Category Archives: Middle eastern

Beet, avocado, and pea Salad with beef meatballs with lemon and celeriac

The news today is…..I got Plenty More!!!!!! My wonderful friend Gabrielle Haug got it for me as a thank you gift for staying at my house while on a visit from NYC. I’m am soo excited to have the newest book from my main man Yotam Ottolenghi. The first dish I made from this brilliant vegetarian book is the Beet, Avocado, and Pea Salad featured on pg 65 and online here. I paired it with beef meatballs with lemon and celeriac that I found the recipe for online here.

Beet, avocado, and pea salad with beef meatballs with lemon and celeriac.

I’m not going to lie, this dish is kind of a mess to make. And by kind of a mess, I mean beets are really freaking messy. They get bloody looking beet juice everywhere! But it is so good and beets are so healthy that I’m going to go ahead and say that it is worth it. It is so worth it, in fact, that I made it twice in the same week. So there you go.

Peeling and thinly slicing beets is messy work

First, peel the beets and cut them into thin slices. This is the messy disaster zone part, so wear an apron.

Boiling beets looks a bit like a witch’s brew, doesn’t it?

Then blanch them in boiling water for 3-5 minutes. This is the part that is really genius. Making beets is usually such a pain because they take so long to roast. But, blanching them for a few minutes in boiling water is so much quicker! Place them in boiling water for a few minutes, then rinse them in the sink in a colander, dry them off, then mix them in a bowl with chopped red onion, 3 tbsp sherry or red wine vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1-3 tsp Cholula Hot Sauce, 1 tsp salt, and some pepper. Once that is mixed up place it in the fridge for a while to let the flavors meld. I think this recipe tastes even better the next day because the beets have more time to soak up the flavors and get softer from the vinegar.

Beets with onion, vinegar, oil, and spices.

Next, prepare the green part of the dish. I love all of the fresh herbs that Ottolenghi incorporates into his recipes. It makes everything taste so flavorful, fresh, and healthy! It is the perfect way to infuse some freshness into this wintry root vegetable dish. Cut up 2 avocados and add some peas. I used frozen peas and blanched them for a few minutes in boiling water.

Peas and avocado for the salad.

Wash and tear up some mint leaves, cilantro leaves, and pea shoots. I was amazed to find pea shoots at the Berkeley Bowl (that place has everything!), but I had never used them before so if you can’t find them just use some other sort of fancy green.

Mint, cilantro, pea shoots, avocado, and green peas3

Then you just set these items aside and wait to mix them together until you are ready to eat. I chose to cook the meatballs in the meanwhile but you could easily prepare these two parts in advance and mix them together when you are ready to serve later that day or even the next day. I think the beets taste even better the next day because all of the flavors meld. Earlier in the week when I made the salad, I paired it with the chicken with cardmom rice dish that I had made in Naples, Italy for my cousin and his wife.

Beet, avocado, and pea salad with chicken with cardmom rice2

Beet, avocado, and pea salad with chicken with cardamom rice

This time I decided to try out a beef dish, so I found this meatball recipe online. As you all know, I don’t cook meat dishes very often. With all of the delicious vegetarian recipes to choose from in Plenty and now Plenty More, and of course those hearty meaty mushrooms that I love, it’s hard to miss the meat. However, I am a complete omnivore these days and I thought meatballs would go really well with this dish. The first step was to mix together the beef, onion, parsley, breadcrumbs, allspice, salt, and pepper with my hands and form the meatball shapes. Ottolenghi says the recipe is supposed to make 20 meatballs, but we only got 10. Go figure!

Beef meatballs with onion, parsley, egg, breadcrumbs, allspice, salt, and pepper

Heat a pan with 2 tbsp olive oil, then sear the meatballs for 5 minutes on each side.

Meatballs searing in olive oil

Once the meatballs are seared on each side, remove them from the pan.

Seared meatballs

Add celeriac, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp each of ground turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon, and 1.5 tsp fennel seeds. I forgot to add the paprika and added way more than 3 garlic cloves, and it still turned out really yummy, so I think the spice amounts are open to interpretation. Celeriac is probably the oddest ingredient of the bunch. It’s a variety of celery cultivated for its roots, and looks a bit like what I imagine a parsnip mixed with a pineapple would look like.

Celeriac with turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, and garlic.

Celeriac is very plain on its own and it soaked up the flavor of the spices very well, so it was a tangy addition to the meatballs. It was crunchy but less heavy than a potato would be. Cook the celeriac on high heat, stirring, for two minutes. Then return the meatballs to the pan, and add 2 cups of chicken stock. The recipe calls for 3 tbsp of lemon juice, but I love lemons, and I love my lemon squeezer, so I added in the juice of about 3 fresh lemons, which was probably closer to 5 tbsp. Add some salt and pepper, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, Ottolenghi says to remove the lid and leave to bubble way for 10 minutes, until the sauce is quite thick. While this was happening I took the opportunity to make couscous to serve with the meatballs.

Beef meatballs with lemon and celeriac on a bed of couscous1

Here is what the beet, avocado, and pea salad looks like when everything is mixed together:

Beet, avocado, and pea salad

Here are my friends enjoying the beautiful wintry meal!

Patrick, Gabbie, and Hrach enjoying the meal. Gabbie isn’t looking but everyone looks so happy in this picture I had to include it!

Ingredients for beet, avocado, and pea salad:

4 medium raw beets
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
3 tbsp sherry vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil, plus a little extra to finish
½ tsp sugar
1-3 tsp savory chilli sauce or paste (Tabasco or Mexican Cholula hot sauce, for instance)
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 medium avocados, peeled and thinly sliced
10g coriander (parsley) leaves
10g mint leaves
20g pea shoots
150g peas

Ingredients for the beef meatballs with lemon and celeriac:

400g minced beef
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
120g breadcrumbs
20g chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves, plus 1 tbsp extra, to garnish
1 egg, beaten
½ tsp ground allspice
Salt and black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small celeriac, cut into 5cm x 1.5cm batons
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
½ tsp each ground turmeric, cumin and cinnamon
1½ tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed
¾ tsp smoked paprika
500ml chicken stock
3½ tbsp lemon juice
60g Greek yogurt

Puréed beets with yogurt and za’atar and butternut squash and tahini dip

These are the dishes that started my love affair with Yotam Ottolenghi and inspired me to start writing this blog. Last year at Christmas, Meera’s roommate invited me to their house and she made these dishes. Quite frankly, they blew my mind.

