israeli size — about 120 grams)
juice of 1 small lemon (say, 1 tablespoon)
a generous swirl of good olive oil (1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons)
salt, to taste (my taste is 1/4 teaspoon; I like using kosher salt or sea salt, which has larger grains)

Optional:

• A ring of purple onion
• Half a bell pepper
• Small handful of fresh herbs including: parsley (say, 1 tablespoon), chives or garlic chives (1 tablespoon), garlic chives and mint (1 teaspoon)
• Or, about 1 teaspoon of any of the following herbs: oregano, zaatar, marjoram and basil
• 2-3 stalks of purslane, both leaves and stems; about 1/4 cup
• A few gratings of white, salty cheese, such as feta, Bulgarian or jibneh
• Freshly ground pepper

Chop the vegetables into small cubes. Dice the herbs. Mix it all together, and season with salt, pepper (optional), the lemon juice and the olive oil. Enjoy.

This brunch looks complicated, but it’s actually quite quick and simple to pull together: You pack the kadaif noodles into bowls and stick them in the toaster, toss the asparagus (or vegetable of choice) into a pan to grill, and let the eggs boil for a minute or two in the meanwhile. Then you assemble it. That’s all.

As a bonus, it tastes good and looks nice — the nest comes out crunchy and buttery, and soaks up the liquid egg yolk. And fresh vegetables are (almost) always welcome.

I’m not listing precise quantities, because you’ll want to decide how many eggs you want to eat, how many nests you want to make to hold them, and how much vegetables you want to accompany it all. Plus, precision is not key here.

Kadaif bird’s nest bowls

1 package of kadaif noodles
1 bowl about 12 centimeters in diameter
tin foil
butter (or olive oil)

Line the bowl with tin foil. This is your mold. Pack the tin foil-lined bowl with kadaif noodles, leaving a well in the center — you want it to have a nest/bowl shape, and each nest should fit one or two poached eggs. Top the kadaif with slivers of butter (or olive oil, if you want this to be non-dairy), carefully remove the foil and kadaif from the bowl, and put the foil/kadaif in your toaster oven for 10-15 minutes, until the noodles are browned. Keep an eye on it to make sure they don’t burn.

Poached eggs

Egg(s), as many as you wish to make. Fresh is better
Vinegar

Heat water in a pot, with a splash of vinegar. The water should be hot, but not boiling — around 75 degrees Celsius or 160 Fahrenheit. Crack an egg into a bowl, and gently pour into the hot water. You’ll see tendrils curling off the egg, but most of the whites should stay close to the yolk. Let the egg cook for a minute or two, until the whites are set, and then fish the egg out of the pot with a slotted spoon. Sit it in a bowl until you’re ready to use it. Repeat with the rest of the eggs

Grilled asparagus

A handful of fresh asparagus, or another seasonal vegetable of your choice (I also used brussels sprouts; you could use green beans, too)
Olive oil
Coarse sea salt

Heat a grill pan (or regular frying pan, if you don’t have one). Break the asparagus in half and throw it and the other vegetables into the pan. All the vegetables should be in contact with the pan. Flip the vegetables once or twice, and remove once they’re bright green and lightly softened.

To assemble:

Put a bird’s nest on a plate and gently remove the foil from underneath. Slip a poached egg or two into the nest. Arrange some vegetables alongside. Drizzle them with olive oil. Sprinkle the salt on top of the vegetables and the eggs.

A note on poaching eggs:
There are a million and two methods for poaching eggs, each claiming to give you a perfect result without sending thin shards of egg whites all over your pot. I’ve found that the method that works best for me is keeping the water at less than boiling, and not trying to create a whirlpool in the pot (which supposedly keeps the whites in a compact ball). The egg settles at the bottom of the pot and comes out relatively flat, as opposed to round and restaurant-perfect, but the end result looks fine in my opinion. Serious Eats has more detailed instructions on this method.

Another way of doing it, which I imagine would give you a rounder poached egg, is wrapping it all in plastic wrap. I prefer not to heat my food in plastic, but if that doesn’t bother you, Not Quite Nigella offers instructions using that method.

Trendy western baked goods meet traditional local flavors in these rose-scented cupcakes – a delicate whiff of rose gives these cupcakes a dreamy, Middle Eastern flavor where you least expect it. Rose and pistachio, a combo frequently found in baklava, mesh seamlessly with the buttery crumb, and create an elegant dessert that’s food-coloring free.

One of my biggest impediments to baking, aside from the sweltering heat, has been my lack of a stand mixer — many recipes call for beating the batter on X speed for Y number of minutes. But lo and behold, you can bake to good results even without this expensive appliance. It’s just a matter of doing things the old-fashioned way, before people had electric mixers — by hand.

Sure, it’s tiring, but it’s absolutely feasible, and I did it. My cupcakes were lovely, too — light and fluffy and full of air. Given my lack of stand mixer, I’ve found this to be the next best option — no other household appliance I own is up to the task.

