Open Sesame

Biscuits or Cookies21 October 200811 August 2017 Baroness Tapuzina

When Mimi of the Israeli Kitchen blogged about tehina biscuits in an Arab pastry shop in Tsfat, I remembered that I had a recipe for them in Janna Gur’s The Book of New Israeli Food. I happened to have all of the ingredients in the house, so I made them. They are a little different from the ones Mimi blogged about. This recipe puts the icing sugar on the dough before you bake them and the ones in Mimi’s picture are rolled in icing sugar after they are baked. The cookies are easy to make and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. A little piece of halva-like heaven.

Tehina Biscuits

from The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey by Janna Gur

Ingredients

250 g 9oz butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup raw tehina
3 cups + 2 tablespoons flour
10 g 2 teaspoons baking powder

For dusting:

3 tablespoons icing sugar
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and creamy. Lower the speed and add the vanilla, cinnamon, salt, orange zest and tehina. Mix to a smooth consistency. Add the flour and baking powder until the dough is smooth. Cover and refrigerate for one hour.
Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).
Mix the icing sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Take pieces of dough and form balls the size of large olives. Roll the balls in the sugar-cinnamon mixture and place on a Silpat or parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing them about 1/2 inch apart. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes. The cookies should remain light colored. Don't move them to a cooling rack until they are completely cool because these are delicate.
Store in an airtight jar.

Ice Cream – Middle Eastern Style

Desserts Fruit Fruit Dessert Ice Creams/Sorbets22 June 200813 January 2019 Baroness Tapuzina

L to R: Roasted Apricot-Almond Ice Cream and Tehina-Pistachio Ice Cream

It is quite hot here now and I thought it was time to pull the ice cream maker out again. I took a look at my long list of ice cream recipes and really didn’t see anything that tickled my fancy, so I started thinking about what ingredients are available right now and one of them was fresh apricots. As most of you know by now, I love to experiment with different ingredients and I didn’t want to make some ordinary apricot ice cream, so I thought about what spices would go well with apricots…. ras al hanout. I got the idea for this ice cream from a recipe from a fellow blogger, Mike’s Table. He is hosting a blog event called “You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Frozen Desserts“. I can’t wait to see the other entries.

The other ingredient I have wanted to experiment with for quite a while is raw tehina (sesame paste). I didn’t want to use sugar to sweeten the tehina because it just didn’t sound right to me, so I decided the perfect sweetener in keeping with its Middle Eastern roots would be date honey, also known as silan in Hebrew.

The apricot ice cream came out nice and creamy with a strong fruity taste, although perhaps not quite as acid as I would have liked. Next time, I will try adding some dried sour apricots as well.

The tehina ice cream is creamy and has a smoky sesame flavor that is reminiscent of halva. It is not too sweet and the pistachios add a nice crunch. Next time, I will add some chopped dates to the mixture.

They are both delicious ice creams and will be added to the top of my ice cream recipes.

Roasted Apricot-Almond Ice Cream

Ingredients

12 ripe apricots
2 teaspoons ras al hanout
1 tablespoon sugar plus some for sprinkling
2 tablespoons honey
1 cup double cream
Small squeeze lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup whole almonds with the skins

Instructions

Preheat oven to 220C (425F). Cut the apricots in half, remove the seed, and place the halved apricots, cut side up in a baking dish. Sprinkle them with sugar and the ras al hanout. Roast them in the oven until they are caramelised (as shown in the picture above). Let them cool for 20 minutes. Puree the apricots, honey and any juices from the baking dish in a food processor or blender. Transfer to a bowl and mix with 1/2 cup of the cream, lemon juice and vanilla. Mix well and set up in an ice bath with a strainer on top.
Meanwhile scald the remaining 1/2 cream and 1/2 cup of whole milk, talking care not to boil it. In the bowl, beat the egg yolks and 1 tablespoon of sugar until creamy. Temper the eggs with a scoop of the hot cream and slowly add the rest. Place the egg-cream mixture in a clean saucepan and cook at medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of spoon.
Pour the cooked custard through the strainer, discarding the solids, into the cooled apricot mixture and whisk all together. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming and put in the refrigerator for about six hours.
While the custard cools, toast the almonds on a cookie sheet in a 200C (400F) oven for about 5-10 minutes, shaking them halfway through to prevent burning. Once they have cooled, cut the almonds in half.
When the custard is cold, place it in a ice cream maker, and follow the manufacturer's instructions. Add the almonds during the last minute or two of churning. Transfer to the freezer and eat when ready.

Tehina-Pistachio Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 cup raw tehina raw sesame paste
2 cups full fat milk
1 cup double cream
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup date honey silan
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup roasted pistachios roughly chopped

Instructions

Scald the milk in a saucepan, taking care not to boil. Remove from the heat and add the tehina, mix well, cover, and let steep for about an hour. In a bowl whisk the egg yolks and date honey.
Rewarm the milk mixture and strain into the yolk mixture, constantly stirring, using a spatuala to extract as much of the milk-tehina mixture as possible. Discard the solids.
Place the egg-tehina mixture in a clean saucepan and cook at medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of spoon. Strain the mixture once again, and cool over ice-cold water. Chill in the refrigerator, add the double cream and churn it in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

All you want to know about Hummous but forgot to ask

Middle Eastern31 May 200730 September 2011 Baroness Tapuzina

I just found my new favorite blog that is simply called, The Hummous Blog. Shooky Galili, a reporter and columnist for the Israeli news site YNET is the author of this blog and he wrote an article on YNET about hummous vocabulary:

“Hummus is the common denominator for all Israelis. Ask an expatriate what he misses most, watch two Israelis argue for hours about where the best hummus is served, or try driving through the hummus-eateries filled streets of Jaffa on a Saturday and you’ll understand:

Israelis simply love their hummus. That is understandable considering the fact that an average Israeli consumes about 10 kg (about 22 lbs) of hummus a year. ”

One of the best places in Israel to go for hummous is Ali Karavan, also known as Abu Hassan, a hole-in-the-wall on 1 Ha’dolfin Street in Yafo. The entire menu consists of masabacha (chickpeas in warm hummus-tahini sauce), labaneh (a soft cheese made out of yogurt), and hummus with or without ful (slow-cooked fava beans). All orders come with pita bread, raw onions, and a piquant lemon-garlic sauce on the side.

Ali Karavan is open every day except Saturday (Shabbat), from 8 a.m. until the day’s hummus runs out, usually mid-afternoon.

I buy my hummous from a Druze family from Dalyit al Karmel that sells hummous, kubbeh and other tasty salads every Friday at the Ra’anananim Mall in Ra’anana. All of their dishes are delicious. For more information, see Upper Galilee – Beautiful Place, Beautiful Food, Beautiful Drink.