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Dry-brine your way to Thanksgiving happiness: Some salt, a bird and a little time is all you need

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By Leslie Brenner

It’s easy. It’s not messy or cumbersome. Besides the bird, only salt is required. Once it’s in the oven, no need to baste. It produces the most perfect, succulent meat and gorgeous, crisp, brown skin. So unless you are one of those brave folks who likes to fry their turkey, why wouldn’t you dry-brine the big bird?

The method — which basically involves rubbing salt all over the turkey and letting it sit for three days — lets time and the salt do all the work for you. It’s a lot less messy and cumbersome than wet-brining, and doesn’t require finding a vessel large enough to submerge a turkey, nor finding a place in the fridge large enough to store that. (A turkey sealed airlessly in a zipper bag takes a lot less space.)

The one important point we are stressing this year is weighing your bird. Last year, we purchased a turkey that was two pounds lighter than labeled. If we hadn’t been paying attention, that could easily have led to an overcooked bird and not enough food — not to mention not getting what we paid for.

When I was growing up, my mom always had — handwritten and taped to the fridge — a turkey roasting timetable, for easy game-day reference. Following the link to the recipes is a timetable for your own easy reference.

The main takeaway: You’ll need to salt the turkey Monday morning, so get your hands on it right way.

Dry-Brined Turkey Timetable

The weekend before Thanksgiving

• Clean out the fridge to make space for the coming week of cooking. It’s a good thing to do pre-holidays in any case.

• Purchase your bird, so you’ll have it ready to salt on Monday morning. Be sure to weigh it once you’re home.

Monday

• If your turkey weighs more than 8 pounds (which most turkeys do), salt it this morning.

Tuesday

• If your turkey weighs 8 pounds of less, salt it this morning.

• If you salted yesterday, turn the bird over.

Wednesday

• Turn the bird over.

Thursday

• Morning: About 6 hours before you plan to roast, remove the turkey from the zipper bag and place it breast-up on a platter or sheet pan in the fridge to air-dry. Blot with a paper towel, if the bird has any visible moisture on the skin (it probably won’t).

• One to 1 1/2 hours before you want to roast, remove the turkey from the fridge and let it starting coming to room temperature.

• 15 minutes before roasting (or however long it takes your oven to heat), heat the oven to 425 F / 218 C. If you’re going to tie the turkey’s legs together, do that now.

• Turkey in — breast-side down on a rack in a roasting pan. The total roasting time for a 12-pound bird will probably be about 2 hours 45 minutes, but could be a lot faster, depending on your oven.

• 30 minutes after it’s in: Remove the pan and use oven mitts to turn the turkey breast-side up. Reduce the oven heat to 325 F / 163 C.

• 1 1/2 hours after flipping: Use an inatant-read thermometer to test the temperature at the thickest part of the thigh meat. If it’s getting close to 165 F / 74 C, you’ll want to check doneness frequently from this point on. (Note: If your bird is smaller than 12 pounds, start checking about 1 hour after flipping.)

• 45 minutes after first temperature check: Your 12-pound should be done, or close to it — pull it out, or keep checking every few minutes. (An 8-pound bird will done much more quickly.) Place on a carving board in a warm place (tented loosely with foil, if you like) to rest.

• 30 minutes after it comes out of the oven, carve and serve!

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The smartest insurance for a perfectly cooked, ample turkey — and getting what you paid for? Weigh that bird!

By Leslie Brenner

Over the next few days, more then 40 million Americans are expected to head to the supermarket and purchase a turkey. How many of those humans will take it on faith that the bird they purchase is the size it’s purported to be? And do they know whether the weight on the label — the weight on which many will base their roasting times — is with or without the neck, giblets bag and plastic holding things in place?

Last year my turkey was more than two pounds lighter than the weight indicated on the label. Good thing I weighed it when I got home, or that bird would have been toast.

The turkey in question — an organic one purchased at Whole Foods — was labeled 11.36 pounds, and that’s what I paid for. Once home, I weighed it: The actual weight was 8 pounds, 12.6 ounces — including all the plastic, the neck and the giblet bag. Weight of the turkey without the neck; in other words, the roast-able, serve-able part? A mere 7 pounds 14 ounces.

Good thing I hadn’t invited the neighborhood!

Meanwhile, weighing it also prevented me from leaving it in the oven too long. Had I timed the roasting as if it were a 10- or 11- pound bird, it would have been seriously overcooked before the instant-read thermometer went anywhere near it. Not even the president could have pardoned that.

Did my mis-labeled bird represent a larger, undiscovered phenomenon? Were other unsuspecting turkey-lovers being overcharged for their birds as well? Imagine 40 million such mistakes in supermarkets’ favor. Or could the packing houses or the turkey processors be the ones cleaning up, selling mis-labeled birds to supermarket chains? Are underweight turkeys something the cooking public needs to be on the alert for. Or was what happened to me simply an innocent, random mistake?

I had to find out, so I snapped photos of the weight on the label, the whole package on my scale (showing the true weight), and the weight of each component. Receipt in hand, I returned to Whole Foods to see the manager, who called over the head of the meat department when I showed her my photos. Bafflement all around — and no offer to refund what I had overpaid. They collected my email address and said someone would contact me from corporate.

Why the weight is important

There are many reasons an accurate weight is important — for any kind of food product. For one thing, you need to get what you’re paying for (pretty basic!).

In the case of a turkey, obviously you need to know that you’ll have enough for your guests. The general rule-of-thumb is one to one and a half pounds of turkey per person (when you’re talking about a whole bird). If I were serving 10 guests and chose what was labeled an 11+ pound bird, that should have been ample. But if it were actually under 8 pounds? Might be a bit sparse — not what you want on Thanksgiving.

Then there’s the prep and cooking. If you dry-brine — that is, salt the bird a few days in advance of roasting for succulent, flavorful meat and crisp, golden skin — you need an accurate weight to know how much salt to rub on.

Whether you have dry-brined, wet brined or not brined at all, the weight will tell you approximately how long the turkey will need to roast. It won’t be anything like exact — oven temperatures very wildly, and most ovens do not heat evenly or maintain even heat during a long stretch. But at least the weight will help you know at what point to start checking on the turkey for doneness.

Using our Cooks Without Borders recipe, a 12-pound turkey usually roasts in about 2 hours and 45 minutes, but I always start checking at about the 2-hour mark, just in case. Miss the mark, start testing too late, and it’ll quickly go from done to dry and overcooked, particularly the breast.