Puréed beets with yogurt and za’atar

A year later, when I was invited to Christmas dinner at Patrick’s house, I made these dishes again. It was a commemoration of the past year, going back to where it all started. I’ve come a long way in the last year in terms of my cooking. As my sister Reva likes to say, a year ago I barely knew how to open a can. She exaggerates, but it’s true – I’m much more comfortable in the kitchen now than I was then! Of course, another exciting thing about this year is that it’s been raining a ton in Berkeley this past month, and there are mushrooms galore! This fungi foodie is very happy about that :)

Here I am super excited to be picking mushrooms on Berkeley's campus this year

Here I am super excited to be picking mushrooms on Berkeley’s campus this month

I’ve already blogged about the butternut squash and tahini dip, in a previous post. Briefly, peel and chop a large butternut squash into chunks, sprinkle with cinnamon, salt, and olive oil, and roast in the oven for 70 minutes. Next, put it in the blender with greek yogurt, tahini, and garlic. When ready to serve, sprinkle with black and white sesame seeds and date syrup. That’s it! I got my date syrup at the airport in Tel Aviv right before I hopped on the plane back to San Francisco, but I imagine you could find it at any Middle Eastern specialty store. Don’t forget the date syrup – it makes the dip pop! The date syrup is also necessary for the beet dip, which is a savory contrast to this sweet spread.

Butternut squash and tahini dip before date syrup is added

While I personally prefer the sweeter butternut squash and tahini spread, the beet dip seemed to be a bigger hit with the men at the party. I’ve been on a bit of a beet kick lately. I’ve even been adding them to my morning smoothies! The first step of this dish is to roast 2 lbs of beets in the oven at 400 degrees F for a very very long time. Ottolenghi suggests roasting them for about an hour, but I had to roast them for nearly 1.5 hours to get them to the point where a knife can easily slide into the beet. In the meanwhile, assemble the rest of the ingredients, as pictured below. I found this recipe on pg. 53 of Jerusalem, but it was also featured online here.

Ingredients for the beet dip: hazelnuts, green onions, red chili, Greek yogurt, za’atar, date syrup, salt

Once the beets are soft enough, take them out of the oven and let them cool. Then peel them with your fingers and cut them into pieces and place them in the blender. This part is really really messy so arm yourself with reinforcements. Patrick was a great help with peeling the beets :) Blend them with 2 cloves of garlic, 1 small red chile, and 1 cup Greek yogurt.

Greek yogurt, seeded and chopped red chile, garlic

Blending in the beets

Once the yogurt, chile, garlic, and beets are blended, place them in a bowl.

Beets are so pretty!

Next spoon in 3 tbsp olive oil, 1.5 tbsp date syrup, 1 tbsp za’atar, and 1 tsp salt.

Puréed beets with olive oil, za’atar, date syrup, and salt

Mix with a spoon. Then chop up 2 tbsp of roasted hazelnuts, and slice two green onions, and spread them on top. Ottolenghi also calls for 2 oz of goat’s cheese on top, but I am not a huge fan of goat’s cheese, so I refrained.

Beet dip with roasted hazelnuts and green onion garnish

Both dips are unexpected and delicious, and are great with pita, crackers, carrots, jicama, or peppers. Middle Eastern mezze on Christmas, a new tradition?

Fattoush, watermelon salad, and shakshuka Middle Eastern feast

As you know Thursday night I decided to go all out and make a fabulous Middle Eastern feast with Stav, the Israeli graduate student who has been visiting my lab at Berkeley. You’ve already read about the challah and the dessert that we made for the feast, but here I’m going to tell you about all the food that we made while we waited for the challah to rise and the malabi to set.

Middle Eastern feast of shakshuka, fattoush, and watermelon and feta salad

After finishing up work in the lab on Thursday I took Stav to the Berkeley Bowl to buy ingredients for our feast. This was Stav’s first trip to the Berkeley bowl, which was super exciting for me because you know how much I LOVE Berkeley Bowl. I especially love taking people there for the first time and watching them experience its greatness. If you haven’t been there yet, hit me up and I will take you there. Trust me, you will not be disappointed! It is truly the greatest grocery store that I have ever been to, and no I am not in anyway being paid to say that. Berkeley Bowl has so much amazing produce and especially this time of year with all of the wonderful stone fruit and melons in season, I am easily distracted from my shopping list. Right when we walked in I saw watermelons on sale and I had to have them. I had made this delightful watermelon and feta salad from Yotam Ottolenghi earlier this summer and felt inspired to make it again.

Na’ama’s fattoush and watermelon and feta salad for a perfect light and healthy meal that captures the flavors of summer super well!

If you are short on time and want to make something that is healthy, flavorful, satisfying, perfectly captures the flavors of summer, and involves no cooking whatsoever, make Ottolenghi’s fattoush and watermelon and feta salad. If you haven’t tried mixing sweet juicy watermelon with salty feta and fresh basil for this delicious savory salad, go out and make it right now while it is in season and you still have the chance. I promise you will not regret it!

Watermelon and feta salad with basil and olive oil

The watermelon salad is so simple and easy you don’t even have to measure anything out. Just chop up a watermelon, tear up some basil, thinly slice some red onion, crumble up some feta, and add a dash of olive oil and mix it all together. I swear Ottolenghi is a flavor genius coming up with this stuff. Feta and watermelon is truly a winning combination but adding the basil and the red onion and olive oil is nothing short of magic. You may think I’m being hyperbolic here but really it is such a great fresh summery salad.

Claire enjoying some watermelon while I make the fattoush

After getting side tracked with the unplanned but oh so delicious watermelon salad, I made my favorite fattoush salad from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem which I’ve featured in a previous post. This is another dish that I just can’t get enough of. The fattoush and watermelon salad went together really well and just screamed summer. Our plates were bursting with flavorful fresh herbs, juicy tomatoes and watermelon, and delicious pita with creamy buttermilk. Everything tasted so healthy and light but incredibly satisfying.

