Alex's Dixie Chicken Wings

Dixie in Tel Aviv has been a long time favorite and unlike many other restaurants, it has been standing the test of time in the Israeli food scene. Though I think it's menu lacks cohesion (too much foods from too many different places), it is nevertheless quite good and the atmosphere is classy, yet casual. For anyone who has ever been there, the chicken wings and the Caesar salad are a must. I tasted both, and surprisingly, I was more impressed with the salad than with the wings, which they are mostly known for. 

Now, for someone who cooks and is aware of food prices and confection methods, I felt a bit dishearten to pay so much money for about 8 chicken wings. Yes, they are good, but they are also highly reproducible. The moment I mentioned this, I was challenged to make them at home. And I did.

Alex's Dixie Chicken Wings

1 kg of chicken wings ( clean and divided in two at the joint)
1 cup Flour
Black pepper (to taste)
Frying oil

Sauce:
60 g of sweet chili thai sauce
100 g of sriracha hot sauce
100 g  of butter (cut in small pieces) - or butter flavored margarine
1 clove of garlic chopped finely (opt.)

Clean and pat dry your wings and cut any tips.

Mix the flour with the black pepper and coat the wings. Deep fry them in hot oil  or in a skillet., until golden brown (about 10 to 15 minutes).

 If you can, pick nice plump wings, like this one!

Flour coated wings, ready for the fryer

To prepare the sauce, mix the sweet chili sauce and the sriracha in a small pan. heat until it almost boils. Remove from heat and add in the butter and whisk energetically.  The sauce will turn creamy and lighter in color.

 Thai sriracha and sweet chili sauce

Transfer your chicken wings to a large bowl and pour the hot sauce. Toss until the wings are well coated. 

Serve warm.

 

Optionally, if you want to give it more zing, you can add finely chopped garlic to the sauce, at the same time you mixed the chili and sriracha sauce.

As a side note, this sauce also works wonderfully with other dishes, like deep fried fish, onion rings or even roasted potatoes.

You'll have people raving about it, I promise!

Have a great weekend all!

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Semla - Because there's more to Sweden than Ikea, blondes and nice cars.

Jag åt kakan!
(subtitle: I ate the cake!)

King Adolf Frederick of Sweden was, according to history, a "bon vivant". He never had much trouble on his mind, liked making little snuff boxes and loved food, so much in fact, that he dropped dead after an hefty meal that was topped with not one, not two, but fourteen cream cakes! 

He became know as the man who ate himself to death and on a more happy note, it made many of us very curious about this Swedish pastry called semla.

Semla is a cardamom scented pastry filled with creamy almond paste and topped with a fabulous amount of freshly whipped cream. 

I don't think I ever ate or prepared any Swedish sweets, so I was feeling a bit unsure about this. The many pictures I googled seemed to indicate this was a simple brioche filled with whipped cream. I was obviously wrong. 

I was specially happy to read it was made with almond paste, which I had plenty of and not much to do with. Perfect.  

I found so many recipes for semla, I ended up creating an hybrid out of several recipes, including  one of mine. The cake itself is indeed similar to a brioche, but more bread like and less eggy... it's like the brioche's big brother, who happens to live in the mountains and chops his own wood. It's earthy.

The addition of cardamon gives the cake a surprising kick. Together with the almond flavor and the whipped cream, you'll be eating this treat with your eyes closed. And so the sake of history, go ahead and get yourself a warm bowl of milk. Fred would have said Ja!  

Semla - Swedish Cream Cakes

Pastry Dough

300 g of flour

12 g of instant yeast

40 g of sugar

4 g of salt

4 g of ground cardamom

 125 ml of milk
1 egg

 60 g of unsalted butter

1 egg white with a bit of milk (egg wash)

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, except the butter.
Warm up the milk (lukewarm) whisk in the egg and add this to the flour mix.
Work the dough on medium speed for about 5 minutes.
Add the softened butter and mix until it is well blended into the dough (2 minutes).
Do not be tempted to add more flour at this point.

 The dough should be a bit sticky

Take the dough out, make a ball and put in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise for about 40 minutes (in a warm place).

Meanwhile, prepare the Crème pâtissière (pastry cream)

We only need a small amount of it, but I believe it's up to you how much you'll want to mix with your almond paste. I like to have a clear feel of the taste of almonds, but adding more pastry cream will soften that flavor and make the cream lighter, though less contrasting against the taste of the cardamom in the bun.

The pastry cream is very easy to make, specially in such a small amount, so don't let this turn you down!

240 ml of milk
1 coffee spoon of vanilla extract
15 g of cornstarch
60 g granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
1 egg
20 g of butter

Pour the milk in a small pan and start heating slowly.
Meanwhile, beat together the egg, sugar, vanilla, cornstarch and salt in a bowl.
Now, when the milk is nearly boiling, lower the heat, take your bowl and with a whisk ready, pour in the egg mix a tablespoon of hot milk and whisk quickly. Add another tablespoon of hot milk, and a couple more after, always whisking.
Now, add all your egg mixture to the remaining hot milk in the pan, whisk quickly, rise the heat a little bit and keep whisking until the mixture starts to thicken. It usually takes about 4 to 5 minutes. Mix in the butter.
That's it!
Ps: in the unlikely event that your cream curdles, stay calm. Just give it a good mix with the blender and it will be alright.

By the way, I happened to have made almond paste just some days ago, but you can just as well buy it.

Pastry cream and almond paste

So, take 100 g of almond paste, put it in a bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of pastry cream and whisk until the almond paste is dissolved. Add a couple more tablespoons, keep mixing until you get a texture similar to thick porridge. My almond paste was quite a bit sweet, so I decided not to add more pastry cream and mixed in a tablespoon of milk to soften the cream a little more.

Now is a good time to turn on your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Take you dough, work it a little bit and divide it into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a nice tight ball.
Place on a baking sheet, cover lightly and let it rise for 30 minutes in a warm place.

 Last rise

After this time, mix 1 egg white with a little milk. Brush the buns and bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Let them cool on a rack.

 Right out of the oven

And the fun part! Take each bun and with a small sharp knife, cut out the top of the bun, any shape you like. I went the traditional way and did triangles. Remove the cap (try to keep it intact) and scrap all the bread that's right below the shape you cut out, meaning, don't scrap all the crumb!

 Haven't remove the crumb on this one yet

Take all those crumbs and crumble them with your hands over the bowl with the almond cream. Mix. At this point you will probably need to add a bit of milk if it's too thick. Again, it should be similar to porridge.

 I mixed in the bread crumb and added a little milk to soften

Fill your pastry up to the rim with the cream, making sure it reaches everywhere inside the bun.

Prepare your whipped cream:
250 ml of whipping cream (very cold)
2 tablespoon of vanilla sugar (avoid using liquid vanilla extract)

Whip the cream with the sugar to stiff peaks. Pour it into a pipping bag (or do it by hand, it will be just as good!) and pipe the cream on top of the bun (be generous). Put back the little lid on top of the whipped cream and give your buns a good sprinkling of powdered sugar.

 More whipped cream maybe? Probably. More filling wouldn't hurt either.

Try not to eat more than 2 in a day. Seriously.

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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!