Category Archives: Food

Paul’s Perfect Raita

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Platter by Paul Barchilon, the other chef in this family whose main medium is ceramic!
Platter by Paul Barchilon, the other chef in this family, whose main medium is ceramic!
  1. One large container of whole milk or low fat organic yogurt (don’t use fat free!)
  2. one peeled cucumber
  3. one tomato chopped into tiny little cubes
  4. lots of salt (kosher works best for this)
  5. brown, yellow or red mustard seeds
  6. a dried red cayenne or other hot chili pepper
  7. olive oil
  8. a handful of fresh cilantro chopped finely

On a clean cutting board, grate ½ to a whole peeled cucumber (I prefer to use the thin English kind). Pour a large amount of salt over the pile of grated cucumber and mix with your fingers so the salt is coating the cucumber. The purpose of this is to bleed out the water. Let this mess sit and water will be pouring out of it. I usually place a clean dishcloth under my cutting board near the pile and wipe the water as the salt drains the cucumber of its liquid. Let the cucumber salt thing happen for at least 10 minutes if not longer. Meanwhile mix yogurt until it is smooth in the bowl you will be serving the raita in. In a tiny little pan heat a few teaspoons of olive oil, add 1/8–teaspoon. mustard seeds and the dried red chili. The mustard seeds are done when they have changed color and popped. Do NOT over cook these, one minute usually does it. Add this hot oil with the seeds into your yogurt. With clean hands, grab a bunch of the cucumber stuff and wring out as much liquid as you can over the sink, dump the cucumber into the yogurt bowl, repeat this process until you’ve gotten all the cucumber in the bowl. Add chopped tomato and cilantro.

My husband does not like the seeds and occasionally I feel generous enough to leave some out for him that doesn’t have the seeds in it. I vastly prefer it with the seeds as the combination of the cold cucumber and yoghurt with the tiny pop and flavor of the mustard seed, just makes my mouth really happy. I hope you enjoy and make adaptations as your family or friends or self require, but I strongly urge you to remember the Ten Commandments of Nicole’s Kitchen, especially #1. Some folks also don’t like the tomatoes. Play with your food. You’ll find the right way to delight in this particular recipe.

I serve this Raita with all Persian dishes I make, with all Indian food I am cooking or if I have lots of cucumbers around in the summer and just want another way to serve that up. It is refreshing, cooling and really delicious.

©Nicole Barchilon Frank

Paul’s Indian Dal/Dhal/Dahl or “Aren’t you a doll and a great dish baby!”

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Timurid by Paul Barchilon
Timurid by Paul Barchilon

This recipe amount is for one large pot, I always make big amounts of soup. I do this for many reasons, bur primarily so folks who are sick can get some and there are left-overs. You can always freeze a soup after it has cooled down on day two. I usually put soups in plastic yogurt containers, larger ones and label with the date and ingredients, for the freezer (never put glass in the freezer). I never put warm soup in plastic. I generally use quart and 1/2 gallon glass mason jars for storing soups or left overs in the refrigerator. When someone in need is sick, I have a ready bunch of soups available and can dispatch the right soup pretty quickly to whomever. And, if I’m sick or someone in my house is and no one has energy to cook, voila, good food easily available is on hand. Please see the Aisha Recipe for instructions related to curry and making your own combination.

Soaking lentils overnight is always a good idea. It isn’t necessary though, it just tenderizes and softens things and releases some of the gasses that legumes and beans tend to have. Lentils are very forgiving and easy. One of the tricks to my cooking is to have everything chopped up in bowls or handy nearby so you can just assemble it all together at the exact moment you need it. I highly recommend doing this, especially if you don’t have a sous-chef on hand, and most of us aren’t that lucky!

