Belated Passover Post

As was the case before the pandemic, I made the family seder this year. Pestilence and illness reduced our company to ten, and no one was able to bring matzoh ball soup.

We had lots of hors d'oeuvres. There was Michael Solomonov's fantastic smooth tahini from Zahav,

Michael Solomonov's hummus

my own ricotta, sun-dried tomato and lemon zest spread, gefilte fish bites made from Citarella's excellent fish, with homemade horseradish from America's Test Kitchen's DIY, bar nuts from The Union Square Cookbook and tuna tapenade from Joel Robuchon's The Complete Robuchon.

For matzoh ball soup, I went to Friedman's, a quite good Jewish deli/restaurant with numerous branches around the city. I was thrilled to find a sufficient quantity of soup, but really disappointed when I tasted it.. Weak, salty, with not great matzoh balls. I doctored it as best I could be cooking it with some chopped parsnips, dill and parsley, but to little avail. It was barely adequate.

The first main course was Palestinian upside-down chicken  (maqlubeh), in which chicken thighs are cooked with cauliflower florets, eggplant slices, tons of spices and basmati rice and almonds, which are supposed to crisp up like Persian rice. (Recipe courtesy of The Milk Street Cookbook.) It was delicious! Although I didn't get a photo, I have stolen a photo from my dinner of May 31, 2017, which will be covered subsequently.

Palestinian upside-down chicken

The second was a pretty classic seven-hour lleg of amb, with the principal recipe from Bones, by Jennifer McLagan, but with the addition of anchovies, rosemary in garlic in finger-sized holes, as suggested by Simon Hopkinson in his lovely Roast Chicken and Other Stories. Absolutely perfect, without the dryness this dish is prone to.

You can't have a seder without haroset, great on its own but also on matzoh with lots of extreme horseradish: the famous Hillel sandwich. As always, I made two kinds First, figs, date, and apples and walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds, from Judith Nathan's Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Food in France. My second was a Syrian-style dried apricot and pistachio puree that I got from Jennifer Abadi's blog, Too Good to Pass Over. Both incredibly simple and tasty.

Finally, dessert. Ginger molasses cake from David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert, in homage to my late mother, who adored this cake and anything else with huge quantities of ginger. And my fresh blueberry tart (to which I add raspberries from Rose Levy Beranbaum, by way of Food52 Genius Recipes, always a hit.

Blueberry and raspberry tart

Ginger molasses cake

For post-dessert, assorted brownies and cookies made by Vicki and homemade chocolate covered matzos from Rebecca.

All in all, it was quite a feast!

Bobby Jay

What I'm Cooking - 6

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

What I've Been Cooking - 3

I've been interested in Middle Eastern cooking for a number of years, and was psyched to read Naz Deravian's Bottom of the Pot, named for the tahdig crust formed on the bottom of a pot of Persian rice (before being inverted to make a gorgeous top), one of my top ten foods in the world.

Joan was away so I decided to make just one dish to get acquainted with this book, which I had read in full: kashki bademjan, an eggplant dish made with kashk (a pungent cheesy distillation of cooked down and concentrated yogurt) and a topping of fried onions, garlic and mint.

The dish was tasty if not pretty, with an interesting interplay among the earthy eggplant taste (accentuated by turmeric), the funkiness of the kashk and the kick of the onion-garlic-mint mixture:

Eggplant dip with kashk

I accompanied the dish with Persian rice, not one of the ones in Bottom of the Pot, which entail quite a bit of work, but rather the recipe in Melissa Clark's Dinner in an Instant, which I have made numerous times (indeed, this picture is from an earlier meal). I added tons of dill and, with the eggplant dish, had a lovely and healthful meal.

Persian rice

Joan returned from Japan the next day, and she enjoyed reheated versions of both dishes, the eggplant dish having been given a shot of brightness by adding pomegranate seeds, an innovation I will use again next time.

