Essentially, Khachapuri (pronounced hatch-a-pooree), is a bread canoe filled with hot bubbling cheese and topped with a runny egg. How bad could that be?
This decadent dish originated in the Republic of Georgia,. It’s been on my “must bake” list for several years now. It checks all the boxes for pandemic comfort eating, so I decided the time was right. I pulled out all the various recipes I had been collecting and started baking.
Over the past month my oven has churned out over a dozen khachapuri. I wanted to get it perfect. The first hurdle was what to use for the cheese filling. In Georgia they use a combo of imeruli and sulguni cheeses, neither of which are available in Ottawa. I tested some possible substititions and discovered that I liked a combo of mozzarella, ricotta and feta.
Once the filling was settled, I turned my attention to the dough. The more traditional recipes called for an enriched (butter and milk added) dough. While quite delicious, we found that version to be just too rich. I decided on a leaner pizza dough, enriched with just a tablespoon of olive oil. Storebought pizza dough is fine, but homemade is better.
In a desperate attempt at delusion, I added a big heaping handful of massaged kale to each khachapuri, in order to convince myself that these were healthy.
To get the classic canoe shape, the dough is rolled into an oval. Add the filling, leaving about a one inch border. Then roll up the edges, toward the centre and pinch and twist the top and bottom of the canoe to seal.
When the khachapuri are almost done, pull them from the oven to add the egg for the final few minutes of cooking. I tried it with whole eggs and just the yolk, and preferred the yolk.
In addition to finishing the dish with an egg, the traditional recipe also adds a few pats of butter once it comes out of the oven. Shockingly, this butter lover decided to omit that step of the recipe. Just too much.
The best way to eat khachapuri is with your hands. Rip off a piece of the crust and dip it in the runny egg and cheese, preferably while sitting in front of the TV watching Netflix. We’re watching Fauda right now and it makes for messy but very delicious eating.
I suspect that toilet paper is not the only thing people are hoarding during the pandemic. Anyone else notice the glut of banana bread recipes floating around the web these days? It seems we have an excess of rotting bananas on our counters.
But, I’m here to change all that. Move over banana bread. There’s a new loaf in town. It’s rhubarb season and I couldn’t be more excited. We live in an age of instant gratification, where we can get practically anything we want, at any time. But not rhubarb! We must patiently wait for rhubarb season. But it’s so worth it. I adore that tart, sour flavour.
It’s rare to find rhubarb at the market with the leaves still attached. Most stores cut the leaves off before selling them because they’re poisonous. So when I find some with the leaves, I really geek out. Local rhubarb is just starting to arrive in Ottawa. This bunch is forced, which results in rosier coloured stalks.
I have made many loaves over the past few weeks, turning my husband, a former rhubarb hater, into a lover. My first version featured pecans. I switched to pistachios when I ran out of pecans, and I was thrilled with the results, both in taste and in looks.
This loaf comes together very quickly. Only one bowl and no mixer required. Check out the video.
The glaze is made with icing sugar, lemon juice and about a half an ounce of freeze-dried strawberries, which I ground into a powder. One ounce of freeze dried strawberries contains almost a pound of fresh strawberries, so this glaze really packs a punch of flavour. Freeze dried fruit is not the same as dried fruit. Dried fruit is dehydrated and only about 75% of the water is removed. With freeze-drying, the fruit is placed into a vacuum chamber where the temperature is well-below freezing and 99% of the moisture can be removed from the fruit.
After glazing, I decorated the top of the top of the loaf with more pistachios and some freeze dried strawberry dust.
This is sure to become a new favourite in your house. This is a super moist loaf. I love it because it’s not too sweet. The tangy rhubarb flavour really shines through.
There is something about a chicken roasting in the oven that makes me feel like everything’s going to be ok. Such a simple, humble dish has an amazing power to reassure and comfort. And we could all use a little comfort right now.
This roast chicken is comfort food with a zesty attitude. The recipe comes from Adeena Sussman‘s new cookbook, Sababa. Adeena is a Tel Aviv based food writer and recipe developer. Sababa celebrates the fresh and sunny flavours and vibrant spices of Israel. It’s my new favourite way to make roast chicken. If you have never roasted an entire chicken, nothing could be simpler. Even though we are just 2 at home now, I roast a whole chicken at least once a week. Leftovers the next day are a gift!
