Frittata with Oyster Mushrooms and garlic

8:00 a.m

To the horror of many of you, I'll say it. I love mornings! I wake up drowsy and, sometimes literally eyes closed, I march straight into the kitchen and mechanically press the espresso machine button. Everything is good.

I open the fridge. God it's packed. Must make same space. Quick scan. Eggs, oyster mushrooms, out.

I throw some butter into a skillet, add a couple of slivered garlic cloves. 

 Just when it starts to gain a little color, I add the oyster mushrooms and let it fry gently. Salt, pepper.

I beat 3 eggs with a pinch of salt, pour it over the mushrooms.

Lowered the heat and cook for about 8 minutes. As soon as the top isn't completely wobbly anymore, I put a plate upside down over the skillet, take the skillet and quickly flip it on the plate. Returned the frittata to the skillet, and gave it another 4 to 5 minutes for the other side to gain a pretty color.

Cut into large size quarters.

Served it over a nice warm toast, ripe tomatoes and freshly ground pepper on top. Added just a tiny pinch of kosher salt over the tomatoes and some drops of extra virgin olive oil. 

Eat 

Wishing you all a great morning!

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Banana and Cream Cobbler Pie

You will have to to forgive me, but this time, the light wasn't on my side. As much as I tried to take a decent picture of my last creation, it just wouldn't come out right. I also hate using a flash, which makes everything look crude and over exposed. I'm trying to tell myself that after all, I'm not in a studio and my camera can only do so much. This is a real home and I have to work with what I have. 

What I can tell you for sure, is that this was one of the best pies I have eaten in the last few years. Yes, it was that good. I'll confess, I'm not even such a pie lover, but damn, it was good.

Without further ado, I present you...

Banana and Cream Cobbler Pie

There are basically three parts to this recipe. The pie crust, the filling and the crumble that goes on top. As you'll see, it's actually easier to make than it looks.

Ingredients

Pie crust

85 g unsalted butter
115 g sugar
3 g table salt
265 g flour
5 g baking powder
100 g cream (32%)

Cinnamon Crumble

120 g unsalted butter
175 g of sugar
140 g of flour
140 g of almond flour
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
12 g of cointreau

Banana and Cream Filling

500 g of ripe bananas
1/3 of a vanilla bean (grated) or 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
100 g of sugar
150 g of cream (32%)
20 g of corn flour
1/2 lemon juice

Method
The pie crust

Using a mixer, cream the butter with the sugar and the salt. Start adding the flour mixed with the baking soda and alternate with the cream, until the dough comes together. Do not over work. Wrap in cling film and let it rest in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

The crumble topping

No need to wash your mixer. Just put all the ingredients for the crumble in it and run the mixer at medium speed for 4 to 5 minutes.

Pick all the bits together, cover and set aside.

The banana and cream filling

Mash the bananas with a fork and grate your vanilla bean. Put these in a small pan, together with the sugar, cream and lemon juice. Start cooking on low heat for about 10 minutes. Dissolve the corn flour with 1 to 2 tablespoons of cold water and add to the banana cream, letting it cook for just another minute.

Remove from heat and let it cool.

Putting everything together...

Start rolling out the dough for the pie crust (5 mm thick). This dough is not always easy to handle, so if you have a hard time, use a piece of waxed paper both under and over the dough while rolling it. 

Lay it down carefully in the pie pan. I used a 28 cm wide pan by the way.

Fill with the cooled banana cream, spreading it out nice and evenly.

To put the crumble on top,  I used a funnel with a large nozzle to push down thick ropes of crumble dough. I suppose there might be other ways, but this actually worked pretty well for me. Though it might seem like a good idea, don't try to use a pastry bag. 

Once you got all your dough made into little cylinders, spread it out over the banana filling.

Cook at 180 degrees Celsius for about 30 minutes or until the top is nice and golden brown.

Let it cool a bit before removing from pan. Finish with a generous sifting of powdered sugar and serve warm with your favorite ice cream on top. Vanilla... chocolate... even strawberry. 

