Appeasing the god of small things: Christmas Eve

There’s been a bit of snow in Europe this week, which has seriously disrupted travel for many. As one of those whose flight was cancelled and re-booked for a later date I was part of a small group of friends ‘stranded’ in Cairo. Last Sunday and Monday the weather remained bad and it was uncertain if any of us would be able to get to our various destinations in time for Christmas so we planned to have a Christmas Day of ‘the left behind’. My contribution would be a Christmas pudding: this would give me something to do other than fret about getting to London to see family, buy yet more presents and catch up on work. It’s very difficult to settle to anything very productive when you are in a jittery, restless, waiting state but cooking is a therapeutic activity.

A pudding basin and steamer were essential pieces of equipment and I did manage to find a bowl of roughly pudding shape. No steamer though, so I had to make one from a tin tray (pierced with holes) and lots of tin foil. I had to substitute some of the ingredients too, mostly the dried fruit: lots more sultanas than the recipe, plus prunes and dates; for the candied peel, a dollop of marmalade.

By Wednesday it seemed that we all might be able to go: the weather had improved dramatically and airlines and airports were tackling the backlog of travellers. Should I continue with the Christmas pudding? Would there be any point? The ingredients I’d assembled so far (fruit marinading in brandy - shown in the photo) could be made into something else (mince for mince pies). However, when I voiced this idea at the bar (where ‘the left behind’ have been meeting on a daily basis to stay sane) the answer was a resounding NO! I couldn’t abandon the pudding now as it would jinx everything, tempt fate, Nature and the gods. Worse, human arrogance could provoke them! I agreed readily. We all felt the same, which says something about human nature, superstition and a deep, primitive desire to somehow control the uncontrollable.

So, the pudding is made, complete with brandy and a 25 piastre piece (instead of a sixpence). ‘The left behind’ has been dwindling and now, with two friends flying in less than an hour, I am the last, ‘the final left behind’. I’m due to fly this afternoon and hoping that I’ve done enough to appease the god of small things so that it all goes well. Wish me luck, cross your fingers, offer up a prayer, whatever works for you, as I would really like to see my family this Christmas!

The pudding recipe

Ingredients:

• Serves 8 - 10
• 1lb /450g dried mixed fruit (use golden raisins/sultanas, raisins, currants)
• 1 oz /25 g mixed candied peel, finely chopped
• 1 small cooking apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped
• Grated zest and juice ½ large orange and ½ lemon
• 4 tbsp brandy, plus a little extra for soaking at the end
• 2 oz /55 g self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 level tsp ground mixed spice
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 oz /110 g shredded suet, beef or vegetarian
• 4oz /110g soft, dark brown sugar
• 4 oz /110 g white fresh bread crumbs
• 1 oz /25 g whole shelled almonds, roughly chopped
• 2 large eggs

Preparation:

• Lightly butter a 2 ½ pint/1.4 litre pudding basin.
• Place the dried fruits, candied peel, apple, orange and lemon juice into a large mixing bowl. Add the brandy and stir well. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave to marinate for a couple of hours, preferably overnight.
• Stir together the flour, mixed spice and cinnamon in a very large mixing bowl. Add the suet, sugar, lemon and orange zest, bread crumbs, nuts and stir again until all the ingredients are well mixed. Finally add the marinaded dried fruits and stir again.
• Beat the eggs lightly in a small bowl then stir quickly into the dry ingredients. The mixture should have a fairly soft consistency.
• Now is the time to gather the family for tradition of taking turns in stirring, making a wish and adding a few coins.
• Spoon the mixture in to the greased pudding basin, gently pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon. Cover with a double layer of greaseproof paper or baking parchment, then a layer of aluminum foil and tie securely with string.
• Place the pudding in a steamer set over a saucepan of simmering water and steam the pudding for 7 hours. Make sure you check the water level frequently so it never boils dry. The pudding should be a deep brown color when cooked. The pudding is not a light cake but instead is a dark, sticky and dense sponge.
• Remove the pudding from the steamer, cool completely. Remove the paper, prick the pudding with a skewer and pour in a little extra brandy. Cover with fresh greaseproof paper and retie with string. Store in a cool dry place until Christmas day. Note: The pudding cannot be eaten immediately, it really does need to be stored and rested then reheated on Christmas Day. Eating the pudding immediately after cooking will cause it to collapse and the flavours will not have had time to mature.
• On Christmas day reheat the pudding by steaming again for about an hour.

You shouldn’t play with your food!!

