Today is no cooking day.

Today I decided to have a day off, no cooking! This doesn't mean that we are not going to eat, on the contrary, we're having a fun day with a special Egyptian treat: Foul (pronounced fool) Medammes. It's fava beans. Dried fava beans cooked to tender perfection in a special pot over very low heat from an electric plate. It is usually cooked overnight, but I cannot in all honesty go to bed knowing that there is something still cooking downstairs in the kitchen.. what if it spills over? What if it dries out? No way, this is too much stress for a dish that is supposed to be easy to make. So after I went through the trouble of getting the pot from Egypt and finding the special low heat electric plate, I never used them, and decided instead to try the slow cooker. It worked perfectly. You simply put the dried beans in it, add water to cover them, and let them cook on high for 4 hours. If you ever decide to do it, you'll be amazed at the aroma that will fill your house while the beans are cooking. As I told you, fava beans are the traditional dish in Egypt. You can have them at breakfast, lunch or dinner. You can have them on a plate or in a sandwich. You can have them any way you want. In fact, once you have them cooked, you can prepare them in so many different ways that you'll be surprised that this simple bean can be so versatile.

You can also buy the Foul already cooked in cans. I've tried several brands, and the best I found was a product of the United Arab Emirates from an American bean. If you find it, or any other brand, chose the plain one, not the cans that have already added spices or extras. You can do that yourself and to your taste.

So today no cooking, we're simply serving foul medammes.

Once you get your beans ready, either home cooked or from a can, heat them in a pan. Consider 1 cup for each person and add some more, maybe an extra cup, just in case.

BASIC RECIPE

This is a very simple recipe, we simply call it "Foul with oil and lime juice". And this says it all: you heat the beans, add some oil to them (canola, olive, corn, any oil you like) about 1 tbsp to 1 cup of beans, plus some lime juice, a pinch of salt, another pinch of cumin, all to taste. Mix and eat. Usually I don't add any pepper to cooked food. I have this idea that if added after cooking, pepper will sit in my stomach as it does for example in a pot of chicken broth. But that's just me, if you want to add pepper, go ahead, it's up to you. While mixing the beans, you may crush them a little with your fork. I do that, and also add some salad to my dish, and sometimes some crumbled feta cheese with some Kalamata olives on the side.

This basic recipe comes in another version: you'd think that oil and butter are interchangeable. Think again: with foul medammes you can add butter instead of oil, but you'll get a completely different flavor. Try it. If you add butter (also 1 tbsp to 1 cup) don't add lime juice. I don't know why, but this is the tradition: foul with oil and lime juice and foul with butter, only butter. Of course you'll add salt (and pepper) to taste.

ONION FLAVORED FOUL

This is my husband's favorite recipe. It is also very easy: for 1 cup of beans, chop 1/2 of a medium white onion in a bowl. Add salt, pepper and cumin to taste. Mix. Drizzle some oil and lime juice. Mix, then add the beans and mix while slightly mashing the beans with your fork. Don't worry about how you'll smell after eating onions, somehow this combination is not as lethal as you may think.

DOUBLE PROTEIN

                           

It's foul and eggs, poached eggs. That's how my mom eats her fava beans. Put 1 cup of foul in a nonstick skillet, and heat it on medium heat. Add 1 tbsp oil and crack one egg in the skillet to poach it in the beans liquid. When the egg is done, sprinkle salt, pepper and cumin to taste.

Another way to incorporate eggs in your beans: chop one hard boiled egg over the foul, drizzle the oil (no lime juice) and some chopped Kalamata olives. Season, mix and serve.

FLAG SALAD

I call it flag because it has the colors of the Italian flag: red, white and green. It's very easy: just slice some hearts of palm, some grape tomatoes and cube 1 or 2 avocados. Add some chopped fresh cilantro, sprinkle some lime juice and salt. Mix and serve.
As for the mixed salad it is also very simple: finely chop a romaine lettuce, some cucumbers and tomatoes, red onion is optional. Drizzle with oil and vinegar, and sprinkle some salt. Mix and serve.

NOTE: If you opt for canned foul medammes, make sure you taste it before adding any salt to it. It is usually already salted during the canning process. Also check to make sure the beans are completely tender: some brands may need to be cooked a little bit more.

                                                                                                                                           

Is summer here yet?