Bobby Jay

Light, Middle Eastern Inspired Lunch

I was looking for a light lunch to make with ingredients at hand, and found the opportunity to put my recent Middle Eastern cookbook reading to use. What came to me was an open sandwich on flatbread topped with labneh, za'atar and avocado (not so Middle Eastern but a perfect match).

Labneh, za'atar, avocado and sprouts on toasted lavash

First, I toasted a slice of lavash bread over a gas burner, the same way you do with soft tacos. Then I mixed a few tablespoons of labneh with some salt, about half of small clove of garlic grated on a microplane, and a generous amount of za'atar. I topped it with avocado slices and wonderful spicy radish sprouts that I got at the Sunday farmers market on Columbus between 77th and 81st streets. Since my za'atar has no sumac in it (the Syrian style does), I sprinkled some on for looks and for a little citrus tang.

You could use any flatbread for this, although I like lavash because it's on the thin side. If you don't have labneh, Greek yogurt will work. If you don't have za'atar you could take this in another direction entirely, using Herbes de Provence or whatever fresh or dried herbs you like (dill and tarragon come to mind).

A nice, healthful lunch.

Bobby Jay

Passover 2018 -- Mostly Familiar Favorites

It's not that I'm lazy or unwilling to think about new things, but last year's Passover Seder was so successful that I mostly repeated it for this year.

I stayed with a mostly Sephardic Seder, which I have been doing for some years. I started with a roasted eggplant spread, an artichoke and olive tapenade, my own ricotta, sun-dried tomato and lemon zest spread, lemon scented meatballs and Union Square Cafe's iconic bar nuts.

For the religious portion of the Seder, we had the required symbolic elements for the Seder: bitter herbs (parsley and watercress), roasted lamb shank bone, hard-boiled eggs dipped in salt water, and, my favorites, moror (head-clearing homemade horseradish) and nutty, fruity charoseth (I made French and Syrian style versions as in the past).

Then, for the meal after the retelling the story of the flight of the Jews from Egypt, my sister-in-law's excellent chicken and matzo ball soup, followed by crusty Persian rice with tons of herbs -- parsley, cilantro, dill, and tarragon -- and fava beans, roasted squash with pumpkin and nigella seeds,

Roasted squash with pumpkin and nigella seeds; Persian rice with herbs

Syrian chicken with olives and lemons, and lamb tagine with figs, carrots onions and Moroccan spices, made by Cousin Vicki,

Lamb tagine with figs, onions, carrots and Moroccan spices

Of course, desserts followed: my fresh blueberry and raspberry tart, the crust made with matzo flour,

Blueberry and raspberry tart

and my mother's favorite ginger molasses cake,

Ginger molasses cake

with coconut macaroons to honor an Ashkenazi tradition of our youths.

In case that was not enough, Vicki provided her wonderful chocolate covered matzos and chocolate tahini brownies.

Bobby Jay

For convenience, here is a list of the sources for the dishes that made up the meal.

• Burnt eggplant with tahini and pomegranate seeds: Yotam Ottolenghi, Plenty.
• Artichoke and olive tapenade: David Lebovitz, My Paris Kitchen.
• Lemon scented veal meatballs: Mario Batali, Food Network. Caution: the recipe calls for 4 lemons; 2 are more than enough.
• Bar Nuts: Michael Romano, The Union Square Cafe Cookbook.
• Bordeaux style haroset: Joan Nathan, Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France.
• Syrian style haroset: Jennifer Abadi, blog Too Good to Passover.
• Dja'je zetoon b'limoneh (chicken with lemon and olives): Jennifer Abadi, A Fistful of Lentils.
• Lamb tagine with figs: cooking lesson at Atelier des Chefs in Paris.
• Persian rice, Cooking lesson by Jennifer Abadi,
• Roasted butternut squash with pumpkin and nigella seeds: Yotam Ottolenghi, Plenty More.
• Fresh ginger molasses cake, David Lebovitz, Ready for Dessert.
• Blueberry tart: Kristen Miglore, ed., Food52 Genius Recipes.
• Coconut Macaroons: Kristen Migliore, ed., Food52 Genius Recipes

The Way I Cook

People often ask me what I like to cook, and I always answer "everything," which is a slight exaggeration, but I do enjoy learning about and trying new cuisines. For the past few years, I have been delving pretty deeply into the food of Turkey and the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia.