Looking for recipes online, as I often do, I’m amazed (and grateful) at the variety that’s available for every single thing you could possibly want to cook. Usually – a lifetime’s habit – I opt for the easy recipes. I’ve found that the complicated versions of many a standard recipe, where the results were meant to be special, were often not! Sometimes recipes are over complicated, and cooks/chefs seem to be in a kind of competition to be the most innovative and, though I don’t doubt that this produces some delicious results, it has the effect of taking us away from the simple, but still so good, dishes. This can make you feel that the simple is simply not good enough and that you have to change and add.

Some food is so special and delicious in its natural state that it’s ‘gilding the lily’ to add too much to it. I’m reminded of France: a friend made a dish of oysters grilled with a cheese and cream sauce. It looked spectacular but the French guests were bemused (and some were devastated). How could anyone play around with this wonderful shellfish? It was already a miracle of nature, with its rough, grey outer shell contrasting with the gleaming, smooth interior; it needed no other form to present it. The mouthful that tasted of the depths of the sea - salty, clean, refreshing - needed only the addition of a squeeze of lemon to enhance the flavour: anything more was too much.

Today, I bought far too much fruit from the stall outside my apartment. I was only going to buy bananas but as I arrived so did an ancient car laden with fruit and vegetables. Two farmers unloaded boxes, bags and crates of beautiful, fresh produce so I couldn’t resist! Of course, afterwards I wondered how I could possibly eat it all while it was still fresh. Well, I couldn’t, so decided to share it – this would be my contribution to a brunch I’d been invited to. In my kitchen trying to decide what to make, I regarded the fruit. It really didn’t need anything added: it was perfect as it was. All I needed to do was put it together in a fruit salad – so simple, yet so delicious.

I don’t think I need to tell anyone the recipe for this one (any fresh fruit will do!) except to say that the fruit is in freshly squeezed lemon and satsuma juice.

Stuffing (your face) for Thanksgiving

A proud, American tradition is Thanksgiving. It's a time when all Americans - regardless of race, religion, or creed; gather with their families to give thanks for their freedoms, the food on their table, and whatever else they have to be thankful for.

The centerpiece of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner is the turkey. People have their turkey preferences: brined, grilled, smoked, and even deep fried. Me, however, I'm a traditionalist. I like my turkey roasted in the oven, basted regularly with salted butter, and stuffed to the gills with what one of my guests this year deemed "Baltimore Stuffing".

"Baltimore Stuffing" is the way my grandparents, great aunts, and mother always made stuffing on Thanksgiving and Christmas. As a child, it was the only hand I had in cooking for the family- all year. I've adjusted the recipe slightly to make it a bit 'spicier' - but at its heart, Baltimore Stuffing is a thing of moist simplicity and a welcome addition to any table.

You start with stale white loaf bread. I do not use very stale bread, just still-slightly squishy sliced white bread loaf that is a few days old (not moldy!). You tear up (just rip it into smallish pieces) two loaves of the stuff into a very, very large bowl.

Add two bunches of celery, chopped, and two medium sized onions, chopped. Stir with your hands by sort of folding and tossing.

Add herbs. LOTS. I use the following dried herbs: basil, oregano, tarragon, Paul Prudhomme's Poultry Seasoning, regular poultry seasoning, rosemary, and fresh ground pepper. Again, stir with your hands so the herbs are evenly distributed. You will notice the bread start to crumble a bit IT SHOULD this is a good thing. Taste it - spicy enough? no? add some more PPPS and pepper, and taste again.

Shove ALL OF IT deeply in to the bird's 'cavity' with your hand. (AFTER you have removed the giblet bag; cooking my first Turkey in Guatemala, I only remembered about the plastic bag of giblets after I started cooking the bird, and had to take all the stuffing out and start over!) Seem to be filling up? Squish it down in there further and put more in. Almost all of it will fit. Whatever does not fit should go under the flap of fatty skin on the front of the bird. The stuffing will be showing out the back - that's ok! It will get the benefit of baking juices as you baste your bird.

When you remove the turkey from the oven (remember, stuffed birds take much longer to cook than empty birds, so be sure to use a meat thermometer to check the temp) the stuffing comes out first. Use a spoon to remove it - it will be VERY HOT. As you carve the bird, you will discover more stuffing deeper in the bird. This is the tastier stuffing, trust me. You are not likely to get all of the stuffing out until the bird is down to the bones.