It doesn't seem so..it's past mid-May and it's still cold and rainy in New York. Still, I will not let the weather deter me from starting my summer. So, I went to the store determined to start the grilling season no matter what. My husband also got in the mood, and started preparing menus in his mind. This, my friends, is very dangerous, because when he thinks of menus, you have to be prepared to feed an army. And he insisted on coming shopping with me, which, again, doesn't augur well for the expedition. Usually it goes like this: I prepare a list, including of course the elements of his menu. We get to the store,we look for what he wants, once we find it, the shopping is over. Forget about your list or anything else! But today I got smarter and lucky: smarter because I went armed with the morning papers, and once we found some of the things he wanted, I asked him to go to the coffee shop with the papers and wait for me there. I also got lucky because we could not find the Cornish hens he was bent on having grilled as a season opening, so it was easy to convince him to go and have a coffee while I would go back and have another look to find the chickens. And we did. We came back with all the ingredients for the grand opening of the grilling season. Never mind that he thought that it was Siberia out there when we went to the deck to start the grill, we had our grilling day anyway.

LAMB KEBAB

Kebab is a traditional way to cook meat in the Middle East. It can be done with lamb, beef or veal. But the original and traditional recipe calls for lamb. I think it is done with cheaper cuts of meat, and its special flavor comes from the marinade and the fat that is usually left in the meat. But, as you probably know by now, I trim all the fat from the meat I am cooking, so I had to come up with a way to give flavor to the meat while tenderizing it. I know this "fat factor" as a fact from my childhood: we had at the corner of our street in Alexandria, where we had our summer home, a restaurant that served kebab and kofta (meatballs). When we passed by, the smell was overwhelming. It was so delicious that I kept asking my mother to buy me a sandwich. So she did. I couldn't resist until we got home, so I took a bite... that was it: I bit into a piece of fat! It was then, at the tender age of 5 that I decided to never again eat kebab. It took me years to be convinced that not all kebab is fat, and that there is something delicious in there that's worth another try. I learned that I had sometimes to look for "suspicious pieces" in my kebab. Now that I can make my own kebab, I had to look for a smarter and equally delicious replacement of fat in the meat. And I found it: it's yogurt. You'll need:

4 lb lamb cubed

3 tbsp frozen onion/garlic mixture

1 tsp each: rosemary and thyme

2 to 3 tbsp plain yogurt (I use Greek yogurt, but any plain yogurt is fine)

Salt and pepper to taste

Slices of red onion

I usually buy a whole deboned leg of lamb, trim all visible fat and cut it myself to suit my needs. This time I got a 5.6 lb leg of lamb, after I trimmed the fat and kept a small piece whole (about 1 lb), I cut the remaining parts in 1 inch cubes. Put the meat cubes in a bowl, preferably one with a lid, add all other ingredients and mix well to coat the meat. Cover the bowl and refrigerate at least for 1 hour to overnight. When you are ready to grill, put 4 pieces of lamb on each skewer, with slices of red onion between them. Grill on a hot grill for 5 to 6 minutes before turning them for the first time. Depending on how hot is your grill, your kebab should be done in about 10 to 12 minutes. If you are using wood skewers, make sure that you soak them in water before using them, or else they will burn.

GRILLED CHICKEN

                             

For this recipe I chose Cornish hens, they cook faster, and because they are smaller, you don't risk having them undercooked, especially around the bones. I usually marinate them the night before I need to cook them. The process is very simple and it will be an incentive for you not to serve your guests the usual burger and hot dogs. Common, we're grown- ups now and we should serve something  more sophisticated!! The best thing is that nobody needs to know that it was so easy to make. You'll need (for 4 persons):

2 Cornish hens

2 tbsp frozen onion/garlic mixture

1 tsp dried oregano

Juice of 1 lime

2 to 3 tbsp plain yogurt

Salt and pepper to taste

Rinse the chicken with water inside and out, remove all visible fat from the cavity. Cut each bird in half along the spine (you can remove that bone altogether if you want to, it's very easy if you have a good pair of kitchen scissors). Put the chicken in a glass bowl, add all the other ingredients and mix to coat well. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour to overnight. Cook on a hot grill, putting the skin side on the grill first. Don't disturb it for at least 6 minutes, then turn once. After 5 or 6 more minutes check for doness by pricking the leg at the joint: if the liquid comes out clear, your chicken is done.