That said, an important part in making these cupcakes come out as good as possible is technique. It’s not enough to mix the ingredients together, dump the batter into cupcake tins and bake until done — you need to let the ingredients warm up to room temperature before you begin, you need to beat the butter and sugar for the stated number of minutes until light and fluffy, you need to bake at the right temperature (and not at a higher one), and you need to let the cupcakes cool outside the cupcake tins once they’re cool enough to handle (otherwise, they’ll get soggy from condensation/steam). You also need to wait until the cupcakes are cool to frost them — otherwise, steam will be trapped under the icing and they’ll get soggy. These are all integral parts of the recipe.

These cupcakes use rose essence, not rosewater. There’s a huge difference — rose essence is much more concentrated. While rosewater is much more readily available, these ingredients are not interchangeable — if you were to use rosewater instead, you’d have to use a full cup in order to taste the rose flavor, and that quantity would more than alter the batter’s texture.

So thus, rose essence. I bought mine from the spice shop where I buy my coffee, Atlas/David’s at Levinsky 49, and it came in a tiny 8 milliliter vial. I used half of it to make these cupcakes, and a few drops to flavor the icing.

I topped my cupcakes with a buttercream frosting. While this kind of frosting is too sweet and heavy for many people, particularly non-Americans, I tried to use a non-overwhelming quantity of sugar, and I also put very little frosting on each cupcake — just enough to cover the tops. If buttercream is not to your tastes, feel free to use an alternative; I’m open to suggestions, since I haven’t found something else that goes well with these cupcakes.

The decorations on these cupcakes are completely natural — pistachios make for a natural source of green sprinkles, and tea-grade rosebuds are a surprising, elegant touch. No food coloring needed.

As I’ve mentioned, I have a totally insane oven. In order to get it at 175 degrees Celsius, I set it at about 60 or 70 Celsius, and then opened the door occasionally when it started approaching 200. (Leaving a thermometer in your oven is quite useful, since while yours is probably not as crazy far off as mine, it may not be accurate, either.)

As a base for my recipe, I started with the vanilla cupcakes from More from Magnolia and altered the flavoring, the flour and the liquids (OK, most everything). While I may have changed a lot ingredient-wise, the book’s instructions were quite useful. In general, the book has some great basic baking guidelines.

For 12 dome-topped cupcakes, or 18 flat cupcakes:

1/2 cup butter (100 grams)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon rose essence
1 tablespoon baking powder (one packet)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk
3/4 cup milk

For icing (optional):

1/2 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla, or 1/2 teaspoon rose essence

For decoration (optional):

dried tea-grade rosebuds, or dried rose petals
pistachios, shelled and ground

To make the cupcakes:

First, start with room-temperature ingredients. If your oven needs preheating, preheat it to 175 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit).

Beat the butter until soft, smooth and creamy. Slowly add the sugar, and then beat until white and fluffy — about three minutes (or more, if your hand gets tired and you need to take breaks). Beat in eggs and incorporate thoroughly, until the batter is glossy and yellow.

Now start adding the liquids (rosewater, yogurt and milk) and the dry items (flour and baking powder). Add gradually, alternating dry and wet, and mix only until incorporated. The acidity from the rosewater may curdle the milk, but that’s OK.

Scoop into cupcake-paper lined tins. I put a little less than 1/4 cup in each paper. Filling nearly to the top will give you a domed cupcake; filling only 2/3 will give you a flat cupcake.

Bake at 175 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit) for about 20 minutes, until the cupcakes are baked through — a toothpick inserted into the center should come out dry.

Once the cupcakes are barely cool enough to touch (about 15 minutes), remove them from the tins. Then, leave them to cool entirely.

To make the frosting:

Let the butter warm up to room temperature. Beat until soft and creamy. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar, and beat until light and fluffy — about three minutes. Add the flavoring of your choice — rose essence or vanilla.

To dress the cupcakes:

Grind the pistachios (I used a coffee grinder). Once your cupcakes are cool, apply the icing with a knife. Top each cupcake with a dusting of ground pistachio and a rosebud.

Once there were none. Now, cupcake boutiques are popping up on nearly every major street in Tel Aviv, like mushrooms after the rain (or, if you will, cupcakes at a child’s birthday party).

It all began not long ago, in late 2008, when this blog was still in its infancy. Around that time, I met with a friend of a friend, Ofer Yeger, who was looking to import the American cupcake fad to Israel, and wanted advice on setting up a website.

Ofer launched her virtual bakery in 2009, nearly simultaneously with two other online cupcake stores. In a matter of weeks, Israel went from having no cupcake stores to having three. Ofer’s since moved on — her site is now a fashion blog — but one of the others, I Love Cupcakes, launched a physical store at Ben Yehuda 114 this February. It was followed by Viola’s Cupcakes at Dizengoff 154 in March, and then Red Velvet at Ibn Gvirol 9 in May. Meanwhile, Nadine Cupcakes has had a booth at the Tel Aviv Farmer’s Market on Fridays for a while now. (Note: All the photos in this post are from Viola’s.)