What I really love about this pie, is that the those big chunks on top actually become like crunchy cinnamon butter cookies. Yum.

Cheers all!

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Levinski Market - The Spice Mecca

The Levinski market can be crowded and noisy and more often than not, dirty, but look to the sides and you'll suddenly be taken by it's charms.

The smell of spices, neat pyramids of paprika and an never ending array of colors.


It's beautiful really, in a messy way, like a Jackson Pollock painting. Stay focused, there is so much to choose from, up from the high shelves, down to the neatly lined sacks of walnuts, herbs and tea mixes on the side walk.

Grab a bag and take a little bit of everything, ask questions later.

A couple of visits and you'll instinctively find yourself returning to the same places, like making them your own. It's a bonding thing.

I usually start with my favorite dry goods shop located on Nahalat Binyamin street, about 15 meters north of Levinski. It's got everything under one roof. From tehina to organic dried figs. It's never crowded, which always give you a little time to talk with Meir Gabbay while eating a big fat medjool date.

              

For spices, seeds, coffee and all kinds of little odd powders, David's the place. 

I'm a rather big coffee drinker and I'm a bit ashamed to say that until recently, I thought the most trustworthy place to get my ground coffee was Café Neto. On a whim, I decided to get 250g at David's and just hoped for the best.

The container holding the different blends of coffee is, to say the least, pretty impressive. Like an amazing piece of steam-punk, with it's beautiful copper color and fat knobs. I chose the Italian blend.

 

The coffee turned out to be excellent and in no way inferior to what I used to buy at the coffee shop. It isn't very strong, like what I'd get in Europe, but it tasted great and produced a nice thick, light colored cream on top. No fancy packaging here, thought I think it looked pretty neat and kind of retro.

 Mr. David at his shop

Also, If you're on Levinski, you have no excuse to go hungry. Right next door to David's Shop, a small sandwich bar is the perfect place for a pit stop. 

Kaimak, sandwich and coffee Shop

...may I say the sandwiches are pretty good too. Fresh and making use of the local spice market products, everything is made right under your eyes. And that's fine with me. The decoration, while simple, is homey and inviting, with a definite middle eastern touch.

It's all about little details at Kaimak...

...and good honest food at a fair price. You can see the rest of the pictures here.

Cheers all!

Spicy Chicken Meatballs with Garlic Coconut Sauce

I always wondered what could I possibly make with ground chicken that wouldn't be better with ground beef. Ground chicken is like the diet coke of ground meat, just not evil enough. But somehow, it turns up in my freezer every now and then, usually when all other meat supplies have been exhausted. It looks at me, pale and undecided, willing to soak up any flavors I'll add to it, because truly, it hasn't much of it's own.

I tossed it in a bowl and let it defrost for the next hour. Desperate, I sat down in front of the computer and googled "ground chicken" and looked at random pictures. By the third page, I finally found something that looked appetizing enough. The recipe was coming from Indian Cooking and was simply called Spicy Chicken Pops. A quick browse through the recipe and it was clear I would have to improvise. A lot.

It called for ginger-garlic paste, garam masala and  kasoorimethi. I could figure a way to make the first two from scratch, but the last one was tricky. It happens to be dried fenugreek leaves.

Well, at least I had some kind of direction with what to do with that ground chicken.

This recipe is for 500 g of meat.

So, I started making my own garam masala mix and while I eye balled the amounts, it had more or less the following proportions:

1 coffee spoon of black pepper

1 coffee spoon of white pepper

1/2 coffee spoon of cardamom

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of coriander seeds (ground)
 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika

1 teaspoon of cumin

1/2 coffee spoon of dried ginger (ground) - optional

I happened to have all the spices already ground, but if you have a spice/coffee grinder, you can use any whole seeds you have instead.

Now put this mixture in a small skillet and roast it for about 3 minutes on high heat.

Transfer into a small bowl and add a little bit of oil until you can make a thick paste.