REAL ORIENTAL "FREEK"

It's pronounced "freak", and it's sold here as BULGHUR. Basically it's green wheat, and you can find it at all Middle Eastern stores in different cuts: from very fine to half cut (or #4 depending on the store). The fine cut is used in salads or meatballs, while I use the half cut as a delicious and nutritious replacement for rice or pasta. You can easily recognize the bulghur: it's a greenish grain, barely broken. I use it as a side dish whenever I can, because it's natural, it's whole wheat and it cooks in minutes. You'll need:

2 cups bulghur

2 tbsp frozen onion/garlic mixture

2 cups chicken stock or water

1 tbsp canola oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Pick the bulghur to make sure that there are no small stones in it, then rinse and drain it. In a large nonstick skillet, cook the onion/ garlic mixture in the oil until translucent. Add the bulghur and stir for about 3 minutes. Add 1 cup liquid, and season with salt and pepper. It will come quickly to a boil. Reduce the heat and keep an eye on it. When the liquid is all absorbed, check for doness. This will help you determine how much liquid to add. If you need, add 1/2 cup by 1/2 cup or less, checking every time until all the liquid is absorbed and the grains are tender, not al dente. Different grains may need more or less liquid. It usually takes about 10 minutes. Serve it as a side dish with the grilled chicken and kebab. Please make also a mixed salad and a tahini salad. You can also grill a couple of pita breads while you're at it. You can use them to make a kebab sandwich in 1/2 a pita with tahini salad drizzled over the meat or even a kebab wrap with both salads in it.                                          

                                          

10,000 ways to cook chicken.

How many ways can we cook chicken? I heard that there are so many ways that you can never have the same dish twice. There are books dedicated to chicken, to teach us how to cook chicken, only chicken. But is that possible? Maybe. I know for a fact that we eat a lot of chicken, and that we've come a long way from the days we had only boiled or fried chicken, or even grilled chicken. Each one of us definitely knows at least three or four ways to cook chicken. I know some, but I never tried to count them. Maybe I should, or better yet, maybe we should try together looking for all 10,000 ways to cook chicken.

CHICKEN RAGOUT

                                                     

I came up with this recipe when a friend had to stay at the hospital for a few days leaving behind her two young daughters and their dad. I tried to think of something hearty, easy to keep and reheat for him to feed the girls when they return from school. It had to be easy for him to serve, because he will be coming home after a long day at work. It's a kind of one dish meal, it has vegetables in the sauce (a plus for those who like to hide veggies in their children food) so you only have to serve it over pasta or rice and voila, you have your protein, your carbohydrates and your vegetables in one serving. And it tastes good too! I have to warn you though: I made a big batch for this recipe, because I had to divide it between our families. You can make half the amount. You'll need:


15 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
4 to 5 celery stalks
3 medium carrots or 2 to 3 cups baby carrots
1 small onion
3 to 4 garlic cloves
2 tbsp frozen onion garlic mixture
1 (28 oz) can of whole tomatoes in their sauce
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp canola oil
2 to 3 tbsp flour
Salt and pepper to taste

Start by trimming all the visible fat from the chicken pieces, all the visible white parts. I know it's a tedious job, but at the end, you'll have a clean and lean amount of chicken thighs. Then cut them into cubes, about 1 1/2 inch each. Put the chicken pieces in a bowl. Add the frozen onion/garlic mixture, salt and pepper and crush the oregano over them. Mix and set aside to marinate.

Chop the celery, peel and chop the carrots, onion and garlic. It doesn't need to be finely chopped, they'll cook in the sauce and will be pureed later.

In a 5.5 qt pot (I use a "chili pot" it's wider and shorter in height than the usual 5 qt pot, so it allows you to have a wider cooking surface inside it) wet the chopped onion with a tbsp of oil and cook until translucent. Add the garlic, then the vegetables and keep cooking for 5 to 6 minutes more stirring often. Pour the tomatoes in a bowl with their liquid and crush them with your hand. (You can instead use a same size can of crushed or pureed tomatoes, or even 2 cans of tomato sauce plus tomato paste, whatever you have at hand to give you a thick tomato sauce). When the vegetables are tender, add the tomatoes, stir and keep cooking on medium heat while you cook the chicken.

