Cranberry Malabi

December slipped in when I wasn’t looking. Last week, Thanksgiving was a cozy blur of happy times with Sam home from college, football, good food, and celebrating with family and friends. And now we’re nearing the end of another festive holiday, Hanukkah. I can’t keep up!

Before I flip my calendar page to December, I want to share with you what we were cooking with for Tasting Jerusalem in November. Pistachios! Pistachios are quite popular in Middle Eastern cooking and baking. The best baklava I ever tasted was a version with green pistachios at the Abulafia Bakery in Tel Aviv. Truly a decadent treat. Another delicious sweet that I enjoyed while in Israel was malabi, a milk-based pudding. There are several names for this luscious custard, including muhallabieh (as it’s called in Jerusalem), sutlaj or sutlach. No matter what it’s called, it’s creamy and wonderful and I can eat it by the bowlful.

When I spotted the recipe in Jerusalem, I knew I had to make it. Traditionally, malabi is flavored with rose water and topped with a drizzle of sweet syrup and pistachios. Since I had Thanksgiving flavors on my mind when I was dreaming about a dish of malabi, I came up with a variation using cranberries and maple syrup as a topping and swapped out the rose water for vanilla. I also used cream in place of water with the milk, making it rather like a rich panna cotta. The pudding here is made with milk, cream, sugar, vanilla and cornstarch and whisked together over heat until smooth and custardy (this happens quickly, so be sure to remove from heat the moment it thickens to avoid lumps).

For the topping, I stirred together fresh cranberries (such pretty little jewels!) and maple syrup over medium heat until the berries were bursting and bubbling away. Both the pudding and topping can be made ahead and chilled before layering. I spooned the pudding into wine and champagne glasses for an elegant dessert and then topped each with a smooth layer of the cranberries and a scatter of chopped pistachios.

The bright, tart flavor of the cranberries contrasts nicely with the creamy sweetness of the pudding, while the pistachios add crunchy texture. The cheery red and white colors make this a merry dessert for Christmas or New Year’s Eve, too.  And with the frigid cold we’re having outside now, I don’t need any reminders that December has indeed arrived!

Cranberry Malabi
Serves 6
Adapted from Jerusalem: A Cookbook
By Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

6 tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups fresh cranberries
3/4 cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons unsalted pistachios, roughly chopped

For the pudding, whisk the cornstarch together with 6 tablespoons of the milk until it forms a paste. In a saucepan, stir together the rest of the milk, cream, sugar and vanilla and warm it over medium heat until it begins to steam. Whisk in the milk/cornstarch paste and keep stirring until it turns to custard. I found this happened very quickly, so be ready to pull it off the heat. Pour the pudding into 6 pretty glasses or dishes. It’s nice to use clear glass so you can see the contrast in colors. Cover and place in the fridge to chill.

For the topping, stir the cranberries and maple syrup together in a saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes. The berries will start popping, so stir often to prevent sticking and mash them gently against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon. When the sauce has thickened, remove from heat and chill.

Both the pudding and sauce can be made the day before. When ready to serve, divide the sauce between the 6 custards and gently smooth. Garnish each with a sprinkle of chopped pistachios and serve.

Pita and Labne: A Saj Party

A few years ago, we were in Israel for my older son Sam’s Bar Mitzvah.  It was a very special time shared with family and friends.  We rode camels to a Bedouin-style camp in the Judean desert, and enjoyed a night sitting around a campfire under the stars with Sam’s teaching, delicious food, local wine and a great feeling of joy.  I could not have been more proud!

The evening before the Bar Mitzvah, our friends Nitzan and Yael invited us for a pita and labne party at their home on their moshav. At the party, the pitas were cooked on a saj (similar to an inverted wok) over an open fire. These pitas were the most delicious we'd ever had! Labne (a soft yogurt cheese) was served to smear onto the pita along with za'atar (a spice blend found in Middle Eastern markets of sumac, thyme, sesame seeds, oregano and salt) and olive oil. The buffet table, set under a flowering tree, was full of fresh salads, fruit and drinks. A feast! After dinner, we lounged on the grass and sipped homemade mead and limoncello (made by Nitzan from their honey and lemons) and enjoyed Yael’s lovely cheesecake with ice cream and mulberries. Well, after that evening, we had to have a saj of our own and brought one home with us.

This past August, Nitzan and his family visited us in Seattle and brought homemade olive oil that they pressed from the olives they grow on their moshav. This is unbelievably good olive oil and such a special gift!

We have warm memories of Nitzan and Yael’s pita and labne party which have inspired us to cook over our saj many times in the backyard. When Maren was visiting us last month, we brought out the saj, lit a fire, filled the picnic table with food and spent the afternoon chatting and burning our fingertips on hot pita. Heavenly.