You want the dark meat to reach 165 degrees F / 74 degrees C, but not go beyond that. The white meat will already be a bit more cooked than ideal at that temperature (which is why many cooks spatchcock). I love the presentation of a whole bird, so I live with less-than-perfect white meat. It’s a choice. It’s still delicious. But not if you go must past that dark-meat-is-done point.

The case of the mis-labeled turkey

In an effort to find out how my turkey was mislabeled, my local Whole Foods’ “Meat Team Leader” contacted someone in corporate, and it went all the way up to a District Vice-President, who personally called me, promising to get to the bottom of it and get back to me. I had to point out to him that still, no one had offered to refund what I had overpaid.

He did, and gave me a $25 Whole Foods gift card for my trouble.

He also got back to me, after contacting the processing center, and told me that they thoroughly looked into it, and determined that my mislabeled bird was an isolated incident — there was no systemic problem. Much appreciated, and I hope he’s right. Please weigh your bird.

Ready, set, go!

Today’s the day to purchase your turkey if you’re dry-brining; that way you’ll have it ready to salt Monday morning. (Or you could purchase first thing Monday and get it going by mid-day.) Here’s the recipe, to guide you, along with recipes for savory sides and appetizers.

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It's a semolina granule, it's a dreamy stew, it's a Mahgreb celebration: couscous!

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By Leslie Brenner

To lots of people, couscous is something you buy in a box, add to a pan of boiling water, stir, let sit 5 minutes then fluff with fork. Maybe they’ll zhuzzh it up a bit and call it a side dish.

But couscous can be so much more — as it is in its birthplace, the Maghreb subregion of North Africa.

In countries like Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, couscous is both “grains” of rolled semolina like the ones that come in that box, and a savory meat-and-vegetable stew that’s spooned on top of the grains.

More accurately, those grains are granules. Made from crushed durum wheat (semolina), they are related to pasta, but they’re not exactly pasta. Traditionally they’re made by mixing the durum with water, and rubbing the mixture between your palms into granules. The granules are put through a sieve, and anything small enough to go through has to be rubbed again. It’s very labor-intensive. The granules are then steamed, then dried in the sun.

That’s just the beginning: To serve couscous, it has to be cooked — which involves steaming it several times (traditionally in a dedicated couscous steamer, known as a couscoussier), and spreading it out and rubbing it to separate the granules in-between steamings. After the last steaming, it’s super light and fluffy: the couscous ideal. (Properly prepared couscous is never clumpy or gummy.)

To say couscous is culturally important in the Maghreb is an understatement. “Couscous is considered the most important traditional dish among the Maghreb people,” wrote Oumelkheir Soulimani in a 2020 article in the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development.

The food historian Charles Perry (my former colleague at the Los Angeles Times), wrote about couscous for the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery in 1989. His paper, “Couscous and its Cousins,” points out that in Morocco and Algeria, “the local word for it is sometimes identical to the word for ‘food’ in general.” He concludes that it was the Berbers of northern Algeria and Morocco who first created couscous, sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries.

So the tradition is very old.

(Of course there’s also the pearl couscous that’s popular throughout the Levant — in Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Syria. Those much-larger granules are produced in a similar way, but the aesthetic is very different. That’s another story.)

How is what you buy in the box different than scratch-made semolina rolled between the palms? Soulimani explains that in detail — basically, it’s similar to the artisanal product up to the point where it’s dried.

When you follow the simple instructions on the box, you’re skipping the whole steaming routine that traditionally follows. The couscous tastes fine, but it’s much heavier than the ideal; a box of couscous steamed three times makes twice the volume of one made according to package instructions. And it sits heavy in your belly. That’s why until recently, if I wanted to do couscous right, I’d set up a steamer (I don’t own a couscoussier — pronounced coose-coose-ee-YAY) and spend a couple hours preparing the granules. No, you don’t have to do that to make a great couscous; more on that presently.

Either way, you’re using industrial couscous from the box (or bag, or whatever) — unless, of course, you happen to be in possession of some hand-rolled, sun-dried couscous.

The topper: a festive stew

The stews that go on top are wide-ranging: They can involve lamb, chicken, fish or vegetables, or a combination. Often there’s a sweet element — raisins or caramelized onions, pumpkin or sweet potato; sometimes chicken is brushed with honey. There’s usually cinnamon and saffron, and harissa — which may also be served on the side. Traditionally, fresh country butter (smen or oudi) may be included.

READ: How to make your own Tunisian-style harissa — and why you’ll be thrilled you did.

Since I was a wee twenty-something, I’ve been making a festive rendition inspired by a traditional Moroccan dish: couscous with seven vegetables, in the style of Fes. The seven vegetables are a Berber tradition; they include zucchini, turnips, carrots, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage and pumpkin. The Fes-style couscous also includes chickpeas, raisins and onions, along with chicken and lamb, cilantro, cinnamon, saffron, harissa. The grains get tossed in a lot of butter.

My couscous includes all of the above except for raisins, cabbage and sweet potato; instead of pumpkin, I use delicata squash because it’s easier and (to me) more delicious. I skip the butter on the couscous — I find it’s rich enough without it, as the broth is rich.

Why do I skip some of the vegetables? Only because I first learned to make the dish from a cookbook in the Time-Life “The Good Cook” series. A method more than a recipe (as was the habit in those excellent books), it gave a basic outline — which worked great. Over the years, I’ve evolved it a bit.

Putting it all together

The basic idea is make a broth with cut-up lamb and chicken; chickpeas are included from the start if you’re using dried ones, or toward the end of you’re using canned (either is fine). The broth is flavored with harissa, cinnamon, cilantro, tomato and diced carrots and onion; big chunks of carrot and turnip are added later, followed by zucchini and roasted red pepper strips. Once everything is tender and delicious (what a gorgeous aroma!) and your fluffy couscous is ready, you put the granules on a platter and lay the meats, chickpeas and veg on top, along with roasted delicata squash rounds. Moisten it all with a little broth, and bring it to the table, along with a sauceboat of broth and a dish of harissa.

Recently, a brilliant solution surfaced for the age-old couscous granule quandary of whether to spend hours steaming and rubbing, or take the 5-minute box-instructions shortcut. In her recent cookbook Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean, the renowned author devised a quick-and-easy method that’s a hundred times better than the box-instructions. (Basically, pour on boiling water, stir, wait five minutes, stir again, wait five minute, drizzle on a little olive oil, then rub the grains between your hands to separate the granules and coat with oil. Cover with foil and bake 10 or 15 minutes. Fantastic!)