Put the flour in a shallow dish and lightly coat the chicken pieces with flour. In a nonstick skillet, heat 1 tbsp of oil and cook the chicken pieces in it until they become golden yellow, turning once. Don't let them brown.  Remove to a platter lined with paper towels to absorb the excess oil. (If you need more oil, you can add it 1 tbsp at a time). When the vegetables are fully cooked, remove from heat and let cool for a while. Puree the vegetables in a blender or food processor until smooth, and return the sauce to the pot. Add the chicken, stir and let cook on medium high heat. When it comes to a boil, adjust seasoning and lower the heat. Let cook until the chicken is fork tender. It won't take long. Serve over pasta or rice.
                                         
                                                            
TIP: You can make the same sauce without the chicken if you want to go vegetarian, it will be equally delicious. 

                                                         

You can't hurry summer desserts

When you go through long bitter cold winters like we did for the last couple of years, you can't wait for summer to come. You can't wait for the sunny summer days and shady afternoons in the back yard sipping a drink waiting for your dinner cooking on the grill.. Then biting into a plump juicy piece of fruit. I know we now have the luxury of having all kind of fruits all year round, but it is not the same, a real summer fruit, a peach, in summer is simply not the same as a peach in winter. I still have this naive notion that we have winter fruit and summer fruit. So after months of grape fruit, oranges and apples, I found some plums at the store last week. They were hard to the touch, but I told myself  "maybe if I left them on the counter for a couple of days they will ripen". So I bought a box. And I left them on the kitchen counter for a couple of days. Nothing happened. I put them in a paper bag to speed up the process. Two days later, still nothing. No, actually one went bad. I decided then that it was a lost cause, that summer was not here yet, and that I had to get rid of the hard plums. But, as I was reaching for the garbage can, I remembered what my dad and the good nuns at school used to warn me about " this food you are going to throw away, a child, somewhere in the world, cannot find it, and he goes hungry". That stopped me in my tracks. I put the bag back on the table and sat in front of it. "What am I going to do with you?" I asked the plums.. then it dawned on me, let me try this. I rinsed the plums, pitted them, cut them in bite size, put them in a bowl and sprinkled some sugar on them, and added maybe 1/2 cup of water, thinking it will make them tender and sweet. I covered the bowl and refrigerated it. The next day, I reached for the bowl of plums: still nothing. They were still crunchy and bitter !! But I didn't give up: I transferred them to a sauce pan, added some more water, another 1/2 cup or so, and let them cook over very low heat. When I thought they were done, I removed them from the stove, drizzled them with the juice of 1/2 a lime I had on hand and let them stand. When they cooled down, I put them back in their bowl and took them to the refrigerator with a warning "This is your last chance!" The next day they were delicious, plump, tender, sweet but a little bit tart. Perfect. I served them on Sham El Nessim topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Delicious.

RED AND WHITE TRIFLE

You think I learned from last week? Think again. Yesterday, I was at the store and got attracted by the sweet smell of strawberries. There they were, boxes upon boxes of seemingly delicious aromatic red plump strawberries. I came home carrying my precious find, announcing that summer was finally here. You have to know that the strawberries I grew up eating were much smaller, but if you had 4 strawberries at home, the whole block would know that you got strawberries! They were so amazingly sweet that we used to top them with plain yogurt, not ice cream or whipped cream. I immediately chose a couple who seemed more ripe than the others and bit into one. It was crunchy like a cucumber, had no taste at all, but still smelled good. What to do now? No problem, I said to myself, and started working on them. Chop, chop, sprinkle some sugar and in the fridge you go. The next day, I knew I couldn't cook them like the plums from the other day (they'll become jam or preserve, I learned that from my aunts who used to make a lot of preserves in summer). So I opted for another approach: I knew I had a pound cake in the freezer, I always keep some, just in case. And in the pantry I must have some whip and serve jell-o pudding, and don't forget the leftover plums compote. So there you have it, all the ingredients for a good dessert: red fruit, white pudding..trifle!!

Reserve about 4 or 5 strawberries for decoration. Slice the pound cake in 1/2 inch or less slices, spread some strawberry preserve on them and arrange the slices in the bottom of a glass bowl. Slice the strawberries you kept aside and arrange the slices like small triangles around the sides of the bowl. Add some fruit (the strawberries and the plums with some of their juices) and spread 1 or 2 spoonfuls of pudding that you have made according to the package directions (stir the content in 2 cups of cold milk). Repeat: cake, fruit, pudding. Slice one or two remaining strawberries but not all the way to the stem. Apply a little pressure to the fruit and it will open like a fan. Put them on top of your dessert. Refrigerate. Serve in small bowls, it's very refreshing. You'll think summer is here already.