Spices figure prominently in this dish. Shallots and red potato wedges get a coating of olive oil and sumac. If you have never used ground sumac, you are missing out. Sumac is a bush that grows in the Middle East. The bright red berries are harvested, dried and ground into a coarse powder with a tangy lemony flavour. It’s much less astringent than lemon juice and adds a light pop of tartness. It’s widely available in Middle Eastern stores and if you’re in Canada, Bulk Barn carries it.
The second spice that makes an appearance is za’atar, which is actually a spice mixture. Za’atar gets mixed with lemon zest and olive oil and massaged into the chicken skin. I love this dish because you roast the chicken and the veggies all in one pan. The fat from the chicken coats the potatoes and the ones at the edge get super crispy.
Be patient and let the chicken rest for at least 10 minutes once it’s done before you try to carve it. Served with a green salad, you have a complete meal.
Because of the Covid-19 lockdown, I’ve all been spending a considerable amount of time in my kitchen. I took advantage of this opportunity and trained my humus bowl to spin. She mastered clockwise fairly quickly. Counter clockwise did not come as easily to her.
For the first few weeks of self-isolation I was embracing the experience, trying new recipes and being as imaginative and innovative as I possibly could be, given the unavailability of so many ingredients and infrequent grocery store trips. My husband and I sat down together for lunch and dinner. We used placemats and cloth napkins. It was nice.
As we enter week 7 of social distancing, I will admit that some of these niceties have slipped by the wayside. We had to have a chat about speaking more civilly to one another. Well, to be more accurate, the chat was about me being more civil. I think I snapped at him when he asked what was on the menu for lunch, and what time would it be ready at. It’s a new normal and we both have to learn the new dance steps.
Dinner is now eaten on our laps in front of the TV, watching Ozark. But we’re still using cloth napkins, we’re not animals. Saturday’s dinner was a sheet pan full of nachos for each of us. I topped them with diced tomatoes, kalamata olives, pickled jalapeños and cheddar cheese before popping them in the oven. I served them with sour cream and guacamole on the side.
Along the same vein as nachos, but infinately healthier is this hummus and Israeli salad platter, served with pita chips for scooping up all the goodness. I was inspired by a similar dish Ina made on Back to Basics. She made her own humus, but, “store-bought is fine.” I roasted up a can of chickpeas with olive oil, cumin and smoked paprika for some extra protein and crunch.
Spread the hummus on a large plate, top with the Israeli salad and call it dinner. Cloth napkins not optional!
It’s been a while since I last posted, and, lest you think I haven’t been busy cooking and baking, don’t worry. I’ve been hard at work in my kitchen feeding and watering my husband. To be honest, it just didn’t feel right to be posting pretty pictures of food right now. It’s such a strange time. As an introvert, it’s not the social isolation that’s getting to me. I love that I’m being given permission to stay home and not feel bad about it. I’m feeling so sad about all the suffering around the world and worried about everyone I love. This uncertainty is causing a heavy blanket of anxiety. Plus, my grey roots are not helping things at all.
I was also starting to feel a lot of pressure and guilt to “use this time productively.” It seemed that everyone was immersing themselves in mastering new skills, (I’m looking at you sourdough bread) honing their craft, or coming up with innovative ways to learn and grow. I just wasn’t feeling creative. I felt unable to focus.
When I shared these feeling on an Instagram post, several people reached out to me and told me that they were feeling the same way. There is no one right way to do this. I decided to give myself permission to do less and just feel those emotions. Life lesson #1: Don’t compare yourself to others. Eventually those rotting bananas on my counter whispered that they weren’t going to turn into banana bread by themselves, and I got back into the kitchen.
Over the past two weeks I have made about 7 banana breads. I didn’t think I could just post my classic banana bread recipe. With all the creative ions in the air, I felt compelled to innovate and give you something different. I found a jar of cookie butter in the pantry and tried a few variations of Cookie Butter Swirl Banana Bread. No one complained but it was just too sweet and the spices in the cookie butter overwhelmed the bananas.
