Sephardi Party

When you're handed a printed invitation to a dinner on a weeknight, you clear your schedule. Our classmate, Bonnie, invited the whole class to a traditional Syrian dinner at her house. Husbands and significant others were invited to join the party!

There were waiters, lots of giggles, whiskey, and wine. We had such a fun time sampling maza (Syrian appetizers), main dishes, desserts, and cocktails!

The menus

 A beautifully set table on real dishes!

My place setting

Salad course: middle eastern salata with za'atar bread

 za'atar bread with eggplant salad

Appetizers: (in the back) bastelle (a meat-and-rice-filled dough pocket), slice of lemon, kibbeh nebelsiyah (meat-and-rice-filled "torpedo"), and lahmeb'agine (pronounced "lach-ma-jeen), a little meat pie.

 kebbeh hamda (meatballs in a sour stew)

 kibbeh hamda on top of rice with egg noodles

 rubut with mushrooms (a stuffed veal pocket) << this was my favorite!

 Our hostess, Bonnie, explaining the dishes.

 A half Cornish hen (delicious)

Me and my guest, Justin

Pickled veggies

 Classmate Avi cracking up at something

 Dessert: fresh fruit kebab with a raspberry coulis & raspberry, lemon, and mango sorbet with mint.

 kanafeh (tofutti cream cheese, fine noodles, and simple syrup in a custard cup) <<this was also my favorite

 YUM!

 Dessert martini: vanilla creamsicle

Classmates Bracha and Eugenia cracking up at something else. :-)

I'm cracking up, too

Me and Eugenia

Until next time!

What an Egg-Cellent Day for Cooking

It's my favorite meal of the day - BREAKFAST! In this class, we started making a menu: sunny-side and over-easy eggs, pancakes, french toast, crepes, eggs benedict and florentine, poached eggs, and fruit.
Chef demonstrated how to flip an egg without breaking the yolks.

These are my batch of eggs:
Sunny-side up

Step 1 over-easy

Finished eggs! 4 ways

I put all of them on a plate with a little salt and pepper. Yum! Runny-yolks all around.

Below, a filled American omelette. Hotels serve this omelette with a little bit of the internal veggie mixture on top so servers know which one is which.

Below, my American omelette with a little tomato sauce.

The class also made crepes with homemade apple filling and whipped cream. My contribution is the blueberry-cinnamon whipped compound "butter" (the pink rosette at the top of the plate).

My rosettes!

Poached eggs on top of fried pastrami and a "buttered" english muffin:

Then we made french toast! See recipe at the bottom of the post.
It was so delicious, and here's why:

• we used challah bread that sat on a shelf at school, bag open, for three days (this allowed the bread to become a little stale)
• the bread was sliced to an inch thick (so it soaked up just enough but not too much egg)
• it was fried in clarified "butter" (margarine) for extra flavor and a golden brown color

 Classmate Esther preparing the vol au vant - a tri-layer pastry dough, cut in rounds and baked into a bowl shape. Then it would be filled with scrambled eggs, onions, and lox.

 Below, sifted flour for the pancake batter. Every student, either individually or in pairs, was working on prepping a different recipe station. When we finished our prep and made a batch, we would move on to a different station to execute a new recipe.

Orange twist and strawberry fan garnish

Ingredient set-up for the Breakfast Menu - fruit, lox, onions, pastrami, pancake batter, whipped cream, and compound butter rosettes.

 The recipe I worked on, the LEO (Scrambled Lox, Eggs, and Onion) in a vol au vant.

 I channeled an orange to slice for garnish. To do this, I used a channeling tool (bottom right on the cutting board).

 Another plating of the LEO, this time with chives.

 Our Breakfast Table!

 Below, my banana chocolate chip pancakes with maple syrup, blueberries, and blueberry-cinnamon compound butter.

Hope your breakfast was as good as ours!*

 ******

Blueberry Cinnamon Compound Butter

1 pound good-quality butter (or margarine)
handful of fresh blueberries
2 tsp cinnamon (more if you want a stronger flavor)
drizzle of your favorite honey

In a food processor, pulse the blueberries, cinnamon, and honey.
Next, pulse in the butter or margarine in small pieces until all the ingredients are combined.
Scoop the butter mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip or onto a parchment paper sheet.
If you choose to pipe, pipe rosettes onto a baking sheet and freeze until ready to use.
If you put it on a parchment paper, roll into a log and twist the ends. Place in the freezer until ready to use. When ready to use, slice off what you need!

Challah French Toast
 10 beaten eggs
16 oz. whole milk
you can also use a combination of heavy cream and milk, non-alcoholic Bailey's coffee creamer, other flavored coffee creamer, camel milk, nut milk, or pareve creamer
 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups granulated sugar
 pinch of salt
12 slices of challah (about 1 large loaf)
can also use leftovers, whatever size pieces you have
confectioner's sugar

Whisk together eggs, milk, cinnamon, vanilla, sugar and salt.
Heat a skillet or griddle pan and pour in a dab of butter or oil, enough to LIGHTLY coat the bottom of the pan.
Dip the slices of challah in the egg mixture, coating each side.
Fry in the butter/oil until golden brown on each side, flipping once or twice.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with compound butter, jam, syrup, or fruit. 
 

*Was it not excellent? Hire me to make you an excellent breakfast!

Enjoy!

KosherFest at the Meadowlands - November 10-11, 2015

Kosherfest 2015 was held at the Meadowlands Expo Center in Secaucus, NJ. My class was given free tickets to go and explore, taste, and meet people! We also volunteered to help with the chef demonstrations in the "Kosher Kitchen" demo space.

 My admittance!

Me with classmates Bracha, Bonnie, and Eugenia.

I volunteered to help out Chef Ariak Grigoriyan of Marani restaurant in Queens, NY. They demo-ed two appetizers, a plate of grits, braised lamb, and dumplings.

 Me and my classmate and demo partner, Bracha.

Eggplant rolls with a walnut mixture inside. This is what it looks like at the restaurant.

Shotis puri, Georgian pointed bread

 The beet and walnut appetizer, garnished with pomegranate seeds and cilantro. I scooped and garnished these.

Grits, served with a garlic sauce.

More photos of the demo, by Avi Leibowitz:

After the demo, we got to wander around the convention, taste, and schmooze. Here are a few things I saw:

 This booth had duck and sqaub (all kosher!) I loved the squab, and it inspired me to seek some out to cook later on. I'll be on the hunt... Pun intended.

 Lavie liqueurs were delicious! I tried the blackberry, chocolate, and praline. They were also good when you mixed flavors.

The Kvutzat Yavne booth! I passed along good wishes from my aunt, whose family lives on kibbutz there, to the exhibitors at this booth.

 Tishbi Winery had delicious wines and also wine jams - these jams are made with their wine, with the alcohol boiled out, so all you're left with is exquisite flavors!

These strawberry shortcake petit fours were scrumptious:

 There was a guy "blowing" glass! He was using a tabletop torch to manipulate glass into pendants with Hebrew letters on them.

 A fruit candy display.

There were several other products I really enjoyed tasting, like the Brooklyn Artisan Bakehouse, Moses date vodka, and Pallini limoncello. If you are in the food industry, I highly recommmend attending one of these shows! One thing to note - there were different vendors on Day 1 and Day 2, so hit up both days!