I then chopped 1 medium sized onion, a little piece of ginger and 5 or 6 sprigs of fresh coriander (parsley would be just fine too) together in the blender (finely).

 

Now add everything to the ground chicken and season with salt. You don't have to use all  of the garam masala. I personally used about 3/4 because I was afraid it would be too pungent for my toddlers to eat.

Shape little bite size meat balls and fry them until they are nice and golden brown. When ready, pick each of them with a toothpick (if you don't like the thought of getting your hands so close to the frying pan, just transfer them onto a plate and insert a toothpick on each one). Set aside.

I had a can of coconut cream laying around, so I pour it in my blender, added 4 garlic cloves, some sprigs of parsley (could be mint too!) and seasoned with salt, black pepper and few drops of lemon juice.

   

I prepared some instant couscous, adding a little bit of turmeric for a nice yellow color...
...and voilá!

Spicy Chicken Meatballs with Garlic Coconut Sauce

Tips for getting that perfect macaron

Truth be told, I failed quite a few batches before I got it right.
When I finally succeeded, I also realized I was being sabotaged, both by my unreliable equipment and my gut feeling.

Yes, macarons are tricky little cookies. And what's more annoying, is that adding to the fact that they aren't the easiest to make, they also aren't very cheap. If you are like me, you might have experienced that more often than not, when they fail, it's an unsalvageable mess. Not mentioning cleaning up.

Humidity, temperature, over and under beating, even the pipping method can wield variable results. I have yet to reach the perfect macaron and I'm still struggling to get rid of those pesky air pockets. They aren't so much of a problem really, specially when Chef Pierre Hermé himself mentions that before filling the macarons, the inside of the shells can be slightly pressed to make space for the cream. When left to mature, those air pockets become practically unnoticeable. Still...

Let me tell you that almost all recipes for macarons are extremely similar, except some are made with the french meringue method and others with the Italian meringue method. The french method is seemingly easier, but it's also easier to overwork the batter (with disastrous results). When using the Italian meringue method, you are required to boil sugar syrup to a certain temperature and add it, while boiling hot,  to the egg whites while beating these full speed. It's more intimidating at first and requires you to have a sugar thermometer and preferably a good stand mixer (with a stainless steel bowl), but you get a far more stable batter. Once you almost reached the right consistency, you can even divide the batter and make different batches of colors and flavors and you'll be alright.

On the other hand, the french method, because it's faster, allows you to make more batches... I'm still not sure which one I prefer, but since I have both the time and the material, I like playing it safe and use the italian method.

Any way you go about it, here's my personal check list for successful macarons:

1. Have your oven temperature checked - more often than not, it lies by over 10 to 20 degrees Celcius. In the world of macarons, that is not acceptable.

2. Measure your ingredients exactly - a digital scale is a must. Beside, it will make you feel like a mad scientist.

3. Do all the ingredient prepping the day before, this includes:

• Drying your almond meal in the oven and mixing it with your powdered sugar and blending both together.
• Weight your egg whites and leave outside the fridge for at least 24 hours
• Weight all the remaining ingredients.
• Put everything in individual containers, label if necessary.

 4. Using a little bit of dried egg white (albumin) and tartaric cream in the meringue will make the batter even more stable. Don't be affraid to use them.

I usually find those and other unusual products in specialized shops like The Cook Store and 4Chef, both on Hachashmonaim-החשמונאים.

Here's the dried egg powder (pure albumin). You just need about 5 g of this for a whole batch of macaron.


For the step by step recipe, I followed the excellent guide by Mercotte, which is the most thorough I have yet to see. And most importantly, it works.    

 The batter should flow like magma... 

 

Here they are, ready for the plunge... 
(I'm using a Teflon sheet by the way - best stuff I ever tried!)

     

   ...and 13 minutes later.

I decided to fill these with a rose flavored buttercream. But no tasting just yet, they have to stay in the fridge for about 3 days until the flavor matures and the cookie becomes one with the cream.

You'll soon be in my belly.

Cheers all!