Chopped up carrots from my CSA box for the shakshuka

After we made the fattoush and watermelon and feta salad, we got started on the shakshuka, which is an Israeli egg dish with a base of tomatoes and red peppers. Tom and I ate it every morning at the breakfast buffet at our hotel in Israel, but you can also eat it for lunch or dinner. I was intimidated at first to make shakshuka because it sounds so fancy and exotic, but Stav made it seem simple and said that you can pretty much throw any vegetable that you have wilting in your fridge into it. It is the Israeli version of everything but the kitchen sink! stew. Traditional shakshuka starts with a base of tomatoes and red peppers, but you can get creative with it from there. We chopped up onions and garlic sauteed them in oil until soft. We cleaned and chopped up 2 red peppers and a small red chile pepper and added those to the onions and garlic. I had some semi soft carrots in my fridge left over from my CSA basket from the week before so we chopped up those and added them in. I had a can of whole peeeled tomatoes left over from a soup I had made over the weekend, so we cut up those along with 3 fresh tomatoes and added those to the pan. We set the heat on high and let the vegetables cook for 10-15 minutes.

Here’s what it looks like to make a hole in the vegetable sauce and plant a whole egg in it

Once the vegetables were cooked, we added a small can of tomato paste, some cumin, paprika, and some red zhoug which is a spice mixture based on chiles and coriander and garlic that I bought in Israel. You can add any sort of spicy spice at this point- I happened to have zhoug which we added or you could add harissa or if you just have chile flakes that would work too. Let this simmer for another 5-10 minutes and add some salt and pepper. Once the sauce it cooked, make little holes with a spoon and break a whole egg in it. Then put the heat on low and cover and let cook for 10 minutes.

Shakshuka with a tomato, red pepper, chile pepper, and carrot base and eggs simmering

Shakshuka goes great with pita or challah and can also be accompanied by an Israeli cheese called labneh or plain Greek yogurt. It was spicy and savory and the eggs came out perfect. Claire, another one of my graduate student friends, who I went on this awesome trip to the redwoods with, came over to join us for our feast after spending hours washing redwood roots in the lab. The three of us were practically shrieking with delight while eating the fantastic fresh tasting fattoush and watermelon salads which went really well with the shakshuka. The challah that we had baked was delicious dipped into the shakshuka. All in all, it was a successful fun filled evening filled with delicious food and wonderful fungi loving ladies.

Claire looking super stoked to be eating the shakshuka

Fattoush, watermelon salad, and shakshuka Middle Eastern feast

Home made Challah and a dessert called malabi

Challah

The Jewish mother inside me has been dying to get out and try baking a challah. I didn’t feel quite equipped to do this on my own, so I invited over Stav, the Israeli graduate student that I’ve been hosting in my lab all month, to come over and help me bake one. Stav had a recipe from her mother-in-law so we were locked and loaded and ready to go.

Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but I think the end product was pretty fantastic if I do say so myself :) Well Stav claims that she didn’t know what she was doing and she had never made a challah on her own before, but she did a great job pulling it together. I, on the other hand, had truly never made a challah from scratch and mostly I just ended up photo-documenting the experience :)

Measuring out ingredients for the challah – I love how happy Stav looks!

Challah is a delicious egg bread that involves a simple list of ingredients: flour, sugar, yeast, egg yolks, olive oil, sugar, and some sesame seeds. Mind you it does take a while to prep and bake to prepare for that. Luckily we had plenty of time to wait for the challah to rise since we decided to make a huge Middle Eastern feast consisting of fattoush, watermelon salad, and shakshuka while waiting for the bread to rise and bake, but you can get creative with your time.

Kneading the dough. Side note – how cute does Stav look in my apron? I bought it in the Amalfi coast of Italy where everyone is obsessed in lemons.

To make the challah dough, first mix together 0.5 kg of flour, 1 tbsp dry yeast, 2 tbsp sugar and a little room temperature water and mix it with your hands in a bowl. This is a bit touch and go getting the right flour to water ratio, but mix it up until it is well mixed and not too sticky and then add 2 egg yolks and 3 tbsp olive oil. At this point knead the dough really well with your hands. At the very end add 1 tbsp salt. Don’t add the salt too soon otherwise it interferes with the yeast. Next cover it with a towel and let it sit and rise somewhere warm for 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on how hot it is outside or in your kitchen.

Kneading the dough for a second time. Really use some strength here!

After it’s risen the first time, knead it really well for several minutes and punch out all the air. This is time to get our all of your aggression! Then make three strands and braid the challah straight onto the baking sheet. We sprayed the baking sheet with a bit of pam first so the bread wouldn’t stick and Stav braided two beautiful little challahs.

Braiding the challah

Brush the top with egg yolk and then sprinkled some sesame seeds on top. Let rise for another half an hour after this and preheat the oven to 375 F.

The challah fully risen before we put it in the oven

We had to wait a long time for the challah to rise before putting it in the oven

How long it takes to cook depends on your oven but for us it took less than 20 minutes for it to get golden brown and firm. It tasted so fresh and warm and chewy and was great dipped into the zhoug mixture, which is a spicy Middle Eastern mixture of some combination of coriander leaves, green chile, garlic and either caraway seed or cumin. I bought both green and red zhoug spice mixes at the Arab shuk in Jerusalem when I was in Israel and hadn’t figured out an opportunity to use them yet. We mixed them with olive oil and dipped pita and challah into it which was great. My friend Claire also suggested mixing it in with Greek yogurt and olive oil which I will have to try next. We also ended up adding the red zhoug to the shakshuka so it is a great flavorful spicy spice mixture to have around. Let me know if you have anymore tips for how I can use it :)

Everybody holla for challah!

In addition to baking the challah I had also been wanting to use the rose water which I also bought in Israel. Stav knew that I had been wanting to use the rose water so she suggested that we make a popular Israeli dessert that features rose water called malabi.

Ingredients for malabi: milk, cream, sugar, corn starch

As you may recall from my previous posts about eating my way through Israel, we ate this delicious vegan pudding with coconut and rose water called sachleb at one of the restaurants we went to, which is very similar to malabi. Malabi is a creamy, milk based pudding that is super popular in Israel and most importantly utilizes rose water. To make this dish for real it requires hours of chilling in the fridge, but we were make shift and put it in the freezer while we ate dinner so that it would set faster.

Ladling the malabi into glasses

Malabi is pretty basic and involves only milk, cream, corn starch, sugar, and rose water for the pudding base. I’m going to be a bit make shift mixing European and American units because this recipe came from Stav, but hopefully you can catch the drift :) The first step is to mix together 8 tbsp of corn starch with 1 cup of milk and whisk it until it’s dissolved. It’s sticky and viscous but keep at it, and add a couple squeezes of rose water to this mixture. Meanwhile, measure out 1 liter of milk (minus the cup you mixed with the corn starch and rose water) and 250 mL cream and put it in a pot on the stove and start to boil. Right before it starts to boil, add the corn starch milk mixture, and also add 0.5 cup of sugar. Then bring it to boil again, and once it starts boiling take it off the heat and turn off the stove. Then find some pretty cups or small glasses to pour it in. I had some whiskey tumblers that a friend had given me so we used those. It was really hot so we set them to cool by my window while we cooked the dinner.

