Although I haven't posted in several months for various reasons, I have not been totally idle on the food front, having read a number of cookbooks on foods from the Middle East (mainly Persia and Israel) but also New Orleans and Vietnam.
We had friends for dinner the other night and I was planning to go full-on Middle Easter, but when I went to the farmers' market on Columbus Avenue on Sunday, I realized that I should take advantage of the summer's bounty and decided to mix and match a bit.
I did start with the now iconic hummus tahina from Michael Solomonov's wonderful
Zahav, with store-bought (shh!) pita chips and a sprinkling of hot Hungarian paprika,
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Zahav hummus tahina |
and an eggplant pâté from Naomi Duguid's excellent
Taste of Persia, served with homemade laffa (a thin non-puffy bread made with pita dough), using another recipe from
Zahav. This was a really wonderful dish, just screaming Persia with eggplant, walnuts, fenugreek and other herbs and spices common to the region.
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Eggplant pâté |
Now the seasonal part: heirloom tomato salad with torn mozzarella and basil, based on a recipe from Jamie Oliver, but now whatever I feel like doing. Although the heirlooms, among the season's first, were not at their best, it was great to welcome them back.
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Heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad |
For the main course, I went to
Zahav again for spatchcocked chicken marinated in a celery seed and harissa rub, then served with sumac onions and tahina sauce (the same one that went into the hummus) and served over the homemade laffa.
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Spatchocked chicken with tahina and sumac onions |
Accompanying the chicken was a summer corn sauté with tons of herbs -- and I mean tons -- anc cumin seeds, from epicurious.com. This is a go-to recipe and is more elegant than corn on the cob, which may be my favorite food in the world.
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Summer corn sauté with tons of herbs |
Dessert was another tribute to the season: berries, cherries and apricots with homemade strawberry sour cream ice cream (from David Lebovitz' authoritative
Scoop).
A good time was had by all, even though the kitchen air conditioner broke while the chicken was in the oven, bringing the temperature to triple digits. Fortunately, the A/C was fine in the dining room!
Bobby Jay