The Real Tagine

I got a tagine for my birthday along with a nice assortment of Moroccan spices! Something magical happens when you cook in a clay pot. I seasoned my new tagine by putting in ¼ cup olive oil, a chopped onion, a couple of chopped carrots, two cloves of garlic, and two bay leaves, filling with water, and baking it in the oven for 45 minutes. You’d think it would just smell like a simple soup base but the scent that wafted into my kitchen was indescribably heavenly.

For my first real meal, I made a dish from Made in Morocco that I’ve had my eye on for quite awhile: tagine of chicken with lemons and olives. The lemons in this recipe are preserved lemons. I considered making my own preserved lemons as it is rather easy, but it does take a month and I didn’t want to wait that long, so I ordered some from Zamouri Spices. The preserved lemons are very salty (even after washing off the excess salt) and very lemony but the sourness is replaced with an exotic perfuminess.

I used two teaspoons of my new La Kama spice mix instead of the one teaspoon each of turmeric and ginger the original recipe calls for. According to the Zamouri Spices website, La Kama is a warm and aromatic spice blend created especially for chicken tagine dishes and contains black pepper, cilantro, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, ginger, mustard, nutmeg, salt, turmeric.
The chicken is so tender it falls off the bone and the warm spices combined with the salty lemons and olives are just lovely together. You could make this dish in a regular Dutch oven and use either just the turmeric and ginger or create your own spice mix based on the ingredients of La Kama. I wouldn’t substitute regular lemons but you could omit the preserved lemons and still have a very tasty dish.
Tagine of Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Olives (4 to 6 servings)

• 3 onions, peeled and sliced
• 4 chicken legs, cut into separate drumsticks and thighs
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 tsp. La Kama spice mix
• 1 ½ cups chicken stock
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 preserved lemons, quartered and rinsed
• 1 cup kalamata olives
• ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

1. Place onions in the base of a tagine or Dutch oven. Arrange chicken portions on the bed of onions, drizzle with olive oil and dust with spices. Pour over stock and season well with salt and pepper.
2. Cover the pan and bring the liquid to a boil then turn down the heat and simmer 1 ½ hours until the chicken is cooked.
3. Add the preserved lemons, olives, and parsley and cook for 10 minutes more. Skim any excess fat from the surface before serving.

A Turkish Twist on Burgers ‘n’ Fries

Sometimes I like very simple dishes. But sometimes I like dishes with a complex combination of flavors. I found one such recipe for kofte, which is a Turkish lamb meatball. The recipe substitutes ground beef (I assume to adapt to the American palate) but I love lamb so there was no question of substation for me. The recipe calls for using plain yogurt as a condiment but I consulted various authentic Turkish recipes and came up with my own yogurt-cucumber-mint sauce – cacık – which is common in Turkish cuisine. (It’s also common in Greece where is it called tzatziki.)

With my plan for a Turkish “burger” I wanted a vegetable to accompany it. Of course, “burger” is usually followed by “fries.” I found a recipe for cumin-roasted carrots that seemed like it would be a good complement to the koftes which also contain cumin.

Don’t be fooled by the long lists of ingredients. This entire meal is extremely easy to prepare and broiling the burgers works very well. (I will admit that I was skeptical when I read the original recipe.) And don’t be put off by the “strange” combination of flavorings. Cumin and cinnamon and mint? With meat? Yes! Yes! Yes! Or, as they say in Turkey: Evet! Evet! Evet!

Turkish Lamb Burgers with Yogurt-Cucumber-Mint Sauce (4 servings)

Yogurt-Cucumber-Mint Sauce

• ½ cup Greek yogurt
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tbsp. chopped fresh mint
• 1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced

Turkish Lamb Burgers

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
• ¼ cup chopped fresh mint
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. ground cumin
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground allspice
• 1 lb. ground lamb
• 1 egg white, beaten
• cooking spray
• 4 6-inch pitas, split
• Tomato slices

1. To make the sauce, beat together the yogurt, garlic, and salt until smooth. Add the mint and cucumber and stir to combing. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
2. Preheat broiler. Combine the onion, breadcrumbs, mint, tomato paste, garlic, salt, cumin, cinnamon, allspice, lamb, and egg in a large bowl. Mix until just combined. Divide into 4 equal portions and shape each portion into a patty.
3. Place the patties on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Broil 5 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness.
4. Cut the patties in half. Scoop some of the yogurt sauce into each pita half and place a patty half and tomato slices inside.

