Looking for easy different meals

Mrs Bissli

Thu, Apr 16 2015, 12:04 pm

OK, a couple of novice- and kiddie-friendly Sephardi food items for Shabbat.

- Moroccan fish (the easy version): Lay parchment (NOT foil) on casserole and place fish fillets (salmon, white flesh fish) skin side down. Chop finely scallion and/or 1/2 red onion, a quarter of UNWAXED lemon (cheat instead of pickled lemon), several stalks of coriander leaves (cilantro). Mix them into a tub of store-bought matbucha dip. Spread over fish, bake uncovered till fish is cooked, 160-170c for 20-25min. Serve at room temp as a first course. No it's not that spicy, unless you add oil with macerated chili.*

- Roast chicken: make non-spicy spice rub, mixture of turmeric, paprika, cinnamon, black peper (or use Pereg's shwarma spice mix or hawaj). Rub chicken with oil and then with spice mix and let rest for 1hr to overnight. Roast as usual. No it's not spicy. *

- chicken soup: add a dash of turmeric or hawaj for extra flavour. No it's not spicy. *

- Serve rice, or bulgher instead of kugel.

There are others who put recipes for things like carrot salad (either cooked ones with paprika, chopped parsley, lemon vinaigrette, or grated non-sweet ones with parsley, grated orange rind, lemon vinaigrette). Radish (sliced raw or lightly pickled with salt and lemon), beetroot salad (buy pre-cooked vacuum pack or bake your own. Don't buy pickled ones, yuck. add chopped orange, a pinch of cumin seeds, olive oil, salt & pepper).

I'd go easy on hot spicy stuff, just serve harissa or zchug on the side.

(* so many people ask 'is it spicy?' when I tell them it's sephardische dish. just stating not everything is spicy.)

mazal555

Thu, Apr 16 2015, 2:52 pm

Chermola:

Take several cloves of garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, cilantro, hot pepper and blend it in the food processor. Put this on chicken or fish. Bake. Very easy. Not spicy.

You can take this same base and put more pepper (or less, if you don't like spicy) and tomato paste. Blend it until it's smooth. Now you have harissa. Put this on fish on a bed of sliced onions with sliced olives and more cilantro as a garnish. Bake. This is very easy. Fish harami.

Take the same chermola base and add a lot more garlic and some wet bread until it is the consistency of mayonnaise. blend it up. This is scordalya. You can put this on fish or chicken and bake. Or you can use it as a dip.

cheating shokshuka

saute chopped garlic in a lot of olive oil. Add 1 spoon hot pepper and 2 sp paprika. toast the spices and then take it off the fire. Add a pinch of cumin, and salt while the oil is still very hot. Add tomato paste, water, lemon juice, and cilantro and cook the sauce down for about 15 minutes. Then poach the eggs in this and serve over rice. you can garnish it with yoghurt, it's very good.

Super easy cheat matbucha:

take garlic, chopped peppers, chopped tomatoes, cilantro, salt and put it in a pot with a lot of olive oil (like, 1/2 c. per 4 cups of vegetables). Cover and cook on medium high until it looks like matbucha, about 45 minutes. It should be pretty oily. Then, add 1 tsp hot pepper and 1.5 tsp paprika. cook another 10 minutes. This is also good on fish or chicken and also an alternate base for shokshuka.

Chicken and potatoes

roast potatoes cut in cubes with oil, salt, cumin and hot pepper. Rub chicken with a mixture of cumin, allspice, cardamom, hot pepper, and salt. Sprinkle cilantro over it and put sliced onion under it. Roast, then serve over the potatoes.

Yoovesh
fry diced onion in olive oil with chopped garlic. Add meat or chicken and brown it. Add a little hot pepper, salt, and herbs. Add tomatoes and water and cook it down. Add whatever vegetables you have around cut into cubes. Cook some more. Serve over rice. Alternatively, skip the meat and just do it with vegetables and it's vegetable soup.

All of these will be more or less spicy, just put in more or less hot pepper.