Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Vegetarian Dinner with Kathy and Dvorah


Saturday 29 June
...or cooking when your hostess is half-blind with conjunctivitis, the labels on all the spices are in Hebrew (cursive), and all you have is what's in the fridge.  It was not a Kitchen Nightmare, just an episode of Chopped (Israel).
Kathy had generously bought a big sack of dried porcini and some lovely big tube pasta (paccheri). Holt found an appropriate recipe on Epicurious which he followed in spirit, if not exactly.
He made a mirepoix of finely chopped celery, carrots, and green onions, all with a knife that couldn't cut dirt (Dvorah, like many a Jewish mother, never sharpens her knives). Then added the lovely reconstituted porcini and their water.  Some rosemary from the garden added to the woody notes.  The tomato factor was a bunch of largish cherry tomatoes quartered and tossed in at the last moment.
The other dish was pretty much seat-of-the-pants, but tasted like it wasn't.  Dvorah had 3 acorn squashes, and Holt recalled a dish from Ottolenghi's cookbook Plenty featuring pumpkin slices. A quick check of the internet revealed that we had none of the ingredients as such, but the basic idea was good.  Another appealing recipe featured dates, which again we didn't have.

The end result went something like this:
Slice 3 acorn squashes with a knife (that w.c.d.), sprinkle with olive oil, sea salt, sumac, and what you hope are coriander and cumin. Bake in the little toaster oven at 200º C or 250º or whatever the heck that is, until kind of caramelized on the bottom.  
Meanwhile make a compote of dried figs and apricots with some lemon peel and sweet-ass wine.  Cook till nearly all the wine is gone. Put the squash, sliced, on a nice platter, sprinkle with the figicot mixture, and drizzle with yogurt for that Plenty look. Eat like artichokes: scrape with teeth or knife and dip in sauce.  It's finger food, but not as messy as ribs and much more kosher.

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