Seared Eggplant with Macedonian Feta and Za'atar

Eggplants are a wildly underestimated vegetable.  

Here’s the thing of it: I love eggplants.

Here’s the other thing of it: I’m one of the few.

Here’s why: There are a lot of bad eggplants out there.

There are a lot of hothouse eggplants, a lot of flavourless eggplants, a lot of eggplants that pretty much just taste like soggy bitterness.

Here’s the other reason why: There are a lot of people who don’t know how to cook eggplants properly. They cook them until they get stoggy, or they don’t cook them enough. Or they cook them with water so they lose any hope of a nice texture.

And all of this may have led you to thinking that you don’t like eggplants and that it’s hard to cook, and the thing of it is, it’s super easy, the trick is lots of olive oil, high heat, and a healthy pinch of salt.

I’ve known this all for a while, but it took Jordan eating eggplant at our favourite Palestinian restaurant to convert him. There it comes grilled with halloumi, and the most puckeringly perfect lemon and za’atar dressing that you soak up with loads of extra pita. (Za’atar is a middle eastern spice mix with dried savary, thyme, sumac and sesame seeds.) It’s perfect in every way.

This is my version of that dish. I sear the eggplant instead of grilling it, because I don’t have a grill. Knock you’re socks off and use the BBQ if you have one. I also use Macedonian feta instead of halloumi, because I am royally obsessed with the Macedonian feta at my local cheese shop, and I want to put it on everything. But if you can’t find it (it’s a thousand times creamier than regular feta) feel free to use the halloumi.

Eggplant with Macadonian Feta and Za’Atar

6 Small Eggplants, ot 1 Large, sliced into inch thick slices.

250g Macedonian Feta, or Halloumi

1 Lemon

¾ cup Olive Oil

¼ cup Canola or Avacado Oil

1tbsp Za’atar

1 small clove of Garlic, minced or pureed.

Salt and Pepper

Heat a cast iron pan over medium heat .

Mix together the canola oil with ¼ cup of the olive oil.

Pour a good splash of that into the pan, and put in a layer of the eggplant, salt it generously.

Let it cook until the eggplant browns then flip it and let it brown on the other side salting it too, adding more of the oil mixture if neccessary. The eggplant should now be very soft.

Remove it, add more oil into the pan and cook the remaining eggplant.

Slice the feta and layer it with the eggplant on a dish.

Make the dressing: mix the juice of half the lemon, garlic, and a good pinch of salt.  Slowly add in the remaining olive oil. Check for seasoning, and add a bit more olive oil, salt or lemon as needed.

Pour that generously over the eggplant, sprinkle the za’atar over top and serve!

Sunday Salads- Roasted Butternut Squash with Pomegranate and Za'atar

The Italian in me just wants to make the simplest food. It doesn’t want to be fussy. It doesn’t want spend hours cutting things just so or mixing 25 ingredients into a salad dressing. My Italian side also pretty much just wants to make gnocchi and tomato sauce all day, which, though delicious, would not make for the most interesting blog. Fortunately, I have fallen deeply in love with Middle Eastern food. The rich flavors, the complex spice mixes, the vegetable forward way of eating.  The more I cook like this, the more I realize that the Italian way of eating simple food, not doing too much to it, that totally unfussy way of cooking seems to fit right in.

It’s actually been kind of exciting to me, to try new spices and spice blends and treat them to the ways I’ve always cooked food. This salad is a great example. I love squash, and roasting it up with red onions and tossing it with some greens and nuts in a simple vinaigrette is something that I would always do. But in this Middle Eastern update, I toss the onions in pomegranate molasses before roasting them, and add fresh pomegranate on top. I toss everything together with some salt and lemon and za’atar, an amazing spice blend of oregano, cumin and sesame seeds, that you can buy already blended and ready to go. Then I put a bowl of garlicky yoghurt on the side to dip the salad in.

The result is something so much more complex and rich than I would have ever made before, but is still incredibly simple and easy to do.

Small miracles friends. They do happen.

Squash and Pomegranate Salad with Za’atar

• 2 small Kombucha or Butternut Squash
• ¼ Pomegranate
• 1 Red Onion
• 2 tbsp Pomegranate Molasses*
• ½ Lemon
• 1 tbsp Za’atar
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper

For Garlicky Yoghurt:

• ¾ cup Greek Yoghurt
• 2 large clove Garlic
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Lemon Juice

Preheat your oven to 425F

Peel the squash- butternut squash can be peeled with a peeler, the kombucha squash will need to be done with a knife and some patience. Be careful!

Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Wash the seeds and toss them with some salt and a good glug of olive oil. Put them on a tray and bake for about 20 mintues, stirring every 5 mintues.

Cut the squash into ½ inch wedges and lay them out on a baking tray. Toss with a good glug of olive oil and a healthy pinch of salt. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the squash is fully cooked.

Peel the red onion and cut it in half. Cut into thin strips and toss with salt and the pomegranate molasses. Put them on a baking tray and roast them for about 20 minutes, or until they are soft and a little bit caramelized.

Phew! No more roasting!

Meanwhile make the garlicky yoghurt:

Smash up the garlic as small as you possible can. Mix it with the yoghurt, salt and lemon juice.