In this picture, you can see the layer of stuffing in the front of the bird after cooking:


Cover the stuffing with aluminum foil as soon as it is out of the bird if not being served immediately to keep the stuffing moist. Dried out stuffing belongs on no one's table!

Enjoy, give thanks, and eat up!

Fada Finds Fondue…fabulous!

This has been a busy year! I moved house in February and suddenly found that I had nothing to cook with as Egyptians take everything from a place when they leave: the kitchen was bare, with just an outlet to attach a gas cooker and a pipe in the wall where a sink should be. Deciding that this was an opportunity to be inventive rather than an excuse to simply order take-aways, I invested in a trivet and began making chocolate fondue. I could have made savoury versions but grilled chicken and fish are cheap and available five minutes from my apartment so it was the sweet course that was missing when I had guests.

Chocolate fondue is just so easy and so delicious! It’s also wonderfully sociable – everyone loves it because they get a chance to join in the ‘cooking’. Because everyone chooses what to dip (and what size and in what order and with how much chocolate) no one is disappointed. And, it’s fun! There are cries of,’Oh no, I’ve lost my mango…mmm, but I’ve found a marshmallow!’ ‘Hey! That’s mine!’.

Chocolate Fondue

About 200 ml of runny cream (whipping or single)

About 200 grams of chocolate broken into pieces (can be any kind, dark or milk)

Some drops of vanilla essence or a small sachet of powder

Slowly heat the cream in a sturdy saucepan and add the chocolate pieces and vanilla. You can start this off on your stove if you like (using a ‘bain marie’ to heat even more slowly if you prefer – big pan of simmering water with a smaller pan inside it with the ingredients).

Serve with marshmallows and any kind of fruit – it’s all delicious!

Saronic Cheese Melt

Heba here! I've been off the blog a while, creating food memories all over the world - Thailand, Italy, America; and now Greece. Many restaurants, textures, flavors and memories to write about when, and if, I find the time.

I am currently sitting on the balcony of a picturesque hotel on the isle of Hydra in the Saronic Islands of Greece. The dark clouds of early morning are breaking to a beautiful blue sky. Last night's appetizer so enthralled me that I have to write about it before I set off this morning, as there is no photograph, only the imprint of flavors and textures left behind on my palate.

The reason there is no photograph is the plate looked like an unappetizing hot mess.

First, let me set the scene. A quiet, nearly deserted alleyway (tourist season ends this week, and few people beyond the locals are about) mom-and-pop restaurant with dark blue painted furniture on a raised stone porch. Much of the menu is unavailable because, as I mentioned, the tourists are all gone and only one other family would sit down at the restaurant in the hour or so we were there.

The menu plied me with a description of "Feta with peppers and tomatoes." I've had feta with peppers and tomatoes in Greece before. It was perfectly delicious and looked like this:




When my feta was delivered, what I got was so much more than a block of feta in tinfoil.

Presented me was a round baking dish fresh out of the oven, brimming with bubbling creamy tomato sauce. In the center, I could see a mound of melted cheese with just the tip of a roasted red pepper sticking out.

It did not look like feta. In fact, it looked like rustic lasagna, the kind I like to order from my neighborhood Italian place in Cairo.

The layer of flavors and textures emerged when I first dug my fork in. On the very top of the dish was a sprinkling of parmesan that I hadn't seen in the dim porch lighting. It was sprinkled on mozzarella, which was hiding a quarter of a roasted red pepper that was draped across a large block of hot feta that had still some of it's feta-y texture, despite having been baked in tomato sauce.

The rich creaminess of the sauce, the surprise bite-sized pieces of green pepper that hid deep within it, and the mixture of parm, molten mozzarella, and feta created a flavor sensation of that a cheese lover like me cannot describe without getting a bit weepy.

I may never get back to Hydra, I may never get back to that little mom-and-pop (which if you are here and looking, is next to Amalour bar, though I couldn't read the name of the restaurant as it was in Greek), but I'll remember the layers of cheeses I never thought would go together and try to recreate it for years. I know I'll never succeed, however I try, because it wasn't just the meal, it was the journey.

More of Fada's Veggie Love: Artichokes

Vegetables are like people. Some are friendly and familiar: like potatoes and carrots, you always feel comfortable around them and know what to do with them. Some you can only take in small doses, like chili peppers and horseradish. Some are essential for your well being and are with you all the time, like onions and garlic. There are the ones you don't get on with at all: beetroot for me. Then there are the awkward ones: artichokes are like that, but don't be afraid of them! They're delicious characters once you get to know them! I love them because they have a nuttiness of flavour and seem a vegetable of substance (like aubergines, potatoes or avocados).