Malabi cooling on the window sill

When ready to serve the malabi, mix together sugar and water to make a simple syrup in a pan. We got creative and added some crushed raspberries (they were on sale at Berkeley bowl!) and some more rose water. We poured the syrup on top of the pudding. Then we sprinkled on chopped up peanuts and shredded coconuts.

Malabi with rose water and crushed raspberries syrup

Stav said we could also try adding date syrup and pistachios, which I might have to try next time I make it since another ingredient that I happened to buy in Israel was date syrup :) The malabi was fruity and floral and fresh tasting and a great end to a fantastic meal.

Malabi – Israel milk based pudding with rose water, raspberries, shredded coconut, and crushed peanuts

And here is my lab enjoying the challah on Friday:

Challah time in the Bruns lab!

Marinated mushrooms with walnut and tahini yogurt, chermoula eggplant with bulgur and yogurt, and butternut squash and tahini dip

I know you’ve all been anxious to hear about the meals that I made with my mushrooms from Gourmet Mushrooms, Inc :P No fear, here is the first installation :) For this meal I looked to my main man Yotam Ottolenghi for inspiration and found an awesome recipe in Plenty featuring the brown clamshell mushroom. I was so inspired that I decided to make 2 other dishes to accompany it. Admittedly, this meal was a bit ambitious. It took 3 hours + to make all this stuff. There were many extended periods of roasting things in the oven and letting things marinade, so plan accordingly. The butternut squash and tahini dip is just an amazing mezze (AKA a middle eastern small plate or appetizer) that goes well as a spread for pita or carrots on any occasion. It’s really just an unexpected and spectacular dish that is sure to be a crowd pleaser. It is also relatively simple to make and makes a huge batch that presumably could be frozen or used as an appetizer at a large party. The chermoula eggplant with bulgur and yogurt is a bit of an involved recipe, but it went really well with the marinated mushrooms with tahini and walnuts dish, which was fortunately super easy to make.

The first dish I made on Saturday, was the Butternut squash and tahini dip from Jerusalem because the butternut squash needs to be roasted in the oven for over an hour. This happens to be the first dish that I made from Jerusalem back in December, and is the dish that inspired me to buy the book! This dip is seriously the bomb. Also, I was really excited to finally get an excuse to use the date syrup that I bought in Israel at the duty free store with my last shekels right before I hopped on the plane back to the US :)

Date syrup is an essential ingredient for the butternut squash and tahini dip

This to-die-for dip is actually pretty simple to make. Basically, you peel and chop up a huge butternut squash, cover it in 3 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp cinnamon and 0.5 tsp salt, then roast it in the oven at 400 F for a really long time until it gets soft (70-80 min). Once it’s soft, add 0.5 cup Greek yogurt, 5 tbsp tahini, and 2 garlic cloves, crushed. Then the hard part is finding a tool to blend it with. I don’t have a food processor, but fortunately my hand held immersion blender worked really well for this. I seriously recommend buying an immersion blender. They are super useful and versatile!

This dip is so good and really unexpected. You expect hummus and then get this sweet butternut squash concoction. What really sets this dish apart and raises it to the next level is the addition of date syrup. It’s really not optional here; the dish simply isn’t as good without it! So find yourself a middle eastern market or fly to Israel, but get yourself some decadent date syrup to add to this dish :) Then sprinkle with white and black sesame seeds for the finishing touches. It’s really good with pita and carrots, and this week I will learn how it tastes as an accompaniment to matzah :)

The second dish I made was the Chermoula eggplant with bulgur and yogurt from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem. Luckily, my oven was already pre-heated to 400 F from the butternut squash, so I just added the eggplant to the oven with the squash for efficiency. Before sticking them in the oven, cut the eggplants in half and cut deep criss crosses into them with a knife:

Scored eggplant with deep criss crosses

Next, make the chermoula by mixing together 2 crushed cloves of garlic (if you don’t have one, go out and buy yourself a garlic press, they are great!), 2 tsp cumin, 2 tsp coriander, 1 tsp chilli flakes, 1 tsp paprika, approximately half a cup of olive oil, 0.5 tsp salt and 2 tbsp of finely chopped preserved lemon peel. So the lemon peel for me was too much of a hassle to make (it involves canning and storing the peel for over a week), and I just could not find it in any store, so I just added some lemon zest to the chermoula. Then you have to carefully spoon the chermoula over the scored eggplant halves:

Scored eggplant with chermoula

Next, leave the eggplant in the oven for a long time. It took way more than 40 minutes to get the eggplant to the desired soft texture for me. I think it’s best when it’s fully cooked through and mushy and the color changes from white to a greenish wet looking hue. For me this took closer to 50-60 minutes. My advice is to keep checking on it and better to leave it longer than risk eating undercooked eggplant, which is really not great.

While the eggplant is cooking, add 2/3 cup of boiling water to 1 cup of bulgur and soak 1/3 cup golden raisins in warm water for 10 minutes. Next add herbs (I didn’t happen to have cilantro and some of my friends hate it so I just stuck to mint for this one), 1/3 cup halved pitted green olives, 1/3 cup slivered almonds (thank you, Berkeley bowl bulk aisle!), 3 chopped spring onions, 1.5 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice, and a pinch of salt to the bulgur and raisins.

