January 27, 2012

Q & A: Reshikas

Posted by Janet Amateau under Q & A / Preguntas | Tags: , , |
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Hi, Janet,
Have you ever heard of rechikas?  My grandmother (and later, my mother) made these little dry cookies, not very sweet at all, crunchy and absolutely DELICIOUS, especially when dunked in some Turkish coffee!  OMG, I’m drooling.  Please say you know what I’m talking about.
Yael Eylat-Tanaka
Of course, Yael! Reshikas, or reshas, are exactly as you describe them. My first taste was a mesmerizing experience.  I was very, very young – four, at most – and my mother brought home a bagful after a visit to my great grandma.  My eyes popped, and I couldn’t stop eating them.  Great grandma was already in her nineties, but she still made one mean cookie.
Reshikas are merely biscochos – shortbread cookies -  that are twisted before shaping them into rings. Orange juice (not rind) blended into the dough is most likely the source of the subtle flavor you remember, and the crumbly texture comes from oil.  Growing up in New York our oil of choice was Mazola corn oil – in the 1960′s we weren’t exactly spoiled for choice – but your grandmother surely used a mild-flavored olive oil.   To jog your memory a little, here’s an old post with a photo.
 

December 18, 2011

Agrestada v.1: Cooked lemon mayonnaise

Posted by Janet Amateau under Recipes / Recetas | Tags: , , , |
[6] Comments 

Contrasts of flavor, color and texture are an integral part of Sephardic gastronomic tradition – of others, too, of course, though by no means all (where I live, the food is mostly mushy, bland and tending toward weirdness), and to varying degrees among them. One of our signatures is a sour sauce, agrestada, or agristada (from the Spanish root word agrio: sour).

Agrestada is an egg and lemon mixture that’s either blended right into a hot dish as a finishing touch, exactly as the Greeks do avgolemono (which means egg-lemon), or cooked separately to yield a luscious lemon mayonnaise. The light note – and that’s all it is supposed to be – of sourness, of piquancy, wakes up the taste buds with a pleasant, lemony tingle, not a shock.  It’s intended for specific dishes, to bring out the flavors it accompanies, not to compete with them, to create a ‘whole’ experience; a gastronomic yin and yang. Which means the lemon flavor should be easy to discern, but it shouldn’t twist up the mouth like a fistful of Sweet Tarts, or whack you – or the food it’s eaten with – senseless. (more…)

 

December 15, 2011

Perfect fried potatoes. Really. (Hanukah fish & chips, part 2)

Posted by Janet Amateau under Holidays / Fiestas Judias, Recipes / Recetas | Tags: , , |
1 Comment 

Ours wasn’t much of a potato household.  We were – are –  Ottoman Sephardim, into lots of rice and a little bit of pasta, and potatoes were a New World discovery that took hold more in northern Europe than in the northern Mediterranean.  As far as we were concerned, potatoes were mostly good for filling ojaldres and not much else.  My mother’s potato repertoire was limited to baked, mashed, or the very rare purchase of demon frozen French fries, which she insisted on baking because it was ‘healthier.’  Although why she would then fry up a huge platter of breaded fish and think nothing of it is beyond me. 

As a potato-challenged people, our forays into latke territory (our Ashkenazi-centric religious school made me feel I wasn’t Jewish if I didn’t eat latkes) were always tentative (more…)

 

December 12, 2011

Some overly pedantic instructions for frying fish (Hanukah fish & chips, part 1)

Posted by Janet Amateau under Holidays / Fiestas Judias, Recipes / Recetas | Tags: , , , |
[3] Comments 

Anyone who’s read anything about Sephardic food must surely know by now that fish and chips made their way to England via the Portuguese Jews (who, by the way, were for the most part of Spanish descent). Fish has always been an abundant staple throughout Iberia, and just as likely to be fried as not. In a place and time when it mattered, it was the Sephardim who fried their fish exclusively in olive oil, so it was indeed exotic and novel to the English, until then accustomed only to cooking with animal fats, to be introduced to this element of the Mediterranean diet – and in the sixteenth century, no less. The crisp batter was the real seducer here, of course, but for me it’s always a let-down, something they’ve amazingly not gotten the hang of in England despite four centuries of practice. With one – one! – exception, I’ve never had fried fish in England that wasn’t (more…)

 

October 7, 2011

Sephardic sashimi, with a twist

Posted by Janet Amateau under Holidays / Fiestas Judias, Q & A / Preguntas, Recipes / Recetas | Tags: , , , |
[2] Comments 

“My father would eat an appetizer which was raw fish with lemon squeezed onto it. I think it is called LAKADA, made from mackerel. He would eat it with greek olives and bread.
I am a Sephardic Jew who grew up in Brooklyn and now live in Kansas City and would like to know how my mother prepared this dish for my dad.” – Joseph

The recipe name you’re trying to remember is lâkerda,  the Turkish name for an appetizer of marinated raw tuna or of bonito, which is indeed a kind of mackerel (When made with bonito, it is correctly called palamida, which is the Greek name for that fish).  Both are oily, blue fishes.  I’m not partial to mackerel, but I love raw tuna marinated in lime juice and this is essentially the same thing.