Unfamiliar and strange looking vegetables can be daunting when you don't know anything about them: artichokes fall into that category for me as I don't think I even knew they existed till I was about 25. How do you cook them? How exactly do you eat them and which bits?


Firstly, you choose as many artichokes as will fit in a pot standing upright as this is how they will be boiled. Soak the artichokes in salt water before cooking as I've been told that sometimes insects hide in between the leaves though I can't remember ever finding any. Give them a good rinse and add, standing up, to boiling water. They take about 20-25 minutes to cook and you can tell when they're done by sticking a knife into them - the knife will go in easily. You can eat them hot in which case you serve them with melted butter and salt (added to the butter) or, you can let them go cold, and serve with a vinaigrette or add to other salads.

So, how do you eat them? Well, from the outside in...tear off the leaves, dip the tips into a salted butter sauce and scrape off the fleshy ends of leaves with your teeth. Delicious! Once all the leaves are off, you'll be faced with the 'choke' - a fibrous, hairy mass protecting the 'heart' - the tender, delicious base of the plant. Very young artichokes have no 'heart' and so you can eat all the middle bit. Older ones have a lot of 'heart' so you have to take it out with a teaspoon/fingers/a knife. Something here seems metaphorical...

Heba's Meat Sauce

A little contrast to Fada's Ode to Veg...

As a child, my mother was a big believer in the power of the grill. London Broil, the occasional Filet Mignon, BBQ Chicken, Rockfish - nary a week went by during the warmer months that one of these tasty treats was not served up direct from the grill. The charred-on-the-edges piece of meat was typically delicious with a slight crunch on the outside and a delicate pinkness to the middle (I was a big fan of ‘medium rare’ as a kid) and was welcome even in my years of dedication to and worship of Chinese take-out and pizza delivery.

After I left the nest, however, I couldn’t quite get red meat to do that; mostly because I didn’t have a grill. But even when a grilling option presented itself, I still just didn’t enjoy red meat as much. A rare prime rib at Nye’s Polonaise in St. Paul, Minnesota was a nostalgic treat from my days tagging along to grown-up functions at rental halls with my grandmother and great aunt. It was juicy, savory, and the kitsch factor was fantastic - but it wasn’t what I wanted from red meat, exactly. (BTW, if you are EVER in Minnesota - you MUST go to Nye’s - best night out of polka/kareoke/vintage-style dinner/tiki-ness I’ve ever had!) In Paris, I ordered a lovely something-meaty-in-peppercorn-sauce but felt that the meal just tasted like...well, peppercorn. In fact, even the frites that came with the meal ended up tasting of peppercorn (not exactly what I was hoping for after a day spent scaling the narrow stairwell of the Sacre Coeur). In Mainz, Germany, I enjoyed the garlic-butter concoction that was served with every kind of meat - it was tasty and artery clogging just like meat should be; but couldn’t meat be better than this?

My home experiments with red meat were even worse. Beyond adding a packet of Old El Paso taco seasoning (still my taco seasoning of choice) to ground beef - I couldn’t seem to get any flavor into my steak. Kebabs, stir fry, teriyaki, glazes, marinades, sauces...the meat either stopped tasting like meat or just seemed like a waste of money - all I was doing was murdering this poor animal for a second time by drowning it in preservatives and processes.

For me, the best red meat restaurant dining experiences always involved some sort of thick, dark sauce on the meat that stuck to the steak as if it had oozed from it. Surely there was some sort of soy-teriaki-marshmallow-molasses base to these sauces? Surely there was some deep dark secret that no one was sharing with me.

Leave it to Julia Child to show me the light. Her basic red-wine reduction recipe for steak was my first attempt ever at a reduction of any kind. Just a bit of the steak juice mixed with some butter, garlic, onion (I was plum out of scallions) and red wine was all it took to get amazing flavor OUT of the steak. Instead of trying to mask the steak with some processed flavor, the red wine reduction actually brought the flavor of the steak center stage and highlighted it. I felt as if I had been saved...from a lifetime of badly prepared meat dishes.

I even got creative with the leftovers. I sliced the cold leftover steak into 1/4” thick strips and pan seared them in the very-hot left-over red wine reduction (there wasn’t much left to be honest). I also pan ‘fried’ some shrimp in olive oil, rosemary, basil and garlic and served it to myself with asparagus and goat cheese (pictured). The perfect bite (a bit of shrimp, a bit of the seared off, red wine soaked steak, and a daub of goat cheese) was possibly the best flavor combination I’ve ever cooked myself.