Bulgur with slivered almonds, golden raisins, herbs, green olives, and lemon juice

When the eggplant is fully cooked it will look something like this:

Add a scoop of the yummy bulgur mixture:

For the final touch, add a dollop of Greek yogurt and some sprigs of mint (I just got a potted mint plant and I’m so excited about it!). Isn’t that beautiful? It also served as a beautiful complement to the marinated mushrooms, which I’m sure you’ve all been patiently waiting to read about :)

I found this recipe for Marinated mushrooms with walnut and tahini yogurt while perusing Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty and Jerusalem for recipe ideas for my mushrooms. This sounded like a great use for my brown clamshell AKA shimeji mushrooms. For this one you also have to do some advanced preparations, which unfortunately I did not realize until the last minute. You need to mix up the marinade and pour it over the mushrooms and let them marinade for up to an hour before serving. Since I did not realize this at first, I only let them sit for 30 minutes before eating them for dinner because it was already so late. Luckily, they had tons of time to marinate over night and were way better the next day when I brought the majority of the mushrooms to a lab pot luck party :) The marinade consists of 1/3 cup olive oil, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar, 1 tbsp maple syrup (I always only use pure maple syrup – I lived on a farm for 4 months in high school and we made maple syrup ourselves from maple trees and now I could never go back to the fake stuff!), juice of one lemon, and 0.5 tsp salt. After the mushrooms have marinated, add 3 cups of fava beans and 2/3 cup walnuts. I’ve found fava beans super hard to find, so I just used the canned version. I also did not bother removing the skins, because really, who has time for that? Besides, all the nutrients are in the skins anyway :)

Marinated mushrooms with walnuts and fava beans

To complete the dish, whisk together 0.5 cup Greek yogurt with 2.5 tbsp tahini, 1 small garlic clove, juice of another lemon, and some salt. Then add a dollop of that to the mushrooms and sprinkle with dill and oregano. This dish goes really well with the chermoula eggplant dish. They complement each other very nicely :)

I cooked this huge feast on Saturday evening, and then I invited over my friend Meera to enjoy the dishes on Sunday early afternoon before I brought the rest of the mushrooms to the lab potluck party. Meera is the one who inspired me to get Jerusalem in the first place, and I love inviting her over because she always very enthusiastically enjoys all of my dishes :) So thanks, Meera, for inspiring me to buy Yotam Ottolenghi’s books in the first place, and for enthusiastically taste testing all three of my mushroom themed feasts this week!

Eating my way through Israel: Part 2

I know you’ve all been dying to hear about my visit to Jerusalem after reading about the first part of my trip to Israel in my last post. So after I parted ways with Yohay and Tom on Friday, I got two days of fun and eating in Jerusalem with my cousin Geula! We first went to stay with her parents in Beit-El, where we spent shabbat. Shabbat was a great time to rest and rejuvenate after a busy trip. While I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of all of the delicious meals that we ate for shabbat dinner and shabbat lunch, I do have a picture of the home made challah that my cousin Batya made for shabbat. In Israel, they sometimes put za’atar on their challah.

home made challah!

After shabbat Geula and I returned to Jerusalem for more food and fun! We returned to the city pretty late at night on Saturday, so Geula took me to the arab shuk which turns into a really cool bar scene after dark. Geula introduced me to a Yemenite pastry called jachnun, which is basically fried dough. Of course is was delicious!

Jachnun, Yemenite jewish pastry It is traditionally served with a crushed tomato dip, hard boiled eggs, and zhug

We then went out in Jerusalem and hit up one of Geula’s favorite spots, an American themed karaoke bar. I am terrible at Karaoke but sang anyway, and Geula wowed everyone with her amazing voice and rendition of summertime.

Geula wowwing everyone with her karaoke rendition of summertime

Geula ripping up the stage at karaoke

For my last day, we woke up early so we could cram in as much sight-seeing and of course eating as possible. We visited the shuk during the day time to check out the store fronts. It was so awesome! I was in foodie heaven!

Halva heaven

I couldn’t get over how large the fruits and vegetables were at the market. They must have some seriously impressive agricultural practices in Israel. Have you ever seen squash this large?

Apparently they grow giant sized squashes in Israel

Check out all these beautiful vegetables!

Vegetables in the arab shuk in Jerusalem

Spices almonds covered in za’atar

Pastries at the shuk

More pastries

Teas at the arab shuk

Spices galore

Here is where I bought the sumac, red and green zhug for 14 shekels ($4).

Weighing out my spices

After I bought my spices, Geula brought me to Marzipan bakery, where they allegedly have the best rugelach in Jerusalem. Of course I had to buy some!

The best rugelach in Jerusalem, at Marizpan bakery

After shopping all morning in the shuk we returned to the old city in Jerusalem to go shopping. Here’s me in front of the Jaffa gate outside of the old city.

Me outside the old city in Jerusalem

About to enter the old city through the Jaffa gate!

Geula teaches belly dancing to women in Jerusalem. Here she is modeling a dancing cane in front of the belly dancing store where she shops.

Geula at the belly dancing shop

After shopping we were hungry again and Geula took me to this amazing restaurant where her friend works as the sous chef on the outskirts of Jerusalem called Cafe Itamar. It was pretty far to get there but it was well worth it. First of all, it’s in a super cute garden setting where you can even buy plants.

Cacti for sale at the restaurant

They even had cute ceramic mushrooms, which of course I loved!

Posing with the cute ceramic mushrooms!

Second of all, the food was AMAZING. Geula and I went all out and ordered two appetizers. Of course I had to order the mushroom casserole, which was topped in spinach and cheese, and a fried egg.

Mushroom casserole with fried egg

So you can see some of the mushrooms:

mushroom casserole

Then we ordered this cauliflower and hummus dip called masbacha, which was seriously so good.

Cauliflower masbacha

We ate it with this bread: Then we shared the ravioli with roasted vegetables entree, which was so delicious.

Roasted vegetable ravioli

Here is Geula smiling with the ravioli:

Geula and ravioli at Cafe Itamar

After that we were pretty stuffed but Geula’s friend surprised us with an extra treat – this pasta with mushroom sauce and roasted asparagus dish.

Roasted asparagus with mushrooms and home-made pasta

Geula and I eyed the these chocolate cakes for dessert but ultimately decided we were too full. I think I kind of regret that decision now… we should have made room! After all, how often do I go to Israel? Next time, I will definitely be ordering the chocolate cake for dessert! While the restaurant is kind of out of the way, it was definitely worth the trip. The food was amazing and the setting was so cute. How cute is this restaurant?

Smiling at Cafe Itamar

We hitch-hiked back to town (this was my first time ever hitch hiking!) and then visited some of our other family members. We met up with another cousin and had Yemenite soup for my last dinner in Jerusalem before I had to head home.

My cousin and I at the Yemenite restaurant

My cousin and me at the Yemenite restaurant

Especially after this super fun day touring in Jerusalem, I really did not quite feel ready to return to Berkeley after this amazing trip. At least now I have lots of fun plans and places to eat to look forward to next time I visit :)

Eating my way through Israel: Part 1

So as many of you already know, I accompanied my advisor on a trip to Israel to help out some Israeli researchers with our fungal expertise. So of course the purpose of this trip was for research, but you all know my ulterior motives already – FOOD :) As I fanatically took photos of all the delicious food we ate, Hagai, one of the Israel researchers, asked my advisor Tom if all of his American students were crazy like that. Nope, I think it’s just me! I had an amazing time in Israel and really did not feel quite ready to return to the States after my brief 10 day trip, but I can take solace in the awesome spices and treats I brought in tow.