We had dear friends for dinner last night and I made a Middle Eastern/French meal. Hors d'oeuvres consisted of crostini topped with salmon rillettes made with poached and smoked salmon, dill and preserved lemon, which I learned to make a lesson at Atelier des Chefs in Paris,

Salmon rillettes

and mustard batons (puff pastry with mustard inside) from Dorie Greenspan's excellent Around My French Table,

Mustard batons

The starter was watercress and chickpea soup with rose water and ras el hanout from Ottolenghi's Jerusalem, a beautiful expression of complex and warm Middle Eastern spices.

Watercress and chickpeas soup

For the main course I made roast chicken with sumac, za'atar, lemon and pine nuts from the same chef's first book, Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, an old favorite that showcases different -- but just as interesting -- Middle Eastern flavors.

Roast chicken with sumac, za'atar, lemon slices and pine nuts

As a side, I made Persian rice with tons of herbs, using my new Instant Pot and a recipe from Melissa Clark's Dinner in an Instant. This was only partly successful: the wonderful crust (tahdig) that is a hallmark of Persian rice was not quite thick enough. Still, Clark's method is easier than the way I usually do it, so I'll try again, adjusting based on my experience.

Dessert was back to Dorie's French table, for Marie-Hélène's apple cake, made especially for my apple-loving old friend.

Marie-Hélène's apple cake

With the exception of the rice, I had made all of these dishes before, but not in the same combination, and I think it turned out to be a coherent and interesting sequence of dishes.

Bobby Jay

Syrian Cooking Lesson

Phyllo spinach triangles

One of my great joys is learning about the different cuisines and related food cultures in this world. I do this reading lots of cookbooks and by taking lessons at good cooking schools in Paris and New York. I enjoy getting to know different cultures by studying (and eating and cooking) their amazingly varied cuisines.

Last week I went with my friend Cochonette to an excellent cooking lesson on Syrian cooking at ICE Institute for Culinary Education, now located way downtown just across the street from the Freedom Tower. The teacher was Jennifer Abadi, who introduced me to Persian cooking at a lesson four years ago and kind of got me started on Middle Eastern Food. Jennifer is of Syrian Jewish heritage, and has written a wonderful book, A Fistful of Lentils: Syrian-Jewish Recipes from Grandma Fritzie's Kitchen, and maintains a very interesting blog on related culinary matters, Too Good to Passover. I have used many recipes from both, and correspond with Jennifer from time to time.

The title of the lesson was "A Fistful of Lentils," and all the dishes we made were from recipes in the book. All were delicious and none was technically difficult, although we had to rush to make the many dishes covered by the lesson.

Jennifer started with an interesting explanation of Syrian (particularly Jewish) food culture and history, placing it into geographical context, and including the migration of Syrian Jews to America in the early 20th century. Then we cooked seven dishes, which I will describe in the order of a meal. We started with a series of maaze (small plates) (this and all references will use the Syrian spelling, although there are many variations in the region). First up was baba ganush:

Baba ganush

Next was im'warah b'sbanech (phyllo spinach triangles), made with no cheese or meat, and smaller and more delicate than the Turkish and Greek varieties. See picture above.

And cheeyar b'bandoorah sa'lata (chopped cucumber and tomato salad with dried mint) (no photo) that was pretty much what you'd find in a Turkish restaurant.

There followed two main courses. The first, kibbeh fil seeniyah b'lah'meh (meat-filled pie), is the cake-shaped version of kibbeh, balls of meat stuffed into a thin meat crust, that are ubiquitous in Middle Eastern cuisine. It has the bonus of being much much easier to prepare than kibbeh balls, which are notoriously difficult. (For a wonderful digression on the mystique surrounding great kibbeh, see Claudia Roden's encyclopedic The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.)