Now, as a rule I don’t order a lot of beef when I go to restaurants. I prefer to order things that don’t make me sleepy or too full. However, reeling from my revelation that GOOD SAUCE can make beef into something extraordinary, I tossed caution to the wind last night at a local Egyptian restaurant called Abou El-Sid. Last night I ordered the Abou El-Sid Beef Tournedo.

This was, again, well sauced beef. I seem to be on a roll. The sauce was creamy and rich, with chicken liver and green peppers used to flavor it.

I ended up almost eating my finger as I ran it around the plate trying to get every last drop of the delicious sauce to hit my every taste bud - lest I waste a single droplet.

I don’t think I’ll be eating any more beef than I used to. I think it will still be only once a month or so - for the sake of my ever-expanding mid-section and ever-thinning wallet. But now I know that when I do crave the indulgence of red meat, I can give in and not be disappointed.

Fada's Vegetable Addiction

Veggie Basics

Although I always liked vegetables, I don't think I really appreciated the variety, versatility or how delicious they could really be until I lived in France. I remember being surprised at how wonderful just a plain green salad could be with the right dressing and made sure I watched carefully when dressings were made. Of course there are all sorts of recipes for dressings but I love this simple one.

Just take a bowl and add a teaspoon of French mustard, salt, a teaspoon of wine vinegar and mix well. Then add olive oil bit by bit. Somehow adding the oil slowly means that the dressing ends up like a sauce and it's delicious. Then add your salad leaves and turn the leaves when you are ready to serve. I guarantee it's delicious! I've seen my children just wiping up the sauce with French bread to eat just like that. It does have a lot of olive oil, but what's wrong with that? It's the right kind of fat and helps the food slide down!

Easy Labor Endives

About two hours before my last child was born, I found myself sitting in a restaurant with my husband. My labours tend to be long and not really bothersome until the last half hour or so and having had three children before I knew the score. Yes, I was going to give birth but just didn't want to sit in a hospital for hours waiting for it to happen. So, we went to a restaurant just around the corner which was filled with French people lunching so no one really noticed my state. I did manage to eat a little bit of endive wrapped in ham and covered in cheese sauce, but found I wasn't really in the mood! Instead I watched the husband eat and exclaim how delicious it was. At a certain point I turned to him and said,'I really think I need to get to the hospital now.' He was a bit miffed at having to hurry his food but realised too that sometimes other things take priority! About an hour later (at 3.45) my son was born. He was my last child but I've always felt that with a fifth I could have got the timing down to a tee and arrived maybe a half hour before the birth. I let it go though. The idea of having to be pregnant and all the work involved in child rearing didn't really seem a good trade off. A few days later when I came back from the hospital guess what the first meal was that the husband cooked for me?

A pound of endives (or about six)
Slices of ham to wrap around the endive
1 oz Butter
1 oz Flour
2 pints of milk
A lot of cheese

Cook the endives in boiling water until semi cooked. Place in an oven dish and wrap the ham around them. While the endives are cooking, make the sauce. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and add the flour. Cook gently and it will thicken after a couple of minutes. Then add the milk really slowly so as to incorporate it into the butter/flour mixture. When you feel you have enough sauce for the endive, add lots of cheese. Pour the sauce over the endives and ham, add more cheese on the top and bake in a hot oven for about 20 minutes until the cheese topping is browned.

Egyptian Veggie Love

The vegetables in Egypt are so pleasing - they practically beg you to buy them! They are healthy looking, shiny and often huge. They are also really cheap! A meal that I have every week is ratatouille and here's the recipe. Don't worry though about how much of any vegetable you put in - it always works when you have enough tomatoes - all weights are approximate.

A few cloves of garlic peeled and chopped
One onion peeled and chopped
A pound of courgettes (zucchini)
A pound of aubergines
Two red peppers
Two pounds of fresh tomatoes
Fresh herbs: basil, thyme, rosemary
Salt and pepper

Fry the garlic in olive oil and then add the onion. Fry both for a few minutes until softened. Add courgettes and fry for a couple of minutes, then peppers, then aubergines, herbs and salt and pepper. Finally add the tomatoes, put a lid on the pot and leave to simmer for about 45 minutes. You don't need to add water as the vegetables create a delicious sauce. I usually make a big pot that lasts several meals. In fact, I've made myself hungry with all this talk of food so I'm going to have some now that I prepared yesterday. Fada