I baked a sour cream version in a fancy pan and dusted it with icing sugar. A real looker, but not so tasty.
Then I tried adding a of chopped pecans and dark chocolate. Too much! But it sure looked pretty.
Life lesson #2. Sometimes less is more. Don’t screw with the classics. So, I went back to my favourite banana bread recipe from Noreen Gilletz. Sadly, Noreen passed away in February, after a long illness. My mom’s generation learned to cook from her legendary 1968 cookbook, Second Helpings Please! I became a Noreen fan in 1985 with the release of her book, The Pleasures of Your Food Processor (reprinted as The Food Processor Bible). She will be missed by many!
This is a dense, dark and heavy banana bread. Extremely moist and very intensely banana flavoured. In short, everything a banana bread is supposed to be.
I made a few a few adaptations to Noreen’s recipe. I added a caramelized banana to the top and stirred in a big handful of toasted, chopped walnuts, but feel free to leave them out. You do you!
Last night marked the first night of Passover. Traditionally, Jewish families, the world over, gather to retell the story of the Exodus of the Jewish people from slavery in. Egypt. When my son was little, he used to complain about having to go to the Seder. He’d say, “It’s so boring. Every year we tell the same story.” Which made my husband and I laugh, because, of course, that’s the whole point! We do this to link our past to our future, to teach the next generation. Never has the story of freedom been more relevant as now, when we await our own exodus from isolation back to freedom.
This story begins with the youngest person at the table asking the Four Questions (Mah Nishtanah). These four questions help to explain why this night is different from all other nights. This year, of course, this night is very different from all other years, because of Covid-19. In our family, we normally get together with my husband’s side on the first night, and my family on the second night. We both have huge families. I have 4 sisters and a brother and my husband has the opposite, 4 brothers and a sister. Our kids have 24 first cousins!
The Jewish people are an innovative tribe. Google, Waze, vaccines for polio, cholera and the bubonic plague, to mention but a few, were all created by Jews. During this time of social isolation, we innovate again and created a virtual Seder on Zoom.
Because we were’t able to be physically together, I mailed care packages of Passover desserts to my mom and siblings. Even in isolation, baking brings us closer together, and it has played a big part in alleviating my anxiety. This year I made marble matzoh crunch, milk chocolate almond matzoh crunch, PB&J macarons and coconut macaroons. When the lady at the post office asked the value of the packages, for insurance purposes, I almost said, priceless, because is there anything more special than receiving a box of treats in the mail?
I tried a new macaroon recipe this year. It was so good I had to share! The recipe comes from Danielle Kartes’ book Rustic Joyful Food. Food52.com posted them on Instagram and I was intrigued. They contain ingredients I have never used in coconut macaroons before.
A classic macaroon calls for mixing together egg whites, sweetened shredded coconut, sugar and vanilla. Danielle’s recipe omits the sugar and uses sweetened condensed milk. That really helps to make the macaroons moister and chewier in the centre. She uses the whole egg, not just the white,. The yolk adds richness and fat, helping to keep the macaroon from becoming crumbly and dry. She further enhances the flavour and texture by adding a stick of melted butter. The butter browns and caramelizes as it bakes, creating a rich and satisfying macaroon.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I am quite passionate about coconut. Thanks Danielle for upping my macaroon game to a new level. I’m very excited about these.
This week I’m wavering between a state of anxiety and denial. It feels like we are in the middle of a Margaret Atwood dystopian novel, but, make no mistake, COVID-19 is very real.
I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy and taking all the necessary precautions. Like most of my virtual friends, I’m staying in and baking. It helps me keep the anxiety at bay. There is even a hashtag for it, #stressbaking (over 22,000 posts on Instagram!). While I haven’t been hoarding toilet paper and Purell, I will admit to having a healthy stock of butter in my freezer. But that’s not because of the pandemic. I regularly have at least 8 pounds of butter in the freezer at any given time.