My stash from Israel – rosewater, spice mixes for red and green zhug, and sumac

I spent my last shekels on date syrup at the duty free shop at the airport and I bought rosewater, sumac, and spice mixes to make red and green zhug at the Arab shuk in Jerusalem. I also couldn’t help myself and bought some gorgeous Armenian pottery to highlight my future cooking.

Buying Armenian pottery in the old city. Can you see me with my purchases?

Tom and I spent the first part of the week in Beer Sheva hanging out with Ofer Ovadia and his grad student Stav at the Ben Gurion University in the Negev. We ate at an amazing Moroccan restaurant but unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera for that meal! Tom, however, brought his camera and sent me this picture from the menu, which he insisted that I include in my blog post. Internal organs anyone?

Restaurant from Moroccan restaurant featuring internal organs

While I lack photos of the delicious unadventurous non organ meat meal that we did end up eating, I did remember to bring my camera for our travels through the north of Israel so you get pictures of our meals in the north instead! I like to joke that I took the anti-touristic tour of Israel – I saw a lot of places that most tourists and probably most Israelis too have never been! We took a hike in the Negev searching for the Terfezia desert truffles, which unfortunately we did not find. We also spent a bunch of time trekking through pine forests in the mountains near Jerusalem and the mountains in the north trying to find mushrooms. Alas, we were not so successful with mushroom foraging, and the only edible mushroom we found is Suillus collinitus. This is not known to be a prized edible and I have not yet tried it, but Russians apparently love it.

Suillus granulatus. Would you want to eat it?

Suillus collinitus. Would you want to eat it?

Stav and I took a train from Beer Sheva to Akko, which is a city in the northern tip of Israel. Hagai and Tom met us there and took us for an awesome picnic in the woods. I was too hungry to stop and take a picture of the pita, hummus, and burrekas that we ate for lunch, but I did capture the lovely baklavas that they brought for dessert. The orange thing is called kenafe, which is made of sweetened goat cheese soaked in honey and covered in orange crispy things:

Baklava pastries

Enjoying coffee and baklava in the Israeli pine forests.

Stav, Hagai, and Tom enjoying a picnic in the pine forests

We even took time to do some science!

Tom using a traveling dissecting scope to look for mycorrhizal root tips in the woods

After science we got hungry again and Hagai took us to this amazing restaurant up in the hills called el Arisa located in the town of Rama. I would return to this place for the view alone, which was truly spectacular:

View from El Arisa in Rama

And how awesome is the interior?

interior of the El Arisa

The view was just incredible, and luckily the food was amazing too! We ordered a bunch of “salatim” to share. Here is the hummus:

Hummus

We also got fattoush, which you know how much I love:

Fattoush

My favorite though was this eggplant, chickpea, and tomato dish, called Manzala, which I had never tried before but was so savory and delicious:

Manzala – eggplant dish with chick peas and tomatoes and parsley

Here is my plate all loaded up!

Hummus, fattoush, tabouli, eggplant dish

I also got my first taste of limonada, which is a super refreshing lemonade drink made with crushed ice and mint. I cannot wait to make it at home!

Limonada

This was definitely one of my favorite meals in Israel. Arab food is soo good! I love all the fresh herbs. Everything just makes you feel good while eating it. After stuffing our faces with pita and hummus and salatim I was so full, but Hagai ordered a dessert called Sachleb so I had to try that. It’s sort of hard to describe but it’s similar to a pudding. It is vegan and made of coconut and corn meal and flavored with flowers.

Sachleb for dessert

After this amazing meal Stav and I went to Hagai’s house in Kamon, which is a bit like a garden oasis out in the mountains. Off the mountain there is a view of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) to the left and the Mediterranean to the right and it is just breathtaking. He has 2 adorable children, 2 spunky dogs, and 13 chickens.

Hagai’s chickens

Incredibly, they made 24 eggs, which were some of the freshest and best tasting eggs of my life. Who wants to help me build a chicken coop?

Fresh out of the chicken’s butt!

For dinner Stav made us some Shakshuka, which is a traditional Israeli dish of eggs on a sauce of tomatoes and peppers. Shakshuka always seemed intimidating to me but Stav says it’s super simple and you can make the sauce from whatever vegetables you have lying around. We used carrots, sweet potato, peppers, tomatoes, and tomato sauce.

Shakshuka sauce made with carrots, peppers, sweet potato, and tomato sauce

When all the vegetables are super well cooked and you’ve added all the spices, you dig little holes and place the eggs in them. It is so fun! I can’t wait to try making this at home.

Shakshuka with fresh eggs

The day after our visit at Hagai’s house we hiked through some more pine forests and looked for mushrooms in the morning. While again we were not super successful with finding mushrooms, we did find the remains of a lower jaw of a wild boar, which Tom graciously modeled for us:

Tom modeling the wild boar jaw

Before meeting up with another of our Israeli collaborators, Yohay Carmel, at his lab at the Technion University in Haifa, Hagai took us to enjoy another utterly delicious Arab meal. We went to this restaurant in the hills in the north of Israel located in a town called Um-el Fachem called El Babour, which did not disappoint! Also, super excitingly, I found out that Yotam Ottolenghi himself loves this restaurant because he replied to one of my tweets about it :) They brought out plates and plates of different salatim. Eggplant covered in tahini and tomatoes covered in tahini, and stewed carrots and all sorts of things I couldn’t tell you what they are but they tasted fabulous.

Salatim at El babour in town in the north of Israel called Um-el fachem. Ottolenghi himself loves this place!

How gorgeous is this hummus?

Hummus from El babour

I couldn’t prevent myself from breaking into the pita before taking a picture:

pita at el babour

We also got tabbouli and an amazing salad made of mustard greens and red peppers:

salad of mustard greens and red pepper

How vibrant are those colors? As you can see, we enjoyed the food:

As you can see, we enjoyed the food.