One day (maybe soon!) I’ll make a proper couscous with seven vegetables in the manner of Fes. And I did get my hands on hand-rolled, sun-dried couscous from Tunisia; Zingerman’s sells it. I, however, have not yet been able to get satisfactory results cooking it according to package directions or using Roden’s method. I’m going to continue working with the product, and if I succeed, that’ll be another story, too.

For now, I invite you to enjoy a couscous that’s always been a favorite among my friends and family — using the familiar couscous in a box and incorporating Roden’s clever hack. Want to make it super-special? Take the time to make homemade harissa. But even if you use harissa from a tube, I think you’ll love this.

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How to make your own Tunisian-syle harissa — and why you'll be thrilled you did

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By Leslie Brenner

Sure, the stuff in the tube is pretty darn good. But there’s nothing like homemade harissa — North Africa’s signature brick-red, aromatic chile paste.

Just ask UNESCO, which granted harissa from Tunisia a place on its “intangible cultural heritage” list last December.

Tunisian-style harissa is incredibly vibrant, velvety and alive, and though only a few ingredients comprise it, it has remarkable depth of flavor.

Given its worldwide popularity, you’d think there’d be recipes for it all over the internet. You’d be wrong: While there are a gazillion recipes using it as an ingredient, there are shockingly few recipes out there — at least on Anglophile and Francophile sites — for making something like the real Tunisian deal at home.

It’s quite simple to make; there are only four basic ingredients: dried chiles, caraway seeds, coriander seeds and garlic. Plus salt, of course, and olive oil to preserve it. All the formulas you might turn up that include things like tomato, cumin, cilantro or lemon juice? Maybe they’re good, maybe they’re not; hard to imagine that they improve upon the Tunisian classic.

It starts with dried chiles. In Tunisia they come from Cap Bon, Kairouan, Sidi Bouzid and Gabes, according to a film that was part of Tunisia’s submission for the UNESCO listing. Other sources mention Nabeul. In the Americas, the closest chiles to those are said to be guajillos and California chiles.

Snip them open with kitchen shears or scissors, shaking out the seeds and removing the stems. Seed removal is important for the best flavor in texture. Leave the seeds in, and you have a harissa that’s punishingly hot. Remove them, and you get incredible chile flavor, minus the fire. Instead of a tiny dab, you can swipe a piece of bread through harissa and relish it. Note that in the video, the woman making harissa from dried chiles shakes out the seeds before grinding them.

Rinse them, then soak them in boiling water for about 30 minutes, so they become soft and pliable. In Tunisia, a manual grinder — like a meat grinder — is traditionally used to grind the chiles. A food processor or blender does the job nicely.

For the spices — caraway and coriander seeds — grind them yourself for the best flavor. Sure, you could use pre-ground spices, but as long as you’re going to the trouble to make harissa, why cut corners?

Throw the spices, the rehydrated chiles, a few garlic cloves, salt and a little olive oil in the processor, and blitz away, until you have a smooth paste. That’s it. You have harissa. Maybe you’ll need to add a little water along the way.

Taste it, and swoon. Use it in a favorite recipe — go ahead, use more than you might if you were squeezing a tube. Stir it into a soup. Slather it on a roasted sweet potato. Or serve it with a tagine or couscous. Ready to store it? Put it in a jar, cover it with olive oil, and your supply will last in the fridge for months.

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Oh, snazzy block of tofu, where have you been all my life?

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By Leslie Brenner

One of the best things I’ve made from Emiko Davies’ charming new book, Gohan: Everyday Japanese Cooking, is what she calls Chilled Dressed Tofu.

It’s a block of tofu dressed as her obaachan (grandmother) used to prepare it for her: with soy sauce, sliced scallions, grated ginger and katsuobushi (shaved bonito). Her innovations are setting it on a shiso leaf, and adding a drizzle of sesame oil. No cooking required. Does it sound simple? It’s spectacular!

It comes together in a flash; really the only work involved is grating a piece of ginger and slicing a scallion. If you have access to a good Japanese supermarket, you should have no trouble finding fresh shiso leaves. But even if you leave off the shiso, the dish is really a treat — unexpectedly sumptuous and luxurious.

Silken (or soft) tofu is nicest for this dish, giving it a custardy, slippery texture. You could also use medium.

For the katsuobushi, any kind you find or have on hand will be fine; the fresher, the better. But if you’d like to make it really special, buy the most premium bonito flakes you can find.

READ: Katsuobushi (bonito flakes) will put a spring in your step and umami on your plate

Premium katsuobushi — dried bonito flakes — can be found at well stocked Japanese markets.

Best of all, if you prepare Japanese food with any kind of frequency, you may well have all the ingredients at hand (except probably the shiso). When the craving strikes, you’re just five minutes away from the treat.

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Kick off soup season with a gingery lentil-and-greens number with turmeric and warm spices

By Leslie Brenner

At long last, it’s soup season! It couldn’t come too soon: For months, I’ve been saving up vegetable trimmings — celery, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, leeks, chard and more, that I’d chop, dice or slice, stash in a zipper bag and freeze. They’re just the thing to toss into a big lentil-based soup.

Depending on the mood of the household, I might push the flavors to lean in a Mediterranean direction— by including fresh thyme or basil, bay leaves, garlic and dried porcini. Or I might go gingery-spicy: lots of freshly ground cumin seed, coriander seed and turmeric. (Have you heard that turmeric has impressive health benefits? A recent study found much to celebrate. Ginger is also great for health.)

Whichever way you go, this soup very easy, eminently adaptable to what you have on hand, and surprisingly quick from start to finish — an hour or so should do it. Plus it’s vegan and gluten-free. What’s not to love?

This morning, with maximum healthfulness and flavor in mind, I went the gingery-spicy route, adding celery to the diced onion and carrot (thereby turning the starting base into mirepoix, as the French call it). I probably doubled the turmeric that went in; I left off the thyme, and added green lentils into the mix with black and red ones. After adding the lentils, I tossed in all those saved-up frozen chopped vegetables from the freezer.

Five minutes before it was done, I tossed in handfuls of arugula, and stirred in some fermented chile sauce a friend made. (Harissa is great, too, or really any chile-happy sauce.)

So warming. So good, and so healthy, satisfying and hearthy. And all in less than an hour on the stove.

