December 2022 COTM: Arabesque by Claudia Roden

The January thread for Mexican Everyday and More Mexican Everyday is up:

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KOFTE KEBAB WITH TOMATO SAUCE AND YOGURT - p. 203

This layered dish piqued my interest. While it had multiple components, it was pretty easy to pull together. You make a tomato sauce with onion, garlic, chili, tomatoes, salt, pepper, and sugar. The base layer for this is toasted pita chips. You open up the pita to a single layer, toast them, and break into pieces. For the kebabs, you mix ground meat (I used Impossible) with minced onion, parsley, salt, and pepper. This is formed into sausage-shaped kebabs which are baked in the oven. Another layer is simply yogurt, whisked, at room temp. And the garnish is pine nuts that have been fried in some butter with sumac. You layer the dish up, pita chips on the bottom, then tomato sauce, then the yogurt, the pine nuts, and the kebabs arranged on top. We enjoyed this very much with the variety in texture and temperature of the components. Served with the eggplant with walnuts and garlic from p. 157

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EGGPLANT SLICES WITH WALNUTS AND GARLIC - p. 157

For this recipe, you are asked to cut eggplant into lengthwise slices, that are then brushed with oil and baked. I had large globe eggplant, so I cut them crosswise instead. While the eggplant cook, you make a pesto-like concoction of sautĂ©ed garlic, walnuts, and parsley. When the eggplant is cooked, you are to brush them with some wine vinegar, then top with the pesto. I had the vinegar portioned out and all ready to go, but completely forgot to brush the eggplant, instead skipping straight to the pesto topping. These are supposed to be served cold, but I served them warm, and would do so again. I didn’t miss the vinegar at all, and suspect I might prefer these the way I made them. The walnut/garlic/parsley paste was plenty of flavor. We like the eggplant a lot! This might be my favorite dish from the book, with the kebabs above as a close second.

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Still looking forward to cooking from this book, but my postings will be late. Interesting to hear the various reports.

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The “pesto” sounds really interesting, and as usual, your pottery is stunning!

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I finally made the Daoud Basha (lamb meatballs) that @LindaWhit recommended ages ago and they were delicious! Used a pre- made lamb kofta mix from a local butcher that was seasoned very similarly and kneaded in chopped Marcona almonds and some olive oil. Baked with a bit of oil as directed until lightly browned, then added tomato passata thinned with some chicken broth and seasoned with half-sharp paprika (an idea from a different version of this recipe). Served garnished with cilantro and with some plain yogurt on the side. Definitely worth repeating!

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TAGINE OF CHICKEN w/PRESERVED LEMON AND OLIVES, pg 93

I bought this cookbook long before I joined CH. And it was for this particular recipe. I want to say that this is my go-to base recipe for this dish. But over the years, I have tweaked it here and there. Like LLM1, I think this recipe is delish. I normally serve it over couscous as is traditional, but noodles are okay as well, if that’s what you have.

Now, for my tweaks. I use chicken broth instead of straight water. I want more depth of flavor, not less. I also add the lemon juice to the broth and let it sit until needed.

I DO use a whole chicken with white and dark meat. I eat the white meat first and leave the dark for the leftovers.

I add in double the olives and preserved lemon.

And I use the variation by adding in a jalapeño or serrano with the onions and usually taste for lemon flavor and add in some extra at the end.

Plus, I use half the herbs when called for and half when served. I like the way that looks better and I eat with my eyes first. So for me, this works. And makes this tagine tasty.

This book isn’t a wow book. And it was written mid-2000s and I think a lot of books have been written since covering the cuisines covered in this book. This book is not those. I think this was written when things from this part of the world seemed exotic and different and new. And there weren’t a lot of English writer/author/chefs from those regions getting book deals from the West. And at that time, traditional publishing was the way. And for so many reasons, I always felt like this was my intro 101 to these cuisines and other cookbooks later were the graduate level classes.

I think the value in this book is if you like to dabble in these cuisines, but don’t necessarily want to deep dive into them. This is a VERY good book for that. And since it covers three cuisines, that’s two other books you don’t need and can use for some other cuisine.

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