I have been wanting make this 5-strand braided challah for quite a while now. The inspiration comes from Katharina of the brilliant Instagram account @besondersgut. She is a bread goddess. I used my favourite challah recipe (2/3 all-purpose flour and 1/3 whole wheat) and her braiding and shaping technique. She calls it “Challah Chapelet”. I looked up the translation for chaplet, and discovered it means prayer beads, specifically, rosary beads. I thought it might be a bit sacrilegious to top my Shabbat challah with rosary beads, so my working title is, “Challah with Pearls.”
The shaping technique is actually very easy. The base is a 5 strand braid, which is one of the simplest to do. Once braided, you turn a 6th strand into a “string of pearls.” Check out the video I made.
https://youtu.be/gZ_hLoRjqbU
I was really thrilled with the results. I baked 5 challahs on Sunday and by the fourth I was fairly proficient with the shaping.
Any leftover challah is delicious for breakfast with butter, jam and honey.
It’s only March and I’m already craving summer tomatoes. If you’re impatient like me, roast up a sheet pan of grape or cherry tomatoes and toss it with some pasta and fresh mozzarella. Close your eyes and pretend summer is here.
Treat the tomatoes with a generous glug of extra virgin olive oil, some salt and a hit of red pepper flakes. Roast in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Once the tomatoes start to burst and release their juices, remove from oven.
After cooking the spaghetti, I tossed it with a bit of tomato sauce. I love Rao’s. They don’t add any sugar or other sweeteners so it tastes like real tomatoes. It’s widely available in the U.S. In Canada, I buy it online. I also like to add about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar for a hit of acidity.
Finish with some fresh mozzarella and basil. This will tide you over until real summer tomatoes arrive.
Purim begins this week at sundown on Monday March 9. For those not familiar with this Jewish holiday, I present to you a basic primer, my version of Purim 101. Essentially, the Festival of Purim commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in ancient Persia were saved from extermination. As in every good story, you have your heroes and your villans.
The heroes of the story are Esther, a beautiful young Jewish woman living in Persia (now known as Iran), and her cousin Mordecai, who raised her as if she were his daughter. Esther was taken to the house of Achashveirosh, King of Persia, to become part of his harem. King Achashveirosh loved Esther more than his other concubines, and made Esther his queen. Like all intelligent wives, she kept a thing or two about herself hidden from her husband. Upon advice from her cousin Mordecai, she kept her Jewish identity a secret from the King.
Our story’s villan is Haman, a rather arrogant, egotistical advisor to the King. The King appointed Haman as his Prime Minister. Haman had a particular hate-on for Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow down before Haman every time he passed by. Rather than seeking to destroy Mordecai alone for this slight, Haman decided to take revenge on the entire Jewish population living in the Persian empire. The King gave Haman permission to do as he pleased. Haman’s plan was to exterminate all of the Jews.
Nothing got past Queen Esther. She had her finger on the pulse on the kingdom. Somehow she overheard this plot to annihilate all the Jews. She consulted her cousin Mordecai and he persuaded Esther to speak to the king on behalf of the Jewish people. This was a dangerous thing for Esther to do, because anyone who came into the king’s presence without being summoned could be put to death, and she had not been summoned. She told him of Haman’s plot against her people and somehow convinced him to save the Jewish people. We’re never told exactly how she convinced him, but there are rumours! The Jewish people were saved, and Haman and his ten sons were hanged on the gallows that had been prepared for Mordecai.
The holiday of Purim focuses on the pleasures of food and drink, more than any other Jewish holiday. It is a time for celebrating and letting go. In fact, traditional Jewish learning requires a person to drink until he cannot tell the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai,” though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is. The traditional Purim treat is a little triangular cookie typically filled with a fruit or poppy-seed filling. The shape supposedly represents Haman’s three-cornered hat.
When I was a child, I didn’t know anyone who baked homemade hamentashen. They were always bought at Open Window Bakery in Toronto. There were 2 filling options, prune or poppyseed. Much like the New York vs. Montreal style bagel debate, a prune vs. poppyseed debate can also get quite ugly. Our family liked the prune ones better. I never really liked the texture or flavour of a poppyseed filling. But I do love a poppyseed cookie!