The perfect first soup for soup season!

Read more Cooks Without Borders cookbook reviews.

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Cook to feed the world: Buy our $5 e-cookbook, and we'll donate all proceeds to World Central Kitchen

By Leslie Brenner

When it comes to providing relief in the face of humanitarian crises and natural disasters, there’s no organization that does it like World Central Kitchen (WCK), superstar chef José André’s highly effective nonprofit. At the moment, they are on the ground feeding families affected by the conflict in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, the earthquakes in Afghanistan and the refugee crisis in Armenia.

Since our first fundraiser 18 months ago — our Cook for Ukraine Pop-Up — Cooks Without Borders has helped raised more than $10,000 for WCK .

Now we’re launching a fall fundraiser — with the modest goal of raising $1,000 to help feed families between now and the end of November. You can help! Purchase our e-cookbook, 21 Favorite Recipes from Cooks Without Borders. Normally $7, the book is on sale for just $5 per copy; we’ll donate every penny we collect* to WCK.

About World Central Kitchen

Chef Andrés founded World Central Kitchen based on the idea that “when people are hungry, send in cooks. Not tomorrow, today.” The nonprofit organization makes sure there is always a warm meal, an encouraging word, and a helping hand in hard times. 

When disaster strikes, WCK’s Chef Relief Team mobilizes to the front lines with the urgency of now to start cooking and provide meals to people in need. WCK’s resilience work advances human and environmental health, offers access to professional culinary training, creates jobs, and improves food security for the people it serves.

WCK has provided hundreds of millions of fresh, nourishing meals for communities around the world. Your donation today will be used to support its emergency food relief efforts and resilience programs.

Want to do more?

We have set up a fundraising page through World Central Kitchen. Please join me there in making a separate contribution in any amount to help us reach our modest goal of raising $1,000 by the end of November. I’ve kicked off the campaign with my own donation. (Once our e-cookbook purchases start rolling in, I’ll contribute the proceeds through that page, so you’ll be able to see the progress on that front as well.)

Thank you so much for joining me in supporting WCK! Please pass on this pop-up invitation to friends who will want to help feed people in strife around the world.

*45 cents of each e-book purchase will be retained by Stripe for processing. We will donate the full $4.55 we collect on each purchase to WCK.

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Cookbooks We Love: Katie Parla treats us to 'Food of the Italian Islands'

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By Leslie Brenner

Food of the Italian Islands, by Katie Parla, Parla Publishing, 2023, $35

Who doesn’t dream of traveling to a sun-drenched, sea-splashed island in Italy? Now we can treat ourselves to a vicarious experience, jam-packed with its fabulous flavors — thanks to Katie Parla’s new Food of the Italian Islands: Recipes from the Sunbaked Beaches, Coastal Villages, and Rolling Hillsides of Sicily, Sardinia, and Beyond.

Backgrounder

Parla is a Rome-based, New Jersey-raised, ridiculously well educated force of nature — master of everything Italian in food, travel and now publishing (she founded her own publishing house last year). Food of the Italian Islands is her second solo cookbook; her first, published in 2019, was Food of the Italian South. Prior to that she co-authored a gaggle of Italo-centric titles, including Tasting Rome (2016, with Kristina Gill), and American Sfoglino (Evan Funke’s 2019 pasta manifesto). On her own, she’s author of a number of guidebooks (Eating and Drinking in Rome, National Geographic Walking Rome). Food of the Italian Islands is the first title published by Parla Publishing. Going to be in Rome? You can book an eating tour with her through her website — where you can also order a signed copy of her new book. Or should I say “newish” — it was published in March.

Why we love it

Exuberant and fun, its (not-glossy) pages are filled with images of messy-and-delicious-looking food, island life and lots of Parla. Parla wolfing down a sandwich (hands full, mouth full). Colorful produce on the back of a truck. Parla, sunburned nose as red as her short glossy nails, digging into a grilled horse (!) steak with chile and oregano. Sweater-vested nonna serving Parla a spatula-ful of something gooey. Beaming fishmonger in a plastic apron cutting tuna on newspapers. The vibe is the opposite of romanticized: It’s loud, vibrant and bold, like the flavors. You can definitely make food that looks (and tastes) like this.

In fact, the recipes are pretty loose-limbed. They’re the kind of recipes you might make once as written, and then use them as rough guides and just eyeball amounts, doing what feels right.

It’s a great read, too; you learn so much. About the knife-making tradition of Sardinia. How capers are grown and harvested on Pantelleria (the smallest are most prized) — and the fact that the brined leaves are now a thing, one not necessarily appreciated by the locals but apparently delicious. (Yep, there’s a recipe.) How to order a spleen sandwich in Palermo. How and why to make your own rosolio — Sicilian-style infused spirit, a traditional wedding gift.

And about pesto culture. Forget about Genoa — did you know that Sicily is the “pesto capital” of Italy?

Love this pesto — with pistachio and mint

Pesto, Parla reminds us, is any sauce made by mashing ingredients together in a mortar or food processor, usually some kind of herbs, nuts, cheese and olive oil. Tomatoes are added to pestos in Trapani, Pantelleria and Linosa. She provides recipes for all of those — and this one, with pistachios, mint and basil, that has become a “modern classic” in Sicily. It’s wonderful.

Serve it with this salad

On Panatelleria and the Aeolian Islands (just off Sicily), a salad like this — with tomatoes, potatoes, capers, olives, red onions and oregano — is served as a side dish with or after a main course. Simple, zingy and fun, it would be perfect with the pistachio pesto. Or add fabulous canned tuna like ventresca, suggests Parla, and call it a main course.

RECIPE: Insalata Pantesca

So, lots of fish and seafood recipes?

Not as many as you’d think. Because historically islanders were vulnerable to attack and invasion from the sea, they ate more land-based foods, such as pork, lamb, rabbit, goat and beef; preserved fish, such as anchovies, conserved tuna or bottarga (cured mullet or tuna roe); and lots of seasonal vegetables. Not so much poultry — it didn’t become common on the islands until the mid-20th-century.

I definitely want to try Parla’s recipe for Ischia’s famous braised rabbit. Thumbprint Pasta with Tiny Meatballs and Pecorino sounds great, too. I’ll probably skip the Grilled Horse Steak with Chile and Oregano.

Cauliflower steak, on the other hand . . .

