Don't Be a Follower

I have a vivid memory of an incident that occurred when I was a freshman at UC Berkeley, waiting in line to buy books at the student union. There were four sorority girls in line in front of me, complaining about how they'd been maligned by a caustic person who claimed they were all replicas of each other (we didn't call them clones back then), with their uniformity of dress, hair, and personality.  The most vocal of the girls went on and on about how they each were so unique!  Why, she was wearing a pink polo shirt with white shorts and had a brown bob,  while her sister was wearing a blue polo shirt with white shorts and a blond bob.  The other two had blue shorts on with green and peach colored polo shirts, and their brown bobs had different lengths of bangs, so if anyone thought they were "Identical" then they were blind fools!

Why do I bring this up now?  Because April 6th was Nowrux - the Persian New Year - and all the food blogs had posts for the perfect Middle Eastern feast.  But did I follow the crowd and make hummus and baba ganoush on April 6th? No! I bucked the trend.  I am the kind of person who bucks the trend. And also the kind of person who lets her foodie email newsletters get out of control and doesn't realize there was even such a thing as Persian New Year.  

This past weekend I was catching up on that email and came across a slide show from Saveur magazine titled the Best Middle Eastern Recipes, containing, in their words, 45 Essential Middle Eastern Recipes:  http://www.saveur.com/best-middle-eastern-recipes

Everything in this slide show looked delicious, and there were a lot of paleo-friendly and vegetarian offerings which work well given all the diet restrictions going on in my household.  I decided I am going to try to make every recipe in the slideshow this month.

Broiling rose petals to dry them out for the recipe

Tonight I started out with the Persian Kuku Sabzi, which I am told translates to roughly Herb Fritatta. I had all the ingredients on hand except dried rose petals - and those are easy enough to make by taking the most fragrant rose from your organic garden and toasting it under the broiler for a few minutes until it releases a beautiful fragrance throughout your kitchen. The addition of ground walnuts, an assortment of chopped fresh herbs, and the lack of cheese give this fritatta a unique and delicious flavor.  It was quick and simple to make, low cal, and healthy.  Eggs. They're what's for dinner - definitely!

Herbs minced and ready to go

The recipe can be found here:  http://www.saveur.com/perrsian-kuku-sabzi-eggs-rose-recipe  However, as I was researching about Persian New Year, I came across another version of Kuku Sabzi from the New York Times which looks even better because it contains an even larger assortment of herbs and spices: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018062-fresh-herb-kuku    I am going to try to make this version in another week or so and I'll let you know how it turns out.

The finished fritatta - garnished with rose petals, chopped parsley and nasturtiums

I also made some sumac flatbread (m'sakhan) found in the recipe for Roast Chicken with Sumac Flatbead (http://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/roast-chicken-with-sumac-flatbread)  and was inspired by the slideshow's Tahini - Beet dip recipe (http://www.saveur.com/tahini-beet-dip-recipe) although I modified it slightly to use up some spicy Peruvian beet salad I'd made over the weekend, and because I didn't have all the ingredients called for in the recipe. Both the bread and the dip were a hit with the hubby and some friends who dropped by.

The whole meal - we ate the flatbread faster than I could photograph it! 

For the beet salad, I had previosly roasted, peeled and diced six medium beets.  I tossed them with a small handful of finely chopped parsley, two tablespoons of Vegennaise, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, and ghost pepper sauce (I use Diabo Sauce from Fat Rice restaurant in Chicago; while you could use sriracha or tabasco style sauce, the ghost pepper adds a different and better kind of flavor, and if you don't use too much, the heat can be the perfect foil for the bland sweetness of the beets).  I put about 1 cup of this salad into the blender.  The Saveur recipe calls for tahini but I didn't have any on hand, so I added 1/3 cup of toasted black and white sesame seeds, and the rest of the ingredients called for in the recipe, except the ice:  3 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice, 3 medium cloves of garlic, a drizzle of olive oil to get a creamy texture, and a little more salt and pepper. I blended this all on high speed until the sesame seeds were pulverized, then served it with the flatbread.

Roasted Beets in Creamy Diabo Sauce

This recipe makes a great chilled side salad but it's also good enough for eating on its own and makes a light lunch with some fresh cheese like burrata, or a dollop of greek yogurt.  It is both sweet and spicy and very satisfying.

I know I am a bit odd, but I like to make my lunch for work every day.  If I am making this dish for lunch, I will get up and pop the beets in the oven (if I haven't made them ahead of time).  Once I'm done with my morning routine, I'll take the beets out, have breakfast and make the sauce while they cool, then chop, toss, and put in a small container to let them finish marinating until it's lunch time.  If you are not interested in pulling this together in the morning, you can make it the night before.  The beets can even be made several days in advance, just keep them in their foil packets until you're ready to use them.

Roasted Beets
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

Per person:
1 large beet, washed, tops removed and tail trimmed
1 tbsp olive oil per person
Salt & Pepper

Tear off a piece of foil large enough to enclose each individual beet.  Place each beet in the center of the foil, drizzle with 1 tbsp olive oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper.  Wrap the beet tightly in the foil to trap all the steam while it cooks, and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper (for easier cleanup, in case the packages leak) in the pre-heated oven.  Roast for 45 min to 1 hour, until the beets are fork-tender all the way through.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 to 30 minutes.  Once cool, open the packets and gently rub the skins off using your hands or a paper towel. Chop the beets into small dice.

Diabo Sauce

I love this ghost pepper-basedsauce from the restaurant "Fat Rice" out of Chicago.  Yes, it's incredibly hot but when used sparingly it adds a great level of flavor plus heat to your dish.  Fat Rice's online store (https://squareup.com/market/loco-food-llc) describes the sauce as follows:

In the Indian state of Assam the Bhot Jolokia is the Maharajah of all chillies. Ranking as one of the hottest peppers on the planet, the “ghost pepper” tops out at over 1MILLION on the scoville scale. Diabo is a Fat Rice favorite! Sinful yet sweet with a whole lot of heat!  Indredients: Carrot, Habenero, onion, cane vinegar, water, ghost pepper, garlic, cane sugar, salt xanthan gum

If you don't want to order some Diabo sauce, you can substitute any other liquid chili sauce (Tapatio, Tabasco, etc.  Mix the other ingredients then add your sauce a drop at a time to your desired heat level.)

Per Person:
1 Tbsp mayonnaise, regular Vegennaise, regular or light sour cream, or Greek yogurt
1/4 tsp Diabo Ghost Pepper Sauce
2 tsp finely chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp lemon zest
a pinch of salt

Blend the ingredients together and toss with the diced beets.  Let marinate for at least hour, but can be made a day or two ahead of time if desired.