When the squash are still warm sqeeze the lemon juice on top and toss to mix. Check your seasoning and add some salt if you need.

Put the squash on a platter. Top with the onions and roasted squash seeds, and break apart the pomegranate and sprinkle the seeds on top.

Orecchiette with Yoghurt, Spinach, Hazelnuts and Feta

Sometimes I just get stuck on a recipe. I’ll see it in a book and think, that’s weird/different/crazy/maybe delicious but I’m not sure yet, and I won’t make it for fear that what ever is weird/different/crazy/or maybe delicious will actually be awful and I’ll have wasted time and money on something I’m going to end up pushing to the back of my fridge so I can’t pretend I forgot about it until it’s too old and I have to throw it out.

I do this a fair bit. Because usually when I think something is weird and might not turn out, it doesn’t. And there are few things more frustrating than making something you think might not work, and then having it not work for just the reason you thought before you started. I’m learning to trust my gut on this.

The exception to this rule is Ottolenghi. Because he puts some things together and I think “I’m not sure about this” and then it’s always amazing.

And so with this proven track record of exceeding my expectations, I made pasta with a yoghurt based sauce.

I have been staring at this recipe since I bought the Jerusalem cookbook over a year ago.  My love affar with yoghurt is logn and well documented, but on pasta? I’m a little bit Italian and that seems pretty sacreligious to me.

Guys. I should not use my head, and instead to use Ottolenghis. I shouldn’t pretend I know better.

I don’t.

This pasta is wonderful. It’s light and creamy and tangy- the way you would expect from the yoghurt, but it’s also crunchy from the nuts, and super salty in certain bites from the feta.

I had to make a few changes to the recipe- I switched the pine nuts from the original to hazelnuts, because I had them kicking around, and inexplicably my local shop was out of frozen peas (seriously, who runs out of frozen peas?) so I used spinach instead.

The result was a pasta that was totally unexpected, and one that you should probably make right away. Seriously. Do it now.

Orrecciette with Yoghurt, Spinach and Hazelnuts

1lb Orecciette

2 cups Greek Yoghurt

4 cups Baby Spinach

¼ cup Basil, roughly torn

½ cup Toasted Hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

½ cup Feta, crumbled

2 tbsp Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Bring a very large pot of water to a boil. Salt generously.

Cook pasta to directions on box.

Meanwhile, in a food processor pulse the yoghurt with 2 cups of spinach, the olive oil and some salt.  Mix until smooth.

Pasta is cooked, strain. Immediately mix together with the yoghurt mixture, and then toss in the basil, hazelnuts and feta.

Eat immediately. 

Shakshuka

When I was about eight, and my sister was twelve, she became a vegetarian. And because I wanted to be just like my older sister, I followed suit. She stopped after a couple years, but to make sure my family didn’t think I was just copying her I ended up staying vegetarian for nine years. I copied a lot of what my sister was doing. She was a trend setter.

I now eat meat, and I love it I do, but I’m pretty sure I could be vegetarian 75% of the time. I love veggie dishes. I’m all about them really, but I live with a man who expects meat with every meal.

This is a totally novel idea to me, and if we’re being honest, it’s a pretty novel idea for mankind.

So I’m always making vegetarian dishes and hoping he doesn’t notice. This pretty much never works, but I try friends. For purposes of money and health, I try.

But then something amazing happened. I made this breakfast and Jordan said it was the best breakfast he had ever had. And this breakfast was essentially a thick tomato sauce, filled with peppers and spiked with cumin and coriander, that you make little hole in and cracked eggs into. It’s rich without being heavy and it’s balances the salty, spicy, tart, sweet thing perfectly. On top of that it’s super healthy, takes half an hour to make from start to finish, and it also only takes one frying pan to make, and as someone without a dishwasher, let me tell you, that is wildly important.

Shakshuka

(Not surprisingly this recipe is adapted from Jerusalem, the amazing book by Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi. This book is amazing, truly, I can’t recommend it enough.)

2 Red Sweet Peppers, thinly sliced

1 can Plum Tomatoes or Cherry Tomatoes (look for brands that don’t add citric acid)

1 Onion, thinly sliced

2 cloves Garlic, minced

1 1/2 tsp Ground Cumin

1 1/2 tsp Ground Coriander

1 tsp Ground Pepper flakes, or in a pinch some Siracha will do

4 Eggs (the best free-range ones you can find!)

Salt and Pepper

3 tbsp Olive Oil

Toast to serve with.

In a large frying pan (cast iron if you have it) warm the olive oil over medium-low heat.

Add in the peppers and onions and cook until the peppers are very soft and the onions are just starting to brown around the edges, about 7-10 minutes

Add in the garlic, stir for about a minute, then add in the spices.

Stir them in until they are fragrant but not burning at all.

Add in the tomatoes and mix.

Bring heat up to medium-high and let simmer for 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the sauce has thickened.

Bring heat down to medium, and make 4 divets in the sauce.

Crack the eggs into the holes, and cover with a lid for 3 minutes.

While this is happening you can warm up some naan or toast.

When the yolks are still soft but the whites are firm remove the shakshuka from the heat and serve immediately, with thick toast to sop up all the sauces.