Cumin-Roasted Carrots (4-6 servings)

• 2 lbs. carrots, peeled and cut on the diagonal into ½-inch-thick pieces
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 ½ tsp. cumin seeds
• 2 tsp. coarse salt

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and toss to coat. Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast until carrots are tender 35-40 minutes, turning once.

Honey, I Ate the Goat Cheese!

I went out for dinner with a friend recently at a fancy restaurant. It was one of those places whose menu includes long descriptions of the ingredients in the dish and they all sound a little crazy. But the food is delicious. For dessert I ordered the cheese platter which came with a slice of hard cheese, a wedge of goat cheese, a drizzle of honey, and grilled baguette. Or, as the menu describes it: Vermont Butter and Cheese Company's Bijou (Soft Ripened, Goat's Milk) and Vermont Ayr (Firm, Aged, Cow's Milk) with Merrimack Valley Apiaries Honey, Fennel Pollen, Grilled Bread and EVOO. (I never figured out what the Fennel Pollen was.) Cheese and bread are my staples but the honey drizzle was a revelation! It was really lovely with the cheese, especially the soft goat cheese.

I wondered if it would be the same at home with regular supermarket goat cheese and honey. Because both the cheese and the honey are sweet, I used a multi-grain roll and had some smoked oysters on the side to temper the sweetness and it made for an exquisite little brunch.


Grilled Bread with Goat Cheese and Honey

• Whole-grain rolls or baguette, sliced on the diagonal into ¼-inch slices
• Olive oil
• Goat cheese
• Honey

1. Brush bread slices with olive oil and grill until lightly toasted. Spread goat cheese on grilled bread and drizzle with honey.

Comfort in a Bowl

Sometimes I’m in the mood for very simple food. No adornments, nothing fancy, just a few good ingredients cooked to bring out their best and most complementary flavors. That’s what this soup is all about. I thought the combination of leeks, ham, and sweet potatoes was earthy and appealing (the Idaho potato is in there just to thicken the soup). It’s rare that I make a soup without any herbs or spices but this one really doesn’t need any. If you are looking to expand your repertoire of comfort food, this is the perfect candidate.

Sweet Potato Soup with Leeks and Ham (6 servings)

• 1 tbsp. butter
• 3 leeks, sliced thinly
• 8 oz. ham steak, diced
• 2 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 Idaho potato, peeled and diced
• 5 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup light cream

1. Melt the butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the ham and cook 5 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and potatoes and stir to combine.
2. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes.Add the cream and heat through.

The Ultimate Summer Dessert

I still had a little buttermilk left over. Then I stumbled across a recipe for buttermilk sorbet with strawberries (although I’m not sure you can call it a sorbet if it has dairy in it). I figured, why not? I really needed to use up the buttermilk; there wasn’t that much left and I had the rest of the ingredients on hand. Now I know what you are thinking: this is just buttermilk and sugar, how good could it be? I know because that’s what I thought. But with only 1 ½ cups of buttermilk left, I was only making a half recipe (I doubled the amounts below) and anyway it was all in the name of ice cream experimentation. We were so wrong. This is genius! This is the ultimate summer dessert – just sweet enough to be sweet, just tangy enough to be refreshing, and a gorgeous white color that cools you down just looking at it. I’m hooked. I think I need to buy more buttermilk…

Buttermilk Ice Cream (6 servings)

• 3 cups low-fat buttermilk
• 6 tbsp. cup sugar
• 6 tbsp. light corn syrup

1. Combine the buttermilk, sugar, and corn syrup in a medium bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. Pour into ice cream maker and let mix for 30 minutes.