The hamentashen of choice in my husband’s family are my Aunt Carol’s Hamentashen, I always make a big batch of those, but every year I challenge myself to come up a new flavour. I wondered what would happen if I put poppyseed in the dough? I started with the very delicious butter dough from Jake Cohen at the feedfeed and added a heaping tablespoon of poppyseeds.
I have recently become enamoured with this fig jam (it’s killer on a cheese plate), and figured it would make a wonderful pairing with the poppyseed dough.
If you’re a Hamentashen novice, here are a few tips for success:
Roll dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper and chill before cutting into circles
Don’t overfill with jam. You will regret it when they burst open on the oven.
Brush edges of dough with beaten egg. it acts as an effective glue to hold them together.
Pinch edges and corners really well when shaping.
Freeze formed hamentashen for about 10 minutes before baking. They will hold their shape better.
Brush unbaked hamentashen with beaten egg white for some shine.
While they were quite delicious plain, I wanted to add an additional layer of texture, so I dipped one side in honey and then into toasted chopped walnuts. The bitterness of the walnuts plays so nicely with the sweetness of the fig jam. Plus, it looks so pretty.
A while ago I arrived home to discover a pizza oven on my front doorstep. While I was delighted, I couldn’t recall buying one. Given my history of late night online ordering, my husband gently suggested that perhaps senility was starting to set in. I admitted that I am beginning to become a bit forgetful, but I don’t think I would let a pizza oven slip from my memory. I take pizza very seriously.
Turns out, it was a gift from my husband’s sister. Her husband saw it and decided that we must have it. We immediately put it to use. Over the past year, that baby has cranked out over 48 pizzas. I have learned a thing or two about pizza making that I’d like to share with you.
https://youtu.be/EBWPLtkWly8
Let’s start with the foundation, the crust. You could, of course start with a store bought pizza crust. But, what if I told you that, in less than 5 minutes, you could make your own dough, that is infinitely better than any store bought. The catch is, that once you mix the flour, water, salt and yeast together in a bowl, you need to wait at least 18 hours before you can use it. You will look at this wet gloppy mess and wonder how this will ever turn into dough. Take a leap of faith and be patient. The slow fermentation results in the most gorgeous stretchy, bubbly dough.
To shape the dough, never use a rolling pin. Stretching by hand will create a crunchy, chewy, light and bubbly crust. King Arthur Flour made a great video that I highly recommend watching a few times before you start. Remember, you are not aiming for a perfect circle. Pizza should be rustically beautiful.
Next, consider the sauce. Most store bought pizza sauces contain sugar, which makes them cloyingly sweet. Instead, buy a can of San Marzano crushed Italian plum tomatoes. Mix with garlic, salt and olive oil and let sit for about an hour. No cooking needed. The sauce is bright and flavourful. You only need a few tablespoons of sauce on each pizza. Too much makes the dough too wet.
For toppings, keep it simple. Too many toppings make it too heavy and you will have problems sliding it into the oven. After the sauce, I like to add 2 kinds of mozzarella. The first is low moisture mozzarella. I’m talking about the inexpensive, pale yellow stuff sold in blocks at the supermarket. That’s what gives you the stretchy pizza pull. Then, get a small piece of fresh mozzarella, to dot judiciously on the pizza. Too much fresh mozzarella will leave wet puddles on your pizza. A third more flavourful cheese, like provolone or fontina could be added, but not too much. Fresh halved grape tomatoes or some olives could be added. A drizzle of olive oil and a shaving of Parmesan would be welcome. If you want to add fresh basil, wait until it is cooked or it will wilt in the oven.
Whether you cook this in a BBQ top pizza oven, or on a pizza stone in your oven, wait until it is thoroughly preheated before you top your pizza. A pizza peel is very helpful to slide the pizza into the oven. I like to put my pizza crust on a piece of parchment paper, slightly larger than the diameter of the dough, and build the pizza there. It will easily slide into the oven. Once it has been baking for about 2-3 minutes, use the pizza peel to slide pizza out and pull away and discard parchment. It will burn if left in too long. You just want to let the crust start firming up a bit before pulling it out.
Your first few pizzas may look a bit rustic but they will taste amazing and the shaping gets easier with practice.