Pita and Labne
Serves 8

For the labne
1 1/2 cups whole milk Greek yogurt
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
Olive oil for drizzling
Za’atar for sprinkling

Spoon the yogurt into a fine meshed yogurt strainer (or into some cheesecloth and tie up) and set over a bowl in the refrigerator to drain for 24 hours. The next day, remove the yogurt from the strainer or cheesecloth and stir the salt and olive oil into it. Taste for salt and add additional if desired. Serve in a small bowl with additional olive oil drizzled on top and a sprinkle of za’atar.

For the pita
2 teaspoons yeast
A pinch of sugar
1 cup warm water
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Zhoug for serving (purchase at a Middle Eastern market or make it at home – recipe here)

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast with the sugar in the warm water. Let sit until foamy, about 10 minutes. Add the salt, 1 tablespoon olive oil, all-purpose flour and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. Stir with a wooden spoon until it comes together. Now switch to kneading with your hands. Add the remaining flour until a nice dough forms (you may not need all of it). Knead on a floured board until smooth. Put dough back into the bowl and cover with a dish towel. Let rise for about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch the dough down and divide into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a 6-inch circle. Let sit for about 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place a piece of parchment on a baking sheet and a put pan in oven to get hot.

Transfer 4 of the pitas to the prepared baking sheet and bake for 6 minutes. Repeat with remaining pitas.

Or, if you have a saj or large wok, suspend it on bricks over an open fire and grill the pita dough until puffed and blistered.

Serve the pitas with a bowl of labne drizzled with olive oil. Add a dollop of zhoug for some spice!

Spicy Israeli Zhoug

When my husband, Bob, was in high school he spent a year living in Israel. His vibrant host mom, Sara, is of Yemenite descent - her father actually walked to Israel from Yemen in the early 1900s! - and she is an amazing cook. Bob was quite fortunate to enjoy her wide repertoire of dishes and was very happy to introduce me to her. Zhoug is one of her staples.

Zhoug is a fiery, green condiment that is full of flavor and spice. Big bunches of parsley, cilantro, green chiles, garlic and olive oil are whizzed together, creating a versatile relish that will have your taste buds dancing and your sinuses clearing. Once I discovered it, I never looked back.

I have since played around with many zhoug recipes, all with cilantro, some with parsley, and some even with cumin and cardamom. After much fun experimenting, I've settled on a simple recipe that has become one of my pantry staples.

I love bringing home beautiful bouquets of parsley and cilantro. I plunk the herbs in a jar of water on the kitchen counter to keep them fresh, making it easy to snip off some leaves when needed (and it ensures that nothing gets forgotten in the bottom of my crisper drawer).

I’m one of those who doesn’t care for the taste of cilantro leaves – believe me, I’ve tried, as it is abundant in cuisines I adore like Thai, Indian and Mexican. That said, I have found when cilantro is pureed the flavor changes. Thus, I do love cilantro in zhoug (and in Indian chutneys). And either way you just can’t beat the heavenly scent of cilantro!

Zhoug is addictive. It can be dolloped on chicken soup, jazz up a sandwich, be mixed with sour cream for a zesty dip, accompany grilled fish or enhance scrambled eggs. We even serve it with our gefilte fish (alongside the traditional horseradish) at our Passover seders – a real blending of cultures!

(A winter cold that has been going around finally snuck up on me and for the past few days I’ve vacillated between wanting warm, comforting bowls of cream of wheat and hot, spicy bowls of soup. A spoonful of zhoug stirred into a steaming bowl of egg-lemon soup perked me right up and got me breathing again.)

Zhoug
Makes 2 cups or about 1 pint

4 ounces green chiles (I use Serranos)
1 head garlic
1 bunch fresh parsley **
1 bunch fresh cilantro **
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or more to taste)
A few grinds fresh pepper
Olive oil

Cut the stems off the chiles and roughly chop them. Put them in the bowl of a food processor. Crush 6 cloves of garlic and add to the bowl. Depending upon how much of a garlic lover you are you can up to the whole head - taste as you go and add additional garlic if you desire. Whiz until the chiles and garlic are roughly chopped.

Wash the parsley and cilantro and cut off the stems (save the stems to use in making vegetable or chicken stock). Roughly chop the herbs and add to the bowl. Add 1 teaspoon kosher salt, a few grinds of pepper and a couple pours of olive oil. Pulse until a rough paste is formed. Pause to inhale the fresh scent and to feel your taste buds tingle.

Taste for garlic, salt and pepper and add more if needed. If the mixture seems dry add a little more olive oil. Spoon the zhoug in to a clean jar, drizzle a little olive oil on top and cover. The zhoug will keep in the fridge for 1 month. As you use it, you can keep adding a little drizzle of oil to cover the top.

** You can be flexible with the proportion of parsley and cilantro you use. If you do not care for cilantro, feel free to use more parsley than cilantro or leave it out entirely and use only of parsley. Or, if you are crazy about cilantro, leave out the parsley. Just be sure to adjust the amounts to equal 2 large bunches.