I’m all in — this was so good — with lemon, anchovies, bread crumbs, grated cheese and mint. Meaty, sumptuous and umamiful, it’s a fantastic main course. (Parla’s recipe goes rather heavy on the olive oil; second time I made it, I cut it back from 8 tablespoons to 5 and enjoyed it even more.)

You’ve gotta try this

The island of Capri (pronounced CAH-pree, not ca-PREE, as Parla reminds us) is known for its chocolate-and-almond-meal flourless cake. There on the island, they come decorated with powdered sugar shapes representing the faraglione rock formations off its coast, and lettering that says “Caprese” — made using a stencil sold locally. Parla says to go ahead and just dust it all over with powdered sugar. Instead, I ran with the stencil idea, cutting up a parchment round, snowflake-style, laying it over the finished cake and dusting the sugar over that. It worked!

RECIPE: Torta Caprese

Just one small suggestion

It seems odd in the 21st century not to include metric measurements, especially as these are recipes from a country that uses the metric system — and doesn’t everyone use weights for baked goods and homemade pasta anymore? If Parla ever produces a revised edition, I hope she’d consider doing that. Till then, I’ve got you covered — our adaptations of these terrific recipes include both English and metric measurements.

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The dreamiest moussaka, perfect for thrilling a crowd

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By Leslie Brenner

If you’re in a certain Mediterranean mood, there’s nothing more marvelous than a great moussaka. With its layers of potato, eggplant, tomatoey lamb sauce and silky béchamel, Greece’s most famous dish has irresistible appeal.

In fact, when it’s carefully made, moussaka is one of the best dishes in the world. It’s perfect for this time of year, when eggplants are still in peak season and it’s cool enough to finally turn on the oven.

Yet somehow, moussaka has gotten left behind in the universe’s decades-long love affair with Mediterranean food. You don’t find it on restaurant menus much, nor is the internet bursting with outstanding moussaka recipes.

In an attempt to right that wrong, three years ago I set about to explore the origins of the dish and create the best version I could conjure — and came up with what a friend who tasted it called “Moussaka for the Ages.” Fragrant with allspice and cinnamon, it’s at once saucy, bright and rich; the way its creamy crown of béchamel plays with the lamby, saucy layers makes it eminently craveable.

READ: “Moussaka, a spectacular dish with a curious history, gets a magnificent makeover”

It’s great for feeding a crowd. Begin the fun with a big green salad (to keep it simple), or a cold mezze (appetizer spread) if you want to live large (weekend party!). You can build the moussaka ahead of time, stopping at the point where you add the béchamel topping. After that, the final half-hour or so of baking is pretty much hands-off, and it needs to rest 15 minutes after that, so the dish settles and the flavors bloom.

My version is less messy and easier than traditional version, which started with frying potatoes then eggplant. For the eggplant, I go a sheet-pan route, seasoning and drizzling olive oil on thick slices, and roasting them to melty tenderness. This results in a lighter moussaka with a more lovely caramelized eggplant flavor. Slices of potato, which form the base, get parboiled.

The béchamel-and-cheese topping on my moussaka is a little different than traditional versions as well. Lightened with yogurt, it’s brighter and fluffier; grated cheese gives it depth.

Try it this weekend — if you’re not feeding a crew, you can enjoy it reheated for a weeknight dinner or two.

RECIPE: Moussaka for the Ages

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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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Can a zucchini dish be life-changing? Try this endlessly riffable one

By Leslie Brenner

Zucchini can be so perplexing. Is it a great vegetable? Or is it an August requisite that devolves, come September, into a flat-out snooze?

It all depends how you treat it. Grill it to charred, it’s good. Steam it naked, it’s meh. Crank it into zoodles, it’s dumb. Call it courgette, and it’s cool.

After a lifetime of minimal emotional engagement with the squash, I’ve finally — and hopelessly — fallen in love, thanks to a new way I’ve discovered of cooking it to voluptuousness. The technique is simple: Roast it carefully, crush it slightly, drain it briefly, dress it minimally.

The experience of eating it is unlike any other. It’s soft to the point of being almost melty, but the pieces keep their integrity, and the flavor is deep and plush. It’s zucchini mellowed, softened and concentrated, almost sweet.

Want more detail on how to get there? First cut the zucchini into big-bite-size pieces and toss them in olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. Spread them on a sheet pan, cut-side up, then roast it pretty hot, so the flesh softens and the edges brown a bit. Don’t let it get mushy, just soft. Put the pieces in a colander set over a bowl, and gently crush each piece — just a little; you want them to keep their basic shape. Let them sit and drain a few minutes. Dress with torn basil, toasted pine nuts and a sprinkle of Aleppo pepper, and eat.

With richness in mind, resist the urge to add a squeeze of lemon or a spritz of vinegar. You want to keep it soft and velvety — at least the first time, to savor the real, pure, melty thing in all its plushness.

I fell so hard for it the first time, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Contentious meeting at work? Who cared! I was scheming my next zucchini purchase. I wrote about the dish for my newsletter. I served it for dinner, twice in one week. I made it for friends, making twice as much as we’d need, so I could lunch on the leftovers.

Melted zucchini with burrata

Infinite variations

Now I’m starting to recover from the thrill of discovery, and entering a riffing phase. Last weekend, visiting a friend in California, I was torn. She’d read about it in the newsletter, and wanted to try it. I proposed a major spin: roasting some cherry tomatoes with the zucchini, and adding torn burrata on top, then an extra drizzle of olive oil. She voted for just the burrata, hold the tomatoes, and prevailed; it was pretty great.

There are so many other ways to spin it. You could, for instance, swap the burrata for ricotta. I’m still keen to add cherry tomatoes, but suspect the roasting temp and time will be crucial (I’m looking for a little char, and depth of flavor; they mustn’t disintegrate into the dish, but hold their own).

You might add dried mint with the thyme leaves before roasting, and finish with some torn fresh mint leaves. Or keep it as basic as originally written, and simply finish with lemon zest — lemon flavor without going bright with acid.

Or you could push it in a different direction, and umami it up with nuoc cham, a fish-sauce-happy Vietnamese sauce with lime. Thai basil would be great on that, and you could skip the pine nuts.

Garlic-lovers might want to roast a few cloves in their skins with the zucchini, then peel and chop before adding them in at the end. On the other hand (and in a different mood), raw minced garlic at the end could be good, or black garlic for a different umami blast. Or skip the pine nuts and fling on some furikake.