Tom and I were super stuffed after all the salads but Hagai told us this place is known for their meat so of course we had to order more dishes. Tom got the kefta with tahini:

Lamb and beef kefta with tahini

And I got the chicken kebabs:

Chicken kebabs from El babour

I was so full at this point but they tasted delicious, and I got to keep the leftovers and eat them for dinner on the train ride from Haifa back south to Beer Sheva. Stav took me to a really cool funk show out at a pub in the middle of the Negev that evening and we saw an awesome Israeli funk band called Bintel Funk perform. After my last night in Beer sheva I took a bus to Jerusalem on Friday morning where Yohay took Tom and me on an awesome tour of the old city.

Spice shop in the old city in Jerusalem

Pretty rocks in the old city in Jerusalem

Menorah shop in the old city in Jerusalem

Jewish husbands everywhere can appreciate this t-shirt

We also got to climb up the towers of this Lutheran church and see a 360 degree view of Jerusalem.

View of the dome of the rock from the towers of the Lutheran church in Jerusalem

Roman ruins in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem

Of course we stopped for lunch in the old city as well :)

Hummus in the old city in Jerusalem

I’m sure you’ve had enough for now, so I will stop here! But stay tuned for Part 2 where I will post about my visit to meet my Israeli cousins in Beit-El and more of my eating adventures through Jerusalem with my cousin Geula!

Roasted butternut squash & red onion with tahini & za’atar with couscous and tomato and onion, asparagus, and sauteed porcinis

I know that you have all been waiting with baited breath to see what I’ve done with my porcini haul. I’ve made a porcini and leek frittata which I will feature in a later post, and today I’m going to tell you about one of the best meals I’ve ever cooked in my life. It was so incredibly amazing that all I wanted to do this week was stay home from work and cook all day and eat my food. This was my second time cooking this butternut squash dish – the first time I made it was that fateful night before Christmas where I discovered Jerusalem at my friend Meera’s house. This dish is freaking delicious. It is not that complicated but it is so insanely flavorful and fulfilling that I think you have to go home and cook it like right now! The hardest part of cooking this dish is cutting up the butternut squash, which admittedly, requires guns. This recipe can be found on pg. 36 of Jerusalem and is featured online here and on another Ottolenghi admirer’s blog here. Before embarking on the arduous task of cubing the squash, remember to preheat your oven to 475 degrees F.

Cubed butternut squash

After cubing the squash, you can congratulate yourself, because the hardest part is now over! Next roughly slice 2 red onions and add them to the squash, then add 3.5 tbsp of olive oil and some salt and pepper before sticking it in the oven for 40 minutes.

Butternut squash with red onions

While it’s in the oven you can make the tahini sauce, which is super simple. Whisk together 3.5 tbsp light tahini paste, 2 tbsp water, 1 small crushed garlic clove, and 1/4 tsp salt.

Ingredients for tahini sauce

You can also saute the pine nuts in 1.5 tsp olive oil with 0.5 tsp salt for 2 minutes. Once they are golden brown, remove them from heat and transfer them to a small bowl while you wait for the squash. After 40 minutes, the squash and onions should be nice and soft.

Roasted butternut squash and red onions with olive oil, salt, and pepper

Once it’s cooled down a bit, toss the squash and onions with the tahini sauce, add in the pine nuts with their oil, and top with 1 tbsp za’atar. This dish is just so so good. I really cannot emphasize enough how much I love this dish!

Roasted butternut squash & red onions with tahini & za’atar

I decided to try my hand again at the couscous with tomato and onion that I made the other night with my friend Dan and featured here.

Couscous with tomatoes and onion in pan

It accompanied the butternut squash & red onions with tahini dish really well and I have to say I was really pleased with myself that I managed to get the crust right this time :) I got a really crispy crust on the edge (I just had to let it sit in the pan a bit longer) and I managed to flip it over onto the plate completely in tact! I didn’t spill any couscous on the floor this time! The only plate that I had that was large enough for this task was a orange flower platter that I had from the 99 cents store when I first started grad school. Perhaps not my classiest dish, but it was big enough that I got the couscous flipped onto it without dropping any, so it definitely did the job. I am very proud of this dish :) Definitely proof that practice makes perfect!

Couscous with tomato and onion

I know what you are thinking – where are the mushrooms? Don’t worry – I definitely made them! They were so meaty and delicious and added so much depth to the experience of this meal. Asparagus is in season now and was on sale at the Berkeley bowl so I added that to my pan with with the mushrooms.

Sauteed porcinis

Here’s my crispy couscous with the asparagus and porcinis.

Sauteed porcinis and asparagus with crispy couscous

How beautiful do those porcinis look? This is how you want them – nice and browned.

Porcinis with asparagus and couscous

Ok, let’s get a close up of my star ingredient.

Sautteed porcinis

And here is the completed meal! My friend Simone, who is another biology graduate student and a talented artist as well who makes really cool biological themed mythical paintings, came over to enjoy the meal with me. Maybe I can convince Simone to make some beautiful mushroom themed paintings for me!

Roasted butternut squash & red onions with tahini & za’atar with couscous, tomato and onion, and sauteed porcinis and asparagus

Chickpea saute with Greek yogurt and couscous with tomato and onion

Ok, so yes, I know you are thinking – why is this girl calling herself fungi foodie when all she cooks is middle eastern food? Well guess what everybody – it’s been raining! A lot! In Berkeley! So I’m going to go mushroom hunting this weekend :) So with any luck I will have a delicious wild mushroom recipe for next week! Yay for wild mushrooms :)

But in the meanwhile, I’m continuing on my theme of cooking healthy, delicious vegetarian recipes from Jerusalem and Plenty. This week, I cooked the chickpea saute with Greek yogurt from pg. 211 Plenty and featured online here and the couscous with tomato and onion from pg 129 of Jerusalem and featured online here.

These dishes were on the less complicated side for Yotam Ottolenghi and my trip to Berkeley Bowl for groceries was one of the easiest and shortest trips yet! Either I’m getting much better at this whole grocery shopping thing or I am indeed choosing simpler recipes :P Here are all of the lovely fresh ingredients for the chickpea saute – look at all those fresh herbs and veggies! I really need to consider getting some potted herbs!

Ingredients for the chick pea saute

The first step is to separate the green part from the stalks of the chards – I’m totally falling for this stuff! It’s so pretty!