Oh, and did I tell you? I also got our first watermelon of the season!!!

                                                   

After the party: lunch and dinner and a movie.

Now that the party's over, let's see what we can do with the leftovers. First, I hope that you made sure that all leftovers are neatly stored in sealed containers in your refrigerator, and that you peeled the eggs before putting them away so that the color would not seep more into them. Of course the easiest leftover to deal with is the smoked salmon: toast 2 slices of whole wheat bread, thinly slice an avocado and drizzle it with lime juice. Chop some of the Kalamata olives you had at the party. Now assemble the sandwich: over one slice of bread, arrange some slices of avocado, top with the salmon and then with the olives. Finally top with the other slice of toast. No cream or butter added!

LEFTOVER EASTER EGGS

"What are we going to do with all those eggs?" Egg salad of course! Just the idea of making egg salad gets me excited (you noticed, I have nothing to do with myself lately!). No, it's simply because I get to use my favorite kitchen gadget: the egg slicer. Actually it's the favorite gadget we have in the family. It started with my dad. I remember on week-ends when he'd prepare brunch for us, and get the slicer out of the drawer to make egg salad. It's a small bowl with some kind of indentation the size of an egg in two directions: long and large. The cover is a cutting grid. So you put the boiled egg in one direction (large), lower the cover (slicer) and ZAP you have perfect egg slices. If you reposition the sliced egg in the other direction and cut it again, you get a chopped egg. I also have to tell you that this was, for many years, the only thing I was allowed to use in the kitchen, hence the special attraction! The egg slicer was one of the first items I bought for my kitchen. I was so excited to find a new and improved version of our old slicer: this one had two cutters: one straight and one curly.

Now, I learned from experience that there is a limited number of basic recipes in the world. These recipes can be tweaked to get different flavors. So, if you change some ingredients you'll get a Mexican flavor, change some again and you'll have an Indian or Italian flavor. But the basic recipe remains the same. This theory can be applied virtually to everything: chicken, meat, fish, and also eggs. And that's what we're going to do.              Egyptian Egg Salad: You'll need:

6 boiled eggs, chopped

2 tbsp finely chopped red onion

2 tbsp olive oil, or more to taste

2 slices (2 x 4 x 1/2 inch) feta cheese (I use French)

1 tsp lime juice

A dash of cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

In a medium bowl, crumble the feta cheese, mix it with the oil and the lime juice until smooth. I start with 1 tbsp oil and add as needed. It should not be creamy, only smooth. Add the other ingredients and mix. Serve over toast.

Now, to make it Greek Egg Salad:

Substitute the feta cheese and the cumin with chopped Kalamata olives and oregano and you're good to go.

For Indian Egg Salad you'll need:

6 boiled eggs, chopped

2 tbsp finely chopped white onion

2 heaping tbsp mayonnaise

2 stalks of celery finely chopped

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh cilantro

1 tsp curry powder

1 tbsp lime juice

Salt to taste (curry has pepper already)

In a bowl mix the onion, curry powder,celery, lime juice and mayo, always starting with the smallest amount and adding as needed. Add the other ingredients. Adjust seasoning. Curry is hot but not salty, so you have to check the salt in your salad.

LEFTOVER HERRINGS

There is a lot of ways to use what you have left of the smoked herrings. You can eat them as is, they keep for at least a week in the refrigerator. You can thinly slice them and add them to your favorite pizza, even if delivered. Just arrange them over the pizza and reheat it for a couple of minutes. The cheese will incorporate the herring slices. But my favorite is the Herring Spread. I even make it from scratch as an appetizer when we have company. You'll need:

Slices of herring

Feta cheese

2 tbsp sour cream

The ratio of the feta to the herring slices is equal part feta to herring. Blend them in a food processor until well mixed. If they form a ball, add some sour cream to soften it. Mix. Transfer to a bowl, and add some more sour cream. Mix with a fork until you get the consistency of a smooth spread. Serve with toasted bread or pita, some celery stalks, baby carrots etc. If you still have some leftover lupini, put them in a bowl, and with the tray of the herring spread, curl up in front of the TV to watch a movie or your favorite show.