You could drizzle a little good balsamic vinegar over it. Or shave Parmesan or pecorino on top, or ricotta salata. Or you could skip all cheeses and pile on lots of fresh herbs: parsley, cilantro, basil, mint — maybe even a little fresh oregano. You could go wild with za’atar, silly with sumac.

Don’t they all sound great?!

Now, when that lady down the street shows up with a giant bag of her bumper crop needing a home, will you politely decline? Nah, go ahead — indulge in your own zucchini melt-down. You deserve it.

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Carottes Râpées, France’s ubiquitous carrot salad, gets a game-changing upgrade

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By Leslie Brenner

It’s about time carottes râpées got an upgrade. The simple carrot salad, ubiquitous in France, is what French people make when they don’t have anything but carrots in the larder, or their imagination has run dry. Dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe a little Dijon mustard, it has the potential to be delightful. Yet most French people are anything but excited to see it land on the table.

That’s because it’s usually made with a box grater (râpées means “grated”); it’s a salad whose wood-shavings-like texture nearly always drags it down. At least in France it’s not weighed down by raisins and mayo, the way it might be in America; the French do keep it light and savory.

Those who want to take some time and care with it are capable of culinary magic: elevating an ordinary dish to something you might even serve to friends. They take out their sharpest knife and, after peeling the carrots, cut them into fine julienne. That’s what James Oseland suggested in his 2021 book World Food: Paris.

Julienned carottes râpées

And he’s right — it is much nicer.

But cutting carrots into julienne is also a lot of work, even if you use a mandoline.

Recently I found a better way to elevate the dish: Once you’re done peeling the carrots, just keep going — use the peeler to shave the entire carrot into ribbons. Before long, and with little effort, you’ll have a mountain of ribbons. Dress it with the classic combo of lemon and olive oil, snip some chives on top (or parsley, or chervil, or dill) and you’re good to go. The ribbons give the salad lovely texture. Add some nigella seeds or poppy seeds if you want to give it a little more dimension. But only if you want to. The ribbon treatment alone makes it really nice.

It’s that little bit of culinary magic: You’ve turned the dish into a plate of tangy, fresh, bright, ribbony delightfulness.

And you didn’t have to turn on the stove.

RECIPE: Carottes Râpées, Ribbon-Style

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Summer of Ceviche: How to create an alluringly spicy-cool and balanced aguachile, vegan or otherwise

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By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This is Part 3 of a multi-part series. Here are Part 1 and Part 2.]

In the hands of an able chef, aguachile — northwest Mexico’s take on ceviche — can be so enticing. Yet try a recipe pulled off the internet, even from one of the most trustworthy cooking sites, and chances are it will be so acidic it scrapes the enamel off your teeth, and so chile-hot, you can’t eat more than one bite.

A recipe on one of those respected sites starts by blending three stemmed and seeded serranos with 3/4 cup straight lime juice and salt; two more serranos (plus some ground pequins) are added later.

What’s wrong with that?

The chiles, for starters. Five? Why not 10? The resulting aguachile may well be inedible either way.

That’s because all serranos are not created anything like equal. They can range in length from about one to four inches, and in Scoville heat from 10,000 to 25,000 units. One serrano can be powerfully spicy. Or relatively mild. So calling for a specific number of them without providing opportunities to taste and adjust is absolute folly.

All serranos are not created equal!

Much smarter is to start with a small amount of serrano, then gradually add more, if needed. That way you won’t wind up wishing you could subtract. Our recipe lets you do that.

RECIPE: Hearts of Palm Aguachile

Then there’s the lime juice. As we explained in Part 1 of this series, lime juice’s acid needs to be tamed to make a good ceviche, one that’s not harsh and twangy. That is, it needs to be diluted with a measure of something less acidic — orange juice, water, coconut water or something else.

READ: Summer of Ceviche Part 1

But wait — what exactly is an aguachile, anyway?

Let’s back up and talk about what makes an aguachile an aguachile, and how they’ve been evolving.

In Sinaloa, their birthplace, traditional aguachiles are shrimp ceviches spiked with wild chiltepín chiles; their sauce is a suspension of chiles in water — hence the name, which means “chile water.” Michael Snyder wrote an excellent piece about them for Eater a couple years ago.

The dish has captured the imaginations of chefs and other cooks far beyond Sinaloa. While shrimp versions are popular wherever aguachiles are found, as the dish has evolved, all kinds of seafood are getting the aguachile treatment. In Mexico City, chef Gabriela Cámara has two octopus aguachiles on her menu at Contramar — one green, the other red. Stateside, the Los Angeles restaurant Holbox has one starring Baja bay scallops. In New York City, Enrique Olvera’s Cosme offers one with hiramasa (amberjack), along with rhubarb and shiso.

In Dallas, where I live, Molino Olōyō chef and co-owner Olivia Lopez (who is also Cooks Without Borders’ Mexican Cuisine expert) has featured fluke in a spectacular aguachile with watermelon, green habanero and coriander at a couple of recent pop-up dinners, and kampachi with peaches in one at a recent take-out pop-up.

But aguachile is not just for seafood: There’s a beef aguachile on the menu at El Carlos Elegante (my favorite Mexican place to bring out-of-town visitors), and I recently enjoyed a Wagyu steak aguachile at a delightful Tex-Mex spot, Las Palmas.

And in the hands of careful chefs, deliciousness is the goal, not creating something so searingly spiced that only chile daredevils will enjoy it.

An aguachile for vegans

Aguachiles made with hearts of palm — palmitos in Spanish — have been popping up all over the internet. Made well and balanced properly, they can be wonderful: The texture of the hearts of palm almost mimics scallops or halibut. Adding slices of avocado adds richness. The best ones are not just great vegan aguachiles, but great aguachiles.

Unfortunately, as with seafood aguachiles, far too many of the palmito versions call for a lot of straight lime juice, and a stupidly precise number of chiles — four on that same respected cooking site that used five in the seafood aguachile. If you used four of the serranos currently residing in my fridge, the result would be inedible.

Our palmito aguachile recipe takes a soft approach — and its sauce is so delicious, you may want to drink it from the plate. We start with two parts coconut water, one part lime juice and a handful of cilantro, add a little salt and blitz it with one-quarter of one seeded serrano. Yep, just one quarter!

Taste it. If it’s spicy enough, you’re good to proceed. Want more heat? Add more serrano and blitz again. Repeat until you’re happy. The sauce has lovely body thanks to the cilantro; and it’s visually appealing, to boot. As you can see on the photo at the top of the story, the chile and herbs are suspended in the clear liquid. It looks the part of aguachile.