Swiss chard centers

So you blanch the chard stalks for 3 minutes in boiling water, then add the greens and blanch them for 2 more minutes, then remove from boiling water, rinse in cold water, and drain. Then you heat up 1/3 cup olive oil in a pan – Dan was appalled at this amount of oil – but I reminded him that olive oil is good for you :) He remained unconvinced but I decided to stick to Ottolenghi’s guidelines despite Dan’s rumblings. So you peel and chop up the carrots and saute them in the olive oil, then add caraway seeds. I’d never used caraway seeds before cooking from these books but they are such a good spice! I bought them super cheap from the bulk spice section at Berkeley Bowl and I’m totally hooked.

carrots sauteeing in olive oil with caraway seeds

So after the carrots are cooked, add the blanched chard back in, add in the chick peas (yes I used canned – perhaps a faux pas but after the disaster of trying to cook fava beans from scratch, I’m sticking to canned. It’s just so much easier!), add in garlic and fresh mint and parsley.

carrots with swiss chard, chicken peas, garlic, and herbs

Look at this ginormous bowl of vegetables!

Chick pea saute

But the finishing touch that really completes the dish is adding the Greek yogurt sauce on top. It just makes it so much tastier! And it adds a ton of calcium and protein – win-win :)

The greek yogurt on top really takes it up a notch!

chick pea saute with greek yogurt

So to accompany the delicious and healthy chickpea saute we made some couscous with tomatoes and onions. The first step is to dice and sautee an onion, then add sugar and tomato puree. Then dice two tomatoes (I added 3 because I love tomatoes!) and add them to the pan.

sauteed onions with tomatoes

In the meanwhile, add boiling vegetable stock to some couscous and leave it to sit in a bowl covered in cling wrap for 10 minutes. Once the couscous is cooked, then you mix in the tomato and onion mixture and wipe off the pan and add some butter to it. The next part gets a little bit complicated…at least for a novice like me….making the couscous crispy was no easy task! You are supposed to add butter then put the couscous back in the pan and cover it and let it steam for 12 minutes. Well, I did this and it was not quite crispy. Probably I should have let it steam for longer but we were hungry so I decided to just go for it…What followed was an EPIC FAIL where I flipped the couscous onto a dish and some of it landed on the floor but luckily most of it made it to the dish! I think I need to buy bigger dishes….

cous cous with tomatoes and onions

Ottolenghi has an amazing way with making vegetarian dishes that are completely satisfying and don’t make you miss meat one bit. These dishes are healthy, relatively cheap and easy, and super flavorful and fulfilling. The only complicated step that I utterly failed at was getting the couscous crispy and then flipping it over “expertly” onto a dish – so I did not manage to get that beautiful crispy crust that they claimed makes this dish. I still think it tasted amazing, but I think I will have to practice some more with the crisping and flipping..Here is my couscous with a corner of it looking crispy…it still tasted really good without the crispy crust but I will definitely need to practice with this one..

couscous with tomatoes and onion

Here is my completed meal :) It was a totally satisfying, healthy, flavorful, and fulfilling vegetarian middle eastern inspired meal. Thanks Ottolenghi for two more great dishes :)

Bon apetit! Healthy vegetarian mediterranean inspired meal!

All about Fattoush

As you may have gathered from reading my previous posts, I just love this fattoush :) It’s so good! Even Oprah likes it – see the recipe printed here! It’s one of the first recipes in Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s Jerusalem, and it just makes you feel so healthy and good about yourself eating it! I love all the herbs and fresh ingredients. Each time I’ve made it so far I’ve been switching back and forth between using buttermilk and mixing greek yogurt with milk for the dressing (you have the option of either using 1 and 2/3 cups buttermilk or 1 cup greek yogurt and 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp milk) and I’ve been trying out different pitas. I tried wheat pita today but I think white pita works the best. I also decided to add more tomatoes and radishes this time since I usually have a lot of left over dressing at the bottom after I’ve finished the salad.

Fattoush

The first step is of course getting all the ingredients – you need 2 large naans/pitas/flat bread, the greek yogurt and milk or buttermilk, 3 large tomatoes, 100g radishes, 3 Lebanese cucumbers, 2 green onions, 15g fresh mint, 1 tbsp dried mint, 2 cloves garlic (definitely worth it to invest in a garlic crusher. So glad I bought one at walgreens!), 3 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon (I invested in a lemon squeezer because I’ve realized that yes, fresh squeezed lemon juice is way better), 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tbsp white wine or cider vinegar, 1.5 tsp salt, pepper, and sumac to garnish if you have it.

First, I tore up 2 large pitas and put them in this giant salad bowl that I just bought myself at Marshall’s (the best place to buy cheap good quality stuff! Hey, I’m still a grad student after all..)

torn up pita for base of fattoush

Next, I chopped up the tomatoes. I decided to go for 4 tomatoes this time since I just love tomatoes. How pretty are they?

Tomatoes

This is a pretty easy dish to make, you simply slowly add ingredients, layer by layer. Here is the pita with the tomatoes:

Pita and diced tomatoes

Next I chopped the Lebanese cucumbers (also called Persian cucumbers in stores, the small ones):

Lebanese cucumbers

Then I added those to the tomatoes and pita:

Pita, tomatoes, cucumbers

Next I added the radishes. I found some really pretty ones at the Berkeley bowl.

Radishes

Then I sliced up the radishes and added them to the salad bowl:

Sliced radishes

Pita, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes for fattoush

The next ingredient is green onions. There are varying opinions on how high to cut the onion up the green part. I usually cut off the roots and then go about half way up the green part.

green onions

Next I got to add the fresh herbs, which I think are what really make this salad.

Fresh mint for fattoush

Fresh parsley for fattoush

After the herbs, I added two crushed garlic cloves, which is admittedly pretty garlicky. Next time I might add just one. Follow your taste buds on this one! Then add 1 tbsp dried mint, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tbsp white wine/cider vinegar, 1.5 tsp salt, and some pepper. The recipe calls for 3 tbsp lemon juice, and I definitely recommend investing in a squeezer and making it fresh. I bought one recently and I’m very happy with my purchase :)

Lemons to be squeezed for the fattoush

Next toss all the ingredients together and it’s best to let this dish sit for a while and let the flavors meld.

Fattoush

Ingredients

Scant 1 cup Greek yogurt plus 2 Tbsp. whole milk, or 1 cup buttermilk (replacing both yogurt and milk)
2 large stale Turkish flatbread/pita (9 ounces in total)
3 large tomatoes (13 ounces in total), cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 ounces radishes, thinly sliced
3 Lebanese or mini cucumbers (9 ounces in total), peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch dice
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 ounce fresh mint
Scant 1 ounce flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp. dried mint
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
2 Tbsp. cider or white wine vinegar
3/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sumac or more to taste, to garnish