  • 3–4 cups of red lentils, well rinsed and washed (rinsed at least five or six times and drained)
  • Olive oil
  • 1-2 onions chopped/diced up (yellow is best)
  • ¼– ½ root of fresh ginger root (grated very finely, including the juices that emerge when you are grating it)
  • ½ – 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1–2 teaspoons garam masala (this is also a combination of herbs)
  • ½ – 1 teaspoon curry (optional, I don’t always add curry, this depends on the flavors and how things taste, sometimes I want a stronger set of flavors, sometimes not)
  • 2-4 tomatoes, chopped up into small chunks (keep the juice with them in the bowl because that will go into the dhal as well)
  • a whole bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped up

Drizzle the olive oil onto a good pan with a lid, enough to sauté the onions with. Sauté the onions for ten minutes. Add grated ginger and sauté for another minute or two.Add turmeric and then add drained lentils and stir around in the pan so the oils, ginger and onions get distributed through. Add vegetable stock or water to cover the lentils. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Lower heat to simmer and cover. Stir every 10–15 minutes and add water if more is needed. After about 30 minutes the lentils should be very mushy. Add the garam masala and a little curry, the chopped tomatoes and cook another 10 minutes. Add the cilantro at the last-minute. Serve over rice with tofu stir–fry, roasted almonds and raita (recipe to follow shortly). I like to have sheep milk feta on hand as well.

© Nicole Barchilon Frank

French Green Lentils

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Black Lentils, not the French Green ones, different recipe too, but the picture is a teaser for the next recipe
Black Lentils, not the French Green ones, different recipe too, but this picture is a teaser for the next recipe….Black Lentils with Fresh Herbs.

It’s best if you soak the lentils overnight, but not necessary. Use organic small green French lentils for the best results. Wash the lentils, at least five or six times, running them through your fingers so the dust and stuff really comes off.

Sauté up a bunch of onions, carrots and celery in olive oil. Don’t add the celery and carrots until the onions have cooked for a while. Add salt and ground pepper. Add lentils, without water and stir them around in the pot for a minute or two. Add a few cloves of garlic, pressed, cook this way for another minute. Then add water to cover the lentils, or a little more than cover. Don’t forget to add a bay leaf. Bring to a boil, stir and cover and turn the heat down to a simmer. Check in about 15–20 minutes. Then add some balsamic vinegar, more salt and pepper or water depending on the flavors. You can also add ground cumin, fresh or dried oregano and thyme. This is a recipe that actually doesn’t require many spices, but won’t be hurt by adding more either. Mirin or red wine is good too if you don’t have balsamic, but the balsamic is the best. A variation is to add chopped tomatoes or a can of tomatoes. This makes it more hearty and soup like. You can have your lentils more like a soup by adding more water and not letting it cook down or be absorbed by the lentils, or you can have them more like beans and let the water cook down. They are done when soft. This can take anywhere from 20–40 minutes depending on your lentils. That amount of time relates to post boiling.

Serve with rice, cheese, hot sauce, feta or whateva!

Enjoy!!!

Nicole

Aisha’s Heavenly Curried Green Beans

Bereavement, Food, News, Recipes, , , ,
Fatima Cut Out by Helen Redman from her Moroccan Women series
Fatima Cut Out by Helen Redman from her Moroccan Women series

I just learned that my dear Moslem friend Aisha Aziz died a few days ago, so this recipe is in honor and memory of her. It has been in my cookbook, and deciding which recipes to upload when is one of my current questions. I have been thinking a lot about Aisha, even before knowing she was so close to leaving this world. She has been in my daily prayer practice for some time.

Her home was always open to me and to others. Every year at the end of Ramadan, her and her husband Abdul would invite me to their Eid al-Fitr celebration feast. The food there was extraordinary and I wish I’d gotten more recipes. Aisha always asked me to bring  one or two of her favorite dishes of mine to share. We both had a fierce love of the Divine,  a constant engagement with caring for those in our homes and cooking up feasts for them.

The differences between us were more like the differences of taste and flavor between kinds of peppers or spices. Moslem or Jew, we were and always will be sisters. I learned this particular recipe from my beloved sister Aisha, now of blessed memory, who came over for Shabbat one evening and offered to cook the beans for me. She couldn’t just be a guest, she saw the beans and the ingredients and offered to show me a new recipe. I’m so glad she came over early to hang out with me in my kitchen. It’s pretty much my favorite place to be with people. Once you’ve cooked with someone, they are family!

Life is so short, so please when you have the chance to partake of something delicious, or someone delicious, enjoy! Enjoy their laugh, the texture of their skin, the wrinkles when they smile, the smell of vanilla or cumin they bring with them or the sound of their voice.