Next you arrange sliced hearts of palm on a platter with radishes, sliced avocado and ribbons of cucumber; slivers of red onion that have soaked in water to soften their flavor are nice in there as well. Pour the sauce over, and garnish with some chile threads, if you like.

But don’t feel like you need to go vegan with this sauce; it works well as an all-purpose aguachile bath. Substitute quickly blanched shrimp for the hearts of palm, and it’s differently delicious. Or use both palmitos and shrimp. Or skip the palmitos and use thinly sliced sea bass or other white fish, letting it “cook” about five minutes in the sauce before serving. The world is your oyster.

And yes — you could use oysters!

Whatever you use, tostadas make a nice accompaniment.

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Recipe for Today: Nectarine Sorbet

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By Leslie Brenner

All of a sudden, we’re in the height of stone fruit season, and nectarines have been spectacular. This simple sorbet — adapted from a recipe in The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz — is fabulous on its own, and even more special with dropped into glasses of red wine.

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Recipe for Today: Chilled Oroshi Soba

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By Leslie Brenner

There’s an unforgettable flavor and a soothing, cooling ritual I inevitably crave when temperatures soar: oroshi soba. That’s the name for the traditional Japanese dish of cold buckwheat noodles served with grated daikon and tsuyu, a savory chilled dipping sauce. Often served on a basket or a mat, it’s a humble dish, but it’s one of my favorites in the world.

Here’s the recipe:

Recipe for Today: Ottolenghi's Stuffed Zucchini with Pine Nut Salsa

By Leslie Brenner

This beautiful zucchini dish, adapted from a recipe in Ottolenghi Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi, was the most-viewed recipe at Cooks Without Borders last summer, by far.

The summer squash-boats are filled with a rich, savory stuffing that combines bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, egg, garlic and squished cherry tomatoes with zucchini flesh. Next they’re roasted, then topped with an unusual salsa starring a lot of fresh, finely chopped oregano plus lemon and pine nuts.

Make it once, and you’ll probably be hooked.

RECIPE: Ottolenghi’s Stuffed Zucchini with Pine Nut Salsa

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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.

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Cookbooks We Love: 'Claudia Roden's Mediterranean' is one of the revered author's greatest volumes

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By Leslie Brenner

Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean: Treasured Recipes from a Lifetime of Travel, by Claudia Roden, Ten Speed Press, 2021, $40

Somehow, Claudia Roden’s latest cookbook — reprising her cooking life and travels over the last three and a half decades — was passed over last year from the major cookbook awards. It’s hard to understand why, as Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean is one of the revered cookbook author’s very best collections.

Backgrounder

Born in Cairo, Egypt to Jewish-Syrian parents, and now based in London, 87-year-old Roden has made a brilliant career of studying and writing about the foods of the Middle East and Mediterranean. Her 2011 title, The Food of Spain — a 609-page magnum opus — won first prize for International Cookbooks by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Her 1968 book, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, was updated 32 years later, then inducted in 2010 in the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame. In 1997, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York won the James Beard Award for Cookbook of the Year.

Want a behind-the-scenes peek at how this cookbook review came to be? Become a paid subscriber to my weekly newsletter — preview the post, and get a free 7-day trial subscription.

To put together her latest book, Roden looked back at her travels all around the Mediterranean over the last thirty-five years — since her three children left home. Arriving in Alexandria at the start of the adventure, she was exhilarated to find the “city of freedom and pleasure” she remembered from childhood. “You felt the exuberant lighthearted mood in the cafés along the seafront,” she writes in the introduction. “Italian, Greek and French were spoken on the street. The city was part of another world, one to which Marseille and Barcelona, Genoa, Athens and Algiers, Beirut and Tangier also belonged.” That revelation sent her into a decades-long search of that spirit again, and this book is the result.

When the book was published in November, 2021, Melissa Clark visited Roden at her home in London to interview her for a profile — one that’s a must-read if you’re a Roden fan.

Why We Love It

Easy, breezy and relaxed, Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean is filled with recipes that feel like the way Roden might cook at home; her personality comes through in this book much more vividly than in her earlier ones. Many of the recipes serve two people (and are easy to scale up), perfect for weeknight dinners that pack maximum deliciousness into minimum effort. Others are ideal for laid-back entertaining.

When I close my eyes and open the volume, I can almost be sure to be looking at something I want to make: Eggplants with Pomegranate Dressing and Yogurt Sauce. Bullinada (a Catalan fish stew enriched with mayo). Stuffed Peppers with Breadcrumbs, Anchovies, Olives and Capers. Chicken and Onion “Pies” with Moroccan Flavors. Tagliolini with Lemon. Hazelnut Cake with Chocolate Ganache. Those are literally random page-opens.

I’m excited to write about the book now, because so many of its recipes are perfect for summer.

Fennel, Peach and Goat Cheese Salad

Case in point: a graceful salad of thin-sliced fennel tossed with fresh peaches, cucumber and goat cheese — summer on a plate.

Delay This Gratification — or Not!

This gorgeous Green Olive, Walnut and Pomegranate Salad, will be perfect come fall, but I loved it so much I couldn’t leave it out of this review. It’s a specialty of Gaziantep, a Turkish city on the border with Syria.

Should you decide to make it right away, I won’t blame you — it’s wonderfully tangy, thanks to pomegranate molasses, with earthy walnuts for crunch and a lot of parsley and scallions.

Beguiling Turkish Yogurt Soup with Chickpeas and Orzo

Also from Gaziantep is this quickly put-together chickpea and yogurt soup, enriched with an egg yolk; Roden writes in her headnote that she was charmed by at at a dinner in Istanbul to celebrate Gaziantep’s adoption by UNESCO as a Creative City for its gastronomy.

Canned chickpeas make it a breeze to assemble — perfect for weekday lunch or easy dinner.

My New Favorite Dish

Saucy, garlicky, lusty and hassle-free, this chicken dish with green olives and boiled lemons was the first thing I made from the book, and I’ve made it three more times since — it’s that good.

In her headnote, Roden writes that it was inspired by “the sharp lemony flavors of one of the most famous Moroccan tagines.” Sized for eight, and ideal for relaxed entertaining, as you assemble it in a snap, then shove it in the oven and forget about it while it bakes for an hour.