Meat-filled bulgur pie

The other main dish was kibbeh m'geraz (meatballs and sour cherries), which showcased the Syrians' love for tart and sweet, very different from the Italians' agrodolce or the sweet and sour cabbage cooked by the Eastern European Jews . . .

Meatballs and cherries - my photo doesn't do it justice

. . .  accompanied by m'jedrah (rice with lentils) with yogurt-mint dressing: simple but delicious.

Rice with lentils

Finally, the pièce de résistance: knaffeh (shredded phyllo-ricotta pie), a  light, heavenly rose water-infused filling in a two-crust pie made with kataifi, shredded phyllo and covered with rose water syrup and chopped pistachios. I can't wait to have people to dinner to share this fabulous dessert, which has the subtle sweetness of an Italian cheesecake with a taste straight out of the Arabian Nights. In the word(s) of a late friend, FA-BU-LOUS!

Shredded phyllo-ricotta- pie

Get A Fistful of Lentils and try Syrian Jewish cuisine. Now.

Bobby Jay

Passover 2017 -- Still Mostly Sephardic

Once you have a successful formula for a traditional meal, be it Thanksgiving or the Passover Seder, you don't want to mess with it too much, because people expect and, hopefully, hope to find last year's favorites this year. So my seder this year was a lot like last years's with changes here and there.

Thus, the great bulk of the seder consisted of Sephardic/Mediterranean dishes from a large array of countries: Syria, Morocco, France, Italy, Iran,  Israel and Greece, As usual, the main exception was my sister-in-law's stupendous matzoh ball soup, returning to the table after an enforced absence due to illness in 2016.

We started with my go-to Burnt Eggplant with Tahini, from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty, always a crowd pleaser. This year I added the optional bits of fresh cucumber, which added texture but also mellowed out the bitterness of the tahini.

Burnt eggplant with tahini, pomegranate seeds and endive leaves

Another old favorite that had not been on recent year's rotation was Jacques Pépin's tapendade, made with a mixture of oil cured and Kalamata olives, presented with pain azyme (the fancy French name for matzoh).

Tapenade

There would have been a mutiny if I hand't served Mario Batali's Lemon-Scented Veal Meatballs, which I made with matzoh flour instead of white bread for the panade binder.

Lemon-scented veal meatballs

Another dish returning to the hors d'oeuvre portion of the evening was my very own creation: a spread made with smoked ricotta (you can use plain, with or without a little liquid smoke, if you can't find it), sun-dried tomatoes and lots of lemon zest, thinned with yogurt and olive oil to a smooth texture, with a little crushed red pepper thrown in.

Smoked ricotta, sun-dried tomato and lemon zest spread

As usual, the fifth appetizer was a concession to the Eastern European tradition: bites of gefilte fish procured from Citarella and served with homemade, head-exploding horseradish made by my mother-in-law. I just love this.

Gefilte fish bites with homemade horseradish

Also prepared for the cocktail hour: the iconic Bar Nuts from the Union Square Cafe Cookbook, mixed notes roasted and mixed with a spicy rosemary butter blend.

For the dinner, I made he best-looking hard-boiled eggs I have ever made, served over a dollop of spinach cooked for hours with red onions. Inspired by a recipe originally from Corfu in Greece that is in Joan Nathan's new book King Solomon's Table, which I haven't read (although a different one of her books is a source of the Bordeaux Style Haroset described below).

Hard-boiled eggs on spinach

Next came Heidi's matzoh ball soup that warms the heart and screams PASSOVER!