Aisha’s Heavenly Curried Beans

  1. at least three or four large handfuls of fresh green beans (You cannot ever get enough of this dish if prepared well and they are great cold the next day as well)
  2. olive oil
  3. curry powder (I use cumin, spicy red pepper or cayenne, coriander, turmeric and salt for my curry powder. Curry is a word that has many translations, it is a combination of spices or dishes and flavors not one specific spice.) If you don’t have your own fresh separate spices, you can use a “curry” powder, but make sure it is fresh and it won’t taste as good as if you mix the spices together in the hot oil in the pan.
  4. 1-2 medium to large tomatoes
  5. lemon

Blanch green beans thoroughly. This means you have a large pot of boiling water and you throw the green beans in the water for about three to five minutes. Remove them either with a slotted spoon or strainer and put them in another dish or bowl. In a separate frying pan heat some olive oil (not a tiny drop but a goodly amount so that the spices mix well and you will have enough oil and spices to coat the green beans. Add the spices or your curry powder and blend together while warm. As stated above, I create my own curry mix with fresh ground coriander, cumin, turmeric, and a dash of cayenne. I combine these in the oil as it is warming and add the salt as well. I adjust with more of one or another of these five basic ingredients. I prefer to grind my cumin in a Suribachi, which is a rough and large grooved mortar and pestle and is an absolute essential in my kitchen. The flavor is so much fresher when you grind your own spices and really makes a difference, the same can be said for the coriander seeds (but they take more work, so even I use the already powdered kind sometimes.) Please see the Lesser but Still Important Commandments from The Ten Commandments (and a few more) of Nicole’s Kitchen for more instructions on herbs and spices.

Add the blanched green beans to the olive oil and curry powder. Sauté for 5–10 minutes. Add sliced tomato wedges and sauté for another 5–10 minutes. The tomato will break down and the green beans will be very soft. You can add more curry powder or salt to taste and a squeeze of lemon near the end.

I can’t even eat them any other way now. Do use good salt, see Let’s Talk Salt, for more details.

Enjoy!

Nicole

Sapta Rachel’s Best Tomato Sauce

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Tomatoes, Wine and Art from Barcelona
Tomatoes, Wine and Art from Barcelona

This recipe comes from my daughter’s Israeli Italian grandmother on her birth-father’s side. Try saying that three times fast! Rachel is an amazing cook and this very simple recipe is truly hers. I learned it from my daughter who brought it home with her after spending a few weeks in Israel with her Sapta.

  1. 3–20 fresh tomatoes (any variety)
  2. 1–8 onions chopped finely (crying time)
  3. 2 cloves of garlic per large tomato (always prepare the garlic with the centers removed). You can chop it fine or press it once you’ve removed the centers.
  4. olive oil (a healthy amount, at least ¼ cup or more)
  5. salt and pepper
  6. fresh basil (chopped finely)

Cover the bottom of your saucepan with a thinnish layer of olive oil. Don’t ever be afraid to use more than a few tablespoons of olive oil! Heat the olive oil and fry the onions up until they are soft, stirring frequently, don’t burn them (at least 10 minutes). Add the garlic into the pan with the onions and cook for several more minutes. Grate the tomatoes over the pan, if you are just using a smaller amount of tomatoes.

Otherwise grate all those tomatoes in a bowl separately and then put them in with the onions. Grating the tomatoes, with a cheese grater over the pan or bowl, is the quick way to peel tomatoes, because the skin stays in your hand and the pulp goes in the pan/bowl. If you hate using a cheese grater, and some folks do, you can also steam the tomatoes, let them cool and then peel them and just chop or mush them up with your hands into the pan instead. This takes more time and more dishes, so I prefer the cheese grater method.

Add a lot of fresh ground pepper and a fair amount of salt, more than a dash (see the Let’s Talk Salt post). Cook this down on medium to high heat, then simmer, stirring frequently, until it is pulpy and thick, not watery. This can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to several hours depending on the water content, heat of your burner, and amount of tomatoes. I generally like to cook mine for a few hours, the flavors just get better. Do not cover the pan, let this aroma waft through your home and inspire and titillate all who venture into your space. Add the chopped basil at the last-minute before serving. Use this sauce over pasta, in any eggplant dish or in any other recipe that calls for tomato sauce. It will keep for a week or more in the fridge. You can freeze it or can it also. Enjoy!

© Nicole Barchilon Frank