[NOTE: I've corrected this entry regarding the names, lâkerda vs. palamida.]

The technique is very straightforward; probably the most difficult part of making lakerda is cleaning and boning the fish.  How you approach that will depend upon the kind of fish you’ve got, and what’s available at the fish market depends upon where you live.  If you don’t know your way around fish, ask your local fishmonger for guidance, or ask him/her to clean the fish for you.  And if you can’t get fresh mackerel (you probably can’t), ask for a good substitute.  Or use a mild, white flesh fish, which will be a different experience altogether.

When you’ve settled on your choice of fish, place the cleaned, fresh fillets in a glass or ceramic dish, cover liberally with lemon juice and leave to marinate overnight in the refrigerator.  Bring the fish to room temperature, drain it and serve, with a splash of olive oil, if you like, to balance the acidity of the lemon juice. A spash of fresh-squeezed orange juice is also pretty sensational.  Tradition calls for olives, too, just as you remember from your childhood (I’m guessing you mother served kalmatas). These will complement the snack with their saltiness  (Is it mean of me to be posting this a few hours before Yom Kippur?).

Should you be wondering, the lemon cooks the fish, but if the prospect makes you squeamish, first freeze the raw fillets for a day or two, thaw them in the refrigerator and then marinate immediately while still cold.  Any leftovers should be stored in the refrigerator and eaten within 2 days.

Thanks for your question, Joseph.

 

September 28, 2011

This Rosh Hashana, make beets, not enemies

Posted by Janet Amateau under Holidays / Fiestas Judias, Recipes / Recetas | Tags: , , |
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The symbolic foods of Rosh Hashana are chosen for specific attributes or for their Hebrew names, which sound like the words naming qualities or states of being that we hope to attain in the new year. When you delve into it, the word play turns out to be pretty lame - just a lot of bad puns – but who am I to pick on the Talmud. And they’re mostly about sweetness and abundance, which is nice. Several are also about being freed of enemies one way or another. This theme figures big on Rosh Hashana; it’s repeated while eating dates, leeks and beets, not one or two but three ceremonial foods of the holiday – talk about hedging your bets. (more…)

 

May 16, 2011

Me and my big ideas

Posted by Janet Amateau under History / Historia | Tags: , , |
[5] Comments 

Recently a reader questioned my theory about the origin of  ensaimada, a traditional pastry from Mallorca made with lard that I believe began life as challa, or perhaps as rosca  (see my post about the book ‘Dulce lo vivas’).  Okay, challenged more than questioned it.  She called my idea far fetched.  Hmm.  Well, I love a good challenge, and especially where Sephardic vs. Christian or secular Spanish gastronomic traditions are concerned it can be challenging to determine which is the chicken and which is the egg.  But there is a method to my madness, which I explained in my reply.   For others who may also wonder how I draw certain conclusions (and who don’t make a habit of reading blog comments), I’ve repeated the conversation here. (more…)

 

April 9, 2011

Sharope: white spoon sweet (Q & A)

Posted by Janet Amateau under Glossary / Glosario, Q & A / Preguntas, Recipes / Recetas | Tags: |
[15] Comments 

Hello, Janet, Have you ever heard the word “sharope”? When I was a child, my grandmother who was Turkish would make a sweet, white paste which she kneaded on the tile floor. We would then snip off pieces and eat them. They tasted of vanilla, and the texture was like a paste, softer than caramel, and not formed. Can you help? – Yael

Yep!  Sharope (shah-ROH-peh)  is a spoon sweet.  It’s  a kind of meringue – a marshmallow creme, really – in which hot sugar syrup, rather than dry granulated sugar, is beaten into egg whites for a long, long time with a wooden dowel. Dry sugar separates quickly from beaten egg whites, but the cooked syrup is more stable and doesn’t separate (this, by the way, is also the process for making Italian meringue), so this is a sweet you can make and store in a jar.  Sharope might be flavored with lemon or almonds or, as in your grandmother’s case, vanilla, which would be delicious.  I’ve never heard of anyone kneading sharope on the floor!  It’s not usually so dense to even allow for that kind of handling, although the longer you beat the meringue, the more  taffy-like it becomes.  I’m guessing your grandmother either beat the meringue for a VERY long time or that she added mastic, which is what gives Turkish ice cream its taffy-like texture (For further explanation, take a look at my post about Dondurma).

If you’re familiar with Marshmallow Fluff, it’s pretty close to sharope – but it ain’t the same.

Thanks for your question, Yael.  A good one!

 

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