Heidi's great matzoh ball so

There followed Dja'jeh Zetoon b'Limoneh (Syrian Chicken with Lemon and Olives) and a Moroccan Lamb Tagine, made by Cousin Vicki from a recipe that I got at a cooking class in Paris: sweet and beautifully spiced. These dishes, which reprised our 2015 Seder, were supplemented by Iranian caramelized fennel from Sirocco, by Sabrina Ghayour (the fennel looked great but was horribly undercooked, not to make again).

wise from front: Persian rice, caramelized fennel, lamb tagine, Syrian chicken

My absolute favorite Seder dish, and the reason I started cooking Sephardic food for Passover, is Persian Rice, which is famous for its tahdig crust, which I learned to make at an Iranian cooking lesson. It is impressive but not really difficult if you know how.

Persian rice with crunchy tahdig, with fava bean and dill salad

One of the highlights any Seder, for me at least, is haroset, a fruit and nut spread that is symbolic of the mortar used by the Jews in Egypt to make bricks for Pharaoh, eaten as the famous "Hillel Sandwich" with bitter horseradish on matzoh and thereafter just eaten on matzoh because it tastes so good. This year I made two varieties, as I did last year: first, Joan Nathan's Bordeaux Style Haroset from Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cuisine in France, which I have used for several years. Second, Syrian Haroset from an on-line recipe by Jennifer Abadi, a wonderful confection of tart Turkish dried apricots, lemon juice, orange flower water and chopped pistachios.

Bordeaux Style haroset

Syrian haroseet with pistachios

For dessert, as with last year, my go-to Blueberry (and Raspberry) Tart from Food52 Genius Recipes, with alterations. I used Clotilde Dusoulier's pâte sablée made with gluten-free (and hence wheat-free) flour (Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free 1:1 Baking Flour) and I used potato starch in lieu of cornstarch (not Kosher for Passover) for the filling. A success, although the crust was not quite as crispy as the conventional wheat-based variety. Still, you can make a pretty good gluten-free tart for your friends who can't or just don't eat wheat.

Blueberry and raspberry tart 

Finally, for my ginger-loving mother, Fresh Ginger Cake from David Lebovitz' Ready for Dessert, adopted for Passover by using matzoh flour, served with crème fra îche. Another repeat from 2016.

Ginger molasses cake 

Well, not quite finally. At the last moment, I decided to make coconut macaroons, and used the interesting recipe found in Food52 Genius Recipes, which uses coconut chips in lieu of shredded coconut, resulting in an interesting craggy appearance and texture.

Macaroons, some with chocolate, and closeup

And that was it! At least until next year.

Happy Passover!

Bobby Jay

For convenience, here is a list of the sources for the dishes that made up the meal.

• Burnt eggplant with tahini and pomegranate seeds: Yotam Ottolenghi, Plenty.
• Tapenade: Jacques Pépin, Essential Pépin.
• Lemon scented veal meatballs: Mario Batali, Food Network. Caution: the recipe calls for 4 lemons; 2 are more than enough.
• Bar Nuts: Michael Romano, The Union Square Cafe Cookbook.
• Bordeaux style haroset: Joan Nathan, Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France.
• Syrian style haroset: Jennifer Abadi, blog Too Good to Passover.
• Dja'je zetoon b'limoneh (chicken with lemon and olives): Jennifer Abadi, A Fistful of Lentils. 
• Persian rice, Cooking lesson by Jennifer Abadi, favas from Louisa Shafia, The New Persian Kitchen
• Caramelized Fennel: Sabrina Ghayour, Sirocco.
• Fresh ginger cake, David Lebovitz, Ready for Dessert.
•  Blueberry tart: Kristen Miglore, ed., Food52 Genius Recipes.
•  Coconut Macaroons: Kristen Migliore, ed., Food52 Genius Recipes

Passover 2016 -- Another Sephardic Seder

A few years ago, I "converted" to Sephardism because I am much more excited by Sephardic/Mediterranean cuisine than by Ashenazic/Eastern European food. Ever since, I have been cooking dishes from all around the Mediterranean for our family Seder, with a major exception for  my sister-in-law's superb matzoh ball soup. This year she couldn't come, and I did not try to duplicate her wonderful soup; instead, I made a Watercress and Spinach Soup with carrot and chickpea "croutons" (see image below).