All this begs a few obvious questions: Will cupcakes really catch on here? And, is there enough demand for all these new cupcake shops? Many of the people behind them are either immigrants from English-speaking countries or encountered cupcakes while visiting the United States, and for them, cupcakes have positive associations that go beyond little frosted cakes. To what degree will they become part of the culinary landscape? Many people here aren’t sure what differentiates them from muffins. I haven’t seen other, established bakeries offering them — a sign of greater success — although I’ve heard that some indeed have jumped on the bandwagon.

So far, the cupcakes (and their bakers) have won themselves a decent amount of press — they’re new and unusual, and they photograph well. That’s also probably why people are excited to see them at parties — they’ve shown up at a few events I’ve attended in the past few months, and everyone is always thrilled.

My take on the cupcake scene

While only time will give concrete answers to these questions, I figured the best way to go about my research was, well, eating some cupcakes. After consuming at least half a dozen of them, here are my findings.

To me, the biggest value comes from being able to sit in a pleasant streetside cafe, especially when I can get a cupcake-and-cappuccino for less than 20 shekels. That price is beyond reasonable; in general, when I go out with friends, I look for a pleasant place to sit and frequently order a coffee-pastry combo. While I haven’t seen any Magnolia-style lines around the corner, the shops all had a good number of people sitting at the tables when I stopped by.

Obviously, the quality of the various cupcakes varies from place to place, ranging from merely average to Magnolia-esque fabulous. All the places offer a variety of flavors, and while I haven’t tried them all, the best cupcake I’ve had to date was the vanilla cupcake at Red Velvet.

I’m not entirely sure how my perception jibes with the hopes of the cupcake shop entrepreneurs. While they clearly understand that a pleasant atmosphere is important, given that all the stores invested in design, many told the press that they hope to develop a healthy take-out business. While people have been buying them for the novelty factor, in my opinion the prices are too high — 12 to 15 shekels per cupcake — to merit making them a regular purchase. I’ll happily pay that much to sit in a cafe, mind you, but to eat a cupcake at home? Not so much. As to whether other consumers disagree with me on this point, we’ll see.

Next post in the works: My very own cupcake recipe.

Cupcake shops in Tel Aviv

• Red Velvet, Ibn Gvirol 9
• Viola’s Cupcakes at Dizengoff 154
• I Love Cupcakes, Ben Yehuda 114
• Nadine Cupcakes, at the Farmer’s Market in the Tel Aviv port on Fridays
• TLV Cupcakes Co., orders online only

You can find those with physical locations on my Google map.

Press in Hebrew:

• Walla on Ofer’s cupcake business, April 2009
• City Mouse on Ofer’s cupcake business, April 2009
• City Mouse on I Love Cupcakes, February 2010
• Walla! on Viola, I Love Cupcakes, March 2010
• Blogger Bits of Magic on the cupcake scene, May 2010
• City Mouse on Red Velvet, June 2010

Press in English:

• Haaretz in English on the cupcake scene, May 2009
• NYT on cupcakes in the Middle East

Update: Too pretty to eat

I encountered these cupcakes and cakes at the Thursday night artists market at the newly opened Tachana complex. To my dismay, they were made out of plaster. They’re made by Shimrita, on the assumption that everyone has a cake stand or two sitting around empty. They kind of remind me of Wayne Thiebaud’s painting.

On another note, the complex itself, built out of Jaffa’s 100-year-old train station, is beautifully done. However, everything there is ridiculously expensive, aside from Cafe Greg.

Limonana is the quintessential drink of the Israeli summer. Simple and ubiquitous, there’s nothing more refreshing than freshly squeezed lemons and ground sprigs of mint, whether served on ice or blended into a smoothie.

In the summer, limonada becomes my social drink of choice — the drink that captures the spirit of the moment, a pleasant afternoon nestled into a chair in a lively streetside cafe. In the winter, I order a cappuccino; in the spring and early summer, I make that iced coffee; and once even milk is too heavy for the oppressive summer heat, I get limonana. Big, green and frothy, and very cold, please.

The name limonana is simply a combination of the word for lemonade, limonada, and the word for spearmint, nana, one of the country’s favorite herbs. It can be prepared as a drink, or as a smoothie, in which case all the ingredients are blended together.

The recipe contains a lot of fresh lemon juice, as well as a lot of mint, which gives it a strong flavor and a bright color.

You’ll want to adjust the sugar to your tastes: 4 tablespoons (i.e. 1/4 cup) will give you a mildly sweet drink, and 6 tablespoons will give you a drink that’s sweet but not cloying, something like the sweetness you’ll get in restaurants. 2 tablespoons comes out barely sweet. I prefer 4 tablespoons, but if you like things really sweet, you might even want to add more than 6 tablespoons.

For 4 cups (one liter) of ice limonana:

2 heaping cups of ice
1 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 4 large lemons)
1/2 cup spearmint leaves (from about 40 stalks), plus a few more to garnish
4-6 tablespoons sugar (or to taste; see note above)

Juice the lemons, and remove the mint leaves from the stalks. Dump all ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth.

Serve garnished with mint.

Note: While you can find a limonana pretty much anywhere, I had a great limonana smoothie — limonana garus — at Etnachta, on Dizengoff 190. There, most everyone is sipping bright green limonanas in the summer.