Tag Archives: food

Mmm… Enfes – Homemade Turkish food

30april2011

I caught the street fair on Lexington Ave as it was closing. I forgot what I originally came to the area for. I spotted a Turkish food stall that sells gozleme. Gozleme? Never had that before. I think I shall try one.

So I got the spinach and onion gozleme. Gozleme is a Turkish sort of crepe or flatbread stuffed with a savory filling, such as spinach, mushroom, meat or cheese, and then cooked over a griddle.

It’s the perfect street snack. I love that it’s not greasy and doesn’t drip or crumble all over your shirt. And it tastes damn good.

Mmm Enfes is the name of the company. They have a Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mmm-Enfes/171728366185492

Austrian potato dumplings

I made some knödel (potato dumplings) using this recipe. In my version (which is the sweet kind), I used sweet potatoes in place of the plain potatoes and blackberries for the filling. The sweet knödel are usually rolled in hot sweetened bread crumbs, but I’m too lazy to prepare it. So I took the punk way out by topping them in spices and honey.

14dec2010

Knödel (sweet)

1 lb sweet potatoes, washed, peeled and cubed.
2 eggs
10 oz (2 cups) all-purpose flour
couple pinches salt
soft fruit of your choice (berries, stone fruits with pits removed, etc.)
ground cinnamon

1. Boil potatoes until fork tender, about 10-15 minutes. Drain and let stand for 5 minutes, so moisture can evaporate. Ensure there is no liquid left. Then mash potatoes and leave to cool completely.

2. Add salt, flour and eggs and mix in. Don’t overwork it. Dough should be on the crumbly side.

3. Stuff the dumplings: take a handful of the potato dough. Form a small bowl. Place some fruit in it, and seal it up with the dough. Leave no openings and squeeze out all air out of the dumpling. Air pockets will break open the dumpling during the cooking process; that will be no good.

4. In a pot of boiling water, add dumplings, cover the pot and bring to boil. Cook for 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat and leave dumplings in water for another 15 minutes.

5. Remove dumplings from water. Dust with cinnamon, drizzle on some honey and serve.

Easy way to cook broccoli

How to cook broccoli the way my father taught me many years ago.

Bring water to boil. Dump in cut up broccoli and bring back to boil. Once the water starts to bubble, drain. That’s it! It may be some 45 seconds or a minute and change. You won’t want to boil the greenness out of the vegetable. Yellowed out broccoli does not make good eats. Done.

However you want to season it is up to you. I like to toss in tamari and sesame oil with some flax seeds and serve it as a Korean-style banchan along with kimchi.

Dulce de leche cortada

Ah, something I haven’t seen before. Dulce de leche cortada, an unusual looking dessert originating from the Dominican Republic.

After spying on those lumps of brown milk curds in their clear deli containers through the front glass of the Dominican luncheon place on my way to get lunch from the pizza joint next door, I went in and brought a box.

Chewy in texture, cortada tastes like caramel-flavored cottage cheese with the warmth of cinnamon and cloves, and a slight tang from the lemon juice. Not bad. I’d eat it again. Some people remarked that I’m like the Andrew Zimmern of the office.

Kurut

Kurut

It hails from the Middle East and Central Asia. It has many names. Qurut, quroot, koort, kashk, yazdie, aruul. Hard as a frozen jawbreaker and smelling of combinations of sour feet and funkified parmesan, these golf ball sized lumps of dried cheese curds are made by boiling milk down to a thick paste, then hand formed and dried in the sun as a means of preservation.

My sister and I stumbled upon these strange rocks in a market at Brighton Beach. The guy working there said they are eaten as is as a snack food. Sampling a chip in its dried form, the taste is saltier than a naval ship. A salty sour chalky jaw-busting pungent naval ship.

The kurut sat on my kitchen counter, as I try to figure how to make it more palatable. I soaked the curds in a bowl of water for about 18 hours and then simmered them for 20 minutes. The kurut held its shape and was much easier to nibble on, though the center was still a bit stiff. The soaking did help in taking some of the funky salty edge off, but the hot water treatment made my apartment smell like unwashed socks for two days.