A Fish in Every Tagine

My parents gave me a gorgeous Moroccan cookbook called Made in Morocco by Julie Le Clerc and John Bougen that I love to look through as it has really stunning photography. A while ago I made the recipe for Chermoula Fish Tagine (chermoula is a North African marinade) and it was delicious. There was a lot of sauce that was very flavorful but also very watery. I thought if I added some uncooked rice, it would absorb all that flavor. So I made it again with the rice and it worked perfectly.

I don’t have a tagine, but a Dutch oven works very well. The original chermoula recipe calls for either fresch coriander (cilantro) or parsley. Since I dislike cilantro (although I do like ground coriander), I went with parsley but if you happen to like it, that is a traditional option.

The final dish looks very rustic but it is absolutely delicious. And don’t let the longish ingredient list put you off; it’s extremely easy to make. You can whip up the chermoula in seconds in a food processor or blender. Then you just layer everything together, set it on the stove, and it’s done – with no fussing or stirring – in less than an hour.
Chermuola Fish Tagine (4 to 6 servings)

• 1 bunch fresh parsley
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. paprika
• ½ tsp. sea salt
• Juice and zest of 1 lemon
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 4 large carrots, peeled and thickly sliced on the diagonal
• 4 celery sticks, thickly sliced on the diagonal
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup basmati rice
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 4 tomatoes, thickly sliced
• 1 lb. boneless cod fillets

1. To make the chermoula, put the parsley, garlic, cumin, coriander, paprika, ½ tsp. sea salt, lemon juice and zest, and olive oil in a food processor and process until it becomes a thick sauce.
2. Place the carrots and celery in a Dutch oven. Add the water and rice and season with salt and pepper. Arrange the tomatoes on top and then the fish. Pour the chermoula over the fish.
3. Cover and place over a gentle heat and cook for 45 minutes until fish and rice are cooked and vegetables are tender.

We All Scream for Two Buttermilk Ice Creams

The strawberries are here and what better way to celebrate the warming weather than with home-made strawberry ice cream! I had seen a recipe somewhere that used buttermilk instead of cream for ice cream so I thought I’d try it. The buttermilk gives the ice cream a very subtle but lovely tang that cuts the sweetness of the sugar and fruit just enough. Because the buttermilk is low fat, it’s more of a sherbet and is a little icier than a true ice cream; but whatever you call it, it’s tasty.

One of the problems of cooking with buttermilk, however, is that you always have a lot left over. Usually, I use up leftover buttermilk by making rolls but I was still in an ice cream frame of mind. Inspired by an experimental – and highly successful – cheesecake I developed about a year ago, I decided to try a brown sugar and molasses ice cream with the buttermilk. I love molasses and you definitely do have to like molasses to like this ice cream (the flavor is much more pronounced than it is in the cheesecake). The buttermilk tang lightens up the dark molasses flavor a little and the result is a very rich – this one is much creamier than the strawberry – and surprisingly sophisticated despite the humble ingredients.

Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream

• 1 cup water
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 lb. strawberries, hulled and rinsed
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk

1. Combine water and sugar in a small pot; bring to a boil and stir until sugar dissolves. Cool and pour into a large bowl.
2. Purée the strawberries in blender until smooth. Add the strawberry purée and buttermilk to the sugar syrup and stir to combine.
3. Pour the strawberry mixture into ice cream maker and let mix for 30 minutes.

Brown Sugar and Molasses Buttermilk Ice Cream

• 4 tbsp. butter
• ½ cup light brown sugar
• ¼ cup molasses
• 1 ½ cups low-fat buttermilk

1. Melt butter in a small pot; add the brown sugar and stir until it dissolves. Remove from heat and add the molasses and stir to combine. Cool completely.
2. Add the buttermilk to the brown sugar and molasses mixture and stir to combine. Pour into ice cream maker and let mix for 30 minutes.