Turkish

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Recipe of the Day: Claudia Roden's Green Olive, Walnut and Pomegranate Salad

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By Leslie Brenner

Gorgeous and festive, this salad — adapted from Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean — is ideal for this time of year, when pomegranates are still looking great in the markets. With green olives, walnuts and scallions and a lot of parsley, it’s tossed with a tangy dressing based on pomegranate molasses and finished with pomegranate seeds.

It’s a specialty of Gaziantep, Turkey.

If you’re like me and you keep packages of walnuts in your freezer, toast them for four or five minutes in a 350-degree F / 175-degree C oven to bring them back to life before roughly chopping them.

It’s a perfect starter to precede the Palestinian dish Chicken Musakhan, saucy Lamb Meatballs, Chickpeas and Swiss Chard with Yogurt or Moussaka. You can also serve it as part of a vegan mezze, or bring it to a potluck or Friendsgiving.

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Five dishes we can’t wait to dive into this fall

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By Leslie Brenner

Finally, a return to cooking! Earthy, warm flavors, a little roasting, a touch of char: so many things are enticing us back into the kitchen. Here are five dishes we’re excited to revisit this month.

Green Olive, Walnut and Pomegranate Salad

 This Turkish salad, from ‘Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean,’ stole our hearts in early summer, when pomegranates’ season was still three months away — it looked so good, we couldn’t review the book without giving it a try. Now that it’s pomegranate time, we can’t wait to get it back on the table.

Hooni Kim’s Japchae

Stretchy dangmyeon — clear noodles made from sweet potato starch — are the star japchae, a beloved staple of Korean home cooking. We love this version from Hooni Kim’s My Korea. (Kim, chef-owner of Meju and Danji in New York, has been making a huge splash with his year-old Little Banshan Shop.)

The japchae’s springy noodles get tangled in this recipe with spinach, red and green bell peppers, fresh shiitakes and onions in an umamiful sauce scented with sesame. It’s easy to make it vegan and/or gluten-free: Use water or vegan dashi in place of seafood-based dashi to make it vegan, and swap gluten-free tamari for soy sauce to make it gluten-free.

Chicken Musakhan

The national dish of Palestine — chicken roasted with lots of onion, olive oil and spices —  is traditionally made during the olive-pressing season in October. It’s served on flatbread, to soak up all those wonderful juices and olive oil. Sami Tamimi’s rendition, from his outstanding cookbook Falastin, is nothing short of spectacular.

Charred Okra with a Little Spice

 To celebrate okra at the height of their season, toss them in a little olive oil and salt, char them on a stovetop grill or griddle and finish with a drizzle of sambal oelek — Indonesian chile sauce. The result: cocktail snack extraordinaire.

Charred Baby Eggplants from Anjali Pathak’s ‘The Indian Family Kitchen’

Anjali Pathak’s Charred Baby Eggplants

Baby eggplants halved and scored, then roasted or grilled, get a crunchy topping of coconut, mustard seeds, curry leaves and ginger – plus zingy red chiles and dabs of tangy yogurt. From Anjali Pathak’s The Indian Family Kitchen, it’s a winner.

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5 favorite chilled soups — all of them vegetarian or vegan

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Turkish cacik — chilled yogurt and cucumber soup with mint and dill

By Leslie Brenner

When the weather is sizzling hot, there’s nothing like a cold soup to refresh and restore.

Here are my five current faves. Two are vegan (the gazpachos); three are made without even turning on the stove (the gazpachos and the cacik). All are vegetarian. The borscht can also be vegan, if you leave off the sour cream stirred in at the end.

Cacik — Turkish Yogurt and Cucumber Soup

I love the traditional Turkish yogurt-and-cucumber soup known as cacik, first because it’s delicious and simple, but also because it you can make it in no time flat, by hand, without turning on the stove or even plugging anything in. Just whisk some yogurt to smoothness, add cucumber you’ve grated on a box grater, and whisk it together with chopped fresh mint and dill, a little white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Drop an ice cube in each bowl, top with more herbs (if you like) and enjoy.

Making cacik is a decidedly low-tech endeavor.

Gazpacho Sevillano

Have some gorgeous ripe tomatoes? Seville’s classic tomato gazpacho is the play. Its beautiful sherry tang makes it super refreshing.

The Greenest Gazpacho

Easy, herbal and honestly pretty dreamy, this green vegan gazpacho gets body from raw almonds or cashews.

My Mom’s Cold Beet Borscht

This is one of my favorite summer meals — my mom’s recipe. It’s lightly sweet, tangy and transporting.

Chilled Minted Pea Soup

Our Ridiculously Easy Mint Pea Soup — based on a traditional French potage Saint Germain — is normally served hot, as shown above. Leave off the crème fraîche garnish and chill it, and it’s fabulous eaten cold.