I recently read Engin Akin's excellent Essential Turkish Cuisine, and made her Fava Bean Purée with dill and red onions instead of a more conventional hummus or tapenade.

Fava bean purée with dill and red onions

Then I served Mario Batali's Lemon-scented Veal Meatballs, using matzoh flour instead of bread for the binding panade.

Lemon-scented veal meatballs

I also served my go-to Burnt Eggplant with Tahini, from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty,

Burnt Eggplant with tahini, pomegranate seeds on endive leaves

and my newest favorite, Socca (chickpea crepes), a favorite from Nice, from David Lebovitz' blog and his book The Sweet Life in Paris. (Too crazed to take photo.)

The fifth appetizer was my only concession to the Eastern European tradition: bites of gefilte fish procured from Citarella and served with homemade, head-exploding horseradish (recipe from America's Test Kitchen's d.i.y. cookbook).

Gefilte fish bites with homemade horseradish

For the dinner, I made the aforesaid Watercress and Spinach Soup, from Ottolenghi's Jerusalem.

Watercress and spinach soup with carrot and chickpea "croutons"

followed by Claudia Roden's Berber Couscous with Seven Vegetables, although I served it on crusty Persian rice rather than with couscous, which is not permissible during Passover, and Butternut Squash with Nigella Seeds, a deceptively simple vegetarian main from Ottolenghi's Plenty More. (I was too busy to remember to photograph the mains.)

One of the highlights of the Seder, for me at least, is haroset, a fruit and nut spread that is symbolic of the mortar used by the Jews in Egypt to make bricks for Pharaoh, eaten as the famous "Hillel Sandwich" with bitter horseradish on matzoh and thereafter just eaten on matzoh because it tastes so good. This year I made two varieties: first, Joan Nathan's Bordeaux Style Haroset from Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cuisine in France, which I have used for several years. Second, Syrian Haroset from an on-line recipe by Jennifer Abadi, a wonderful confection of tart Turkish dried apricots, lemon juice, orange flower water and chopped pistachios.

Bordeaux-style haroset

Syrian style haroset

For dessert, my go-to Blueberry (and raspberry) Pie from Food52 Genius Recipes, with alterations. I used Clotilde Dusoulier's pâte sablée made with gluten-free (and hence wheat-free) flour (Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free 1:1 Baking Flour) and I used potato starch in lieu of cornstarch (not Kosher for Passover) for the filling. A success, although the crust was not quite as crispy as the conventional wheat-based variety. Still, I now know how to make a gluten-free tart for my friends who can't or just don't eat wheat.

Blueberry (and raspberry) tart

Finally, for my ginger-loving mother, Fresh Ginger Cake from David Lebovitz' Ready for Dessert, adopted for Passover by using matzoh flour, served with crème fraîche.

Fresh ginger cake

Whew! At least I have a whole year to get ready to do this again.

Happy Passover!

Bobby Jay

For convenience, here is a list of the sources for the dishes that made up the meal.

• Burnt eggplant with tahini and pomegranate seeds: Yotam Ottolenghi, Plenty.
• Fava bean purée: Engin Akin, Essential Turkish Cuisine.
• Lemon scented veal meatballs: Mario Batali, Food Network. Caution: the recipe calls for 4 lemons; 2 are more than enough.
• Socca (chickpea flour crepes): Lebovitz, The Sweet Life in Paris and davidlebovitz.com.
• Bordeaux style haroset: Joan Nathan, Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France.
• Syrian style haroset: Jennifer Abadi, blog Too Good to Passover.
• Berber couscous with seven vegetables, Claudia Roden, Middle Eastern Food.
• Persian rice: cooking lesson with Jennifer Ababi, Institute for Culinary education.
• Squash with nigella seeds: Yotam Ottolenghi, Plenty More.
• Fresh ginger cake, David Lebovitz, Ready for Dessert.
• Blueberry tart: Kristen Miglore, Food52 Genius Recipes.