Serve it with couscous. Roden offers a brilliant hack for giving it the light, fluffy texture of the grains made traditionally, steamed two or three times in a couscoussier, but with minimum hassle.

RECIPE: Claudia Roden’s Chicken with Olives and Lemon

Only One Miss

Only one recipe I tested (there were three more) was one I wouldn’t make again: A muhammara (walnut and roasted pepper dip) had the wrong texture — it was runny rather than a thick paste — and it was overwhelmed by too much pomegranate molasses. (Nothing, of course, that a few tweaks wouldn’t fix.)

On the other hand, I loved a Spanish dish of alubias con almejas — clams with white beans. And also garlicky pan-fried fish with with Sherry vinegar and Aleppo pepper. Both are sized for two.

Meanwhile, there are so many things I still want to try. A slow-roasted shoulder of lamb with couscous, dates and almonds. A potato salad with green olive tapenade. Almond pudding with apricot compote. Maybe that last one this weekend — after all, it’s apricot season.

If you love Mediterranean flavors, may this book land in your kitchen soon.

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Recipe for Today: Som Tam (Thai Green Papaya Salad)

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By Leslie Brenner

When I’m craving something tangy and fresh, there’s nothing that satisfies like som tam — Thai green papaya salad.

This version, adapted from Leela Punyaratabandu’s wonderful Simple Thai Food, not only satisfies that craving spectacularly; it’s also a great introduction to Thai cooking. It may even make you feel like a star. Keep your eyes open for green papayas — this is a dish will tang up your entire summer.

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Summer of ceviche: Two ways to let umami take your ceviches to the next level

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Snapper Ceviche with Dashi and Seaweed

By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a multi-part series. Here’s Part 1.]

If you’ve eaten ceviche in Peru, or dined anywhere in the world with a serious ceviche program, you’ve probably heard of leche de tigre — “tiger’s milk.” A marinade and sauce that can also be sipped after you’re done eating the ceviche, it’s one of the most delicious tricks up the sleeves of the Peruvian ceviche masters — Peruvians even spike it with pisco (Peru’s national liquor) and drink it as a cocktail.

Leche de tigre is brilliant for introducing umami into a ceviche, while at the same time smoothing out the harsh acid of the lime juice. You’ll see it as an ingredient in many ceviche recipes, along with a sub-recipe, as it’s not something you can buy: It’s fish broth combined with lime juice, fish trimmings and cilantro, maybe garlic and/or chile. Perhaps some red onion, which is also used in the fish broth. Oh, yes — first you’ll need a recipe for fish broth. And in order to make fish broth, you’ll need fish frames and heads.

In other words, most home cooks will skip that recipe.

It’s easy to see how restaurants can manage to make fish broth for leche de tigre; they can start their ceviches from whole fish and use those heads and frames for big batches of broth. But for most of us at home, part of the appeal of ceviche is that it’s not just fresh, cool and expressive, but also relatively quick and easy.

So how to add umami into the equation without going to all that trouble? Two interesting — and very different — ways to go are dashi or tomatoes.

Ingredients for dashi (kombu and katsuobushi, or dried bonito flakes), and the finished stock

A Japanese touch

I thought about dashi, the simple, easy-to-make stock that’s the foundation of Japanese cooking, because it’s packed with umami, redolent of the sea, and quick and easy to make. In fact, it only involves two ingredients besides water: kombu (a type of seaweed) and bonito flakes. You can keep both on hand in the pantry, and it only takes 10 or 15 minutes for a batch. You can freeze the leftover dashi, or use it later to make a quick miso soup.

Dashi as a ceviche ingredient makes sense culturally, because there’s a strong Japanese influence in Peruvian cooking — known as cocina nikkei — thanks to Japanese immigration to Peru beginning in the late 19th century. And dashi’s ingredients — seaweed and bonito — are both found in Peru’s Pacific.

While I’ve seen various ceviches that use Japanese ingredients — including shaved bonito (or katsuobushi) as a garnish — I haven’t seen any recipes that use dashi in the marinade.

It works beautifully, imparting a gentle sea-kissed umami to the fish. I chose red snapper from the Gulf of Mexico for this ceviche because that’s what looked beautiful that day, but you could use sea bass, or any firm-fleshed white fish. Wakame seaweed and cucumbers play nicely with the fish, and you can finish it with furikake — the Japanese condiment that includes sesame seeds, salt, red pepper and nori seaweed.

Tomato power

Taking advantage of tomatoes’ awesome umami power feels just right for the season. Sure, you can dice tomatoes and toss them in with whatever fish or seafood you’re using, or use halved cherry tomatoes, which also add pretty color. But why not include some puréed tomato in the marinade?

In Central Ecuador, there is a tradition of including puréed tomatoes in the marinade for a ceviche of blanched shrimp.

Here I poached the shrimp in a quick broth made from their shells, along with cilantro and red onion. I strained the broth, combined it with chopped tomato, lime juice, salt and arbol chile, then blitzed it for the marinade/sauce. Slivers of red onion and sliced cucumbers garnished the ceviche — which I served with tostadas. (In Ecuador, it would be more likely to be served with plaintain chips, but the tostadas are really nice.)

The sauce, meanwhile, is so delicious my husband and I drank every drop.

RECIPE: Ecuador-Inspired Shrimp Ceviche

Finally, here’s an easy raw-fish ceviche that requires no cooking except zapping an ear of corn in the microwave for 60 seconds (or giving it a quick dunk in boiling water). Starring tomatoes, avocado, yellow bell pepper, scallions, cilantro and barely-cooked corn kernels, it’s a full-on celebration of summer. The tomato takes two forms: It’s puréed in the marinade as well as diced with the other garnishes.

This time it was rockfish that spoke to me from the fish case: it was fresh and gorgeous. Snapper or sea bass would be fabulous, too; choose what looks most appealing.

RECIPE: Rockfish Ceviche with Tomato and Corn

Note about the safety of raw fish

FDA guidelines stipulate that any fish other than tuna species (including bigeye, yellowfin, bonito/skipjack and bluefin) and farmed salmon must be frozen before it’s safe to consume raw; freezing it kills any possible parasites. However, as this excellent Serious Eats article explains, the risk of infection from raw fish is very low. Personally, I would never eat raw farmed salmon, because of well documented problems in their feed (and I don’t like their flavor.) The phrase “sushi-grade” is meaningless. If you’re nervous about the safety of eating raw fish, it’s best to choose something that’s been frozen.

READ: Summer of Ceviche, Part 3

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