About once a year I make pastrami and about once a year I make rye bread or rye rolls and a mustard. I usually make a beer mustard but this year I didn’t have any beer at home so I thought what tastes like beer here?….I thought Sake! So I made one jar of Sake Mustard. It’s similar to the beer mustard but is a bit sweeter. You do need a spice grinder to make this mustard. I made it a mix of ground and whole seeds…This recipe makes the perfect amount to fill a small Ball 1/2 pint canning jar. I’ll guesstimate around 8 servings.
Ingredients for around 8 servings
4 1/2 Tablespoons black mustard seeds (reserve 1 Tablespoon to keep whole if desired)
3 Tablespoons yellow mustard seeds (reserve 1 Tablespoon to keep whole if desired)
2 allspice berries
7 juniper berries
2 Tablespoons honey
2 garlic cloves – ground to paste
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 Tablespoon ground mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
5 Tablespoons sake
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon mirin
Directions
Grind up the mustard seeds except for the reserved seeds if desired. Grind up the allspice and juniper seeds and mixup everything that is left together (honey, garlic, pepper, turmeric, ground mustard, salt, sake, vinegar, mirin.
Enjoy!
Sake Mustard
Here’s this years rye rolls.
rye rolls with sake mustard
Here’s this years pastrami.
smoked pastrami
Did it only slightly different. Basically the same recipe November 2020 but separated the point from the flat of the brisket and used the flat for pastrami. Actually my husband separated them for me. He volunteered so I let him do it because I thought I might hack it up. He also did the beautiful slicing.
In my July/August 2022 Food Network Magazine that I just got was Kwame Onwuachi’s recipe for jerk chicken. Incase you didn’t know Kwame Onwuachi is a James Bead award winning chef and has been a Bravo TV Top Chef contestant. When I saw his recipe I knew it would be good. I can just tell by reading it. You do spend a day brining the chicken and another day marinating the chicken. You finish the chicken with jerk bbq sauce. The chicken was even delicious and flavorful even before the bbq sauce. I made two substitutions. I swapped out bone in skin on chicken for boneless chicken thighs. The other substitution was that I couldn’t find Scotch bonnet peppers so I substituted habanero peppers (they have the same exact heat but aren’t as sweet as Scotch Bonnets). ANYWAYS ….It’s a very good recipe. Delicious, spicy, full of flavors. Makes around eight servings.
Ingredients for around 8 servings
2 Tablespoons kosher salt – brine
1 Tablespoon sugar – brine
1 teaspoon allspice berries – brine
1 Scotch bonnet halved (I substituted an habanero) – brine
1 garlic head halved – brine
1 inch piece of ginger with skin on sliced – brine
2 1/2 pounds skin on chicken quarters legs and thighs (I used boneless skinless thighs….6 of them that weighed around 3 pounds)
1/4 cup soy sauce – marinade
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce – marinade
1 Tablespoon tamarind paste – marinade
2 Tablespoons chopped scallions – marinade
2 Tablespoons fresh thyme – marinade
1 Tablespoon garlic minced – marinade
1 Tablespoon ginger – minced – marinade
1 teaspoon ground allspice – marinade
1 teaspoon dark brown sugar – marinade
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon – marinade
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves – marinade
1 bay leaf – marinade
1 Scotch bonnet – minced (I substituted a habanero) – marinade
2 Tablespoons canola oil (plus more for grill pan) – jerk bbq sauce
1 onion diced – jerk bbq sauce
3 cloves garlic – minced – jerk bbq sauce
1 1/2 cups ketchup – jerk bbq sauce
1/2 cup dark brown sugar (this I used slightly less) – jerk bbq sauce
Make the brine. Combine 32 ounces of water with the salt, sugar, allspice, scotch bonnet, garlic, ginger Bring to a boil on medium -high heat. Cook around five minutes.Add 1/2 cup of ice and let it cool to room temperature. Add the chicken to the brine and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Make the jerk paste marinade.
Stir together the soy sauce, Worcestershire, tamarind paste, scallions, thyme, garlic, ginger, allspice, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaf, Scotch bonnet, and salt. REMOVE 5 TABLESPOONS for the bbq sauce.
Remove the chicken from the brine and toss out the brine. Blot the chicken dry.
Toss the chicken in the jerk paste and massage it in. (I did this in a gallon ziplock bag)
Refrigerate 24 hours.
Make the jerk bbq sauce. Put a medium size fry pan with the canola oil on medium low heat. Heat the oil till shimmering. Add the onion, garlic ginger, reserved marinade. Simmer till onion is clear (5-8 minutes). Add the ketchup and brown sugar and heat till the mixture is red and caramelized (around 30 minutes). Take off heat and blend till smooth.
Cooking the chicken. Preheat the oven and oiled grill pan to 325 F. are sure the grill pan gets hot and let it roast for ten minutes. Remove the chicken from the marinade ****BUT SAVE THE MARINADE*****If you are using skin on chicken it goes for around ten minutes a side. I used boneless skinless thighs and I did 15 minutes on each side.
It didn’t char like I wanted maybe because of the lower heat but it did come out really great and very juicy. I thought about grilling the chicken on my bbq grill but I would have made a mess out if it that would be hard to clean in the over 100 degree temperature that we have in Phoenix.
Chicken is not done yet.
You put the chicken in a pan and pour the marinade on it.
Cover the pan. Cook till the chicken is done. 45 minutes was suggested for bone in skin on chicken that you can crisp up under the broiler. The chicken thighs only needed 15 minutes and before serving got brushed with the Jerk bbq sauce.
Jerk Chicken Thigh
A special THANKS!!!! to Kwame Onwuachi and Food Network Magazine for such a FORKING AMAZING Recipe! This one is truly a keeper.
I recently did one of Kwame Onwuachi’s recipes for jerk chicken and I thought that was an exceptionally good recipe. So it made sense to do his braised cabbage and carrot recipe to go with the jerk chicken. Incase you don’t know Kwame Onwuachi is a James Beard Award Wining Chef and also was a competitor on Bravo’s Top Chef TV Show. This recipe is very easy. Also the cabbage comes out all melted and very soft. You might want to serve something like rice with it. It’s not very seasoned but is tasty. It will help to cool you off after the fireworks from the jerk chicken. I cut his recipe in half so depending on your portion size it will make 4-6 servings. The cabbage does shrink a lot as it cooks.
Ingredients for around 5 servings
1/2 head medium cabbage – core removed julienne cut
2 carrots – shredded
1 1/2 Tablespoons garlic – ground to paste
1 1/2 Tablespoons ginger – ground to paste
1 onion – diced
6 oz coconut milk
1 tablespoon sea salt
6 Tablespoons butter – cut in slices
1/2 lemon – just the fresh juice (this gets added at the end for finishing)
Directions
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
In a small bowl mix together the coconut milk, ginger, garlic, salt.
Get a large pan and the cabbage, onion, carrots, and butter slices. Give it a little mix. Add the small bowl of liquid. Try to pour it all over.
Cover the pan.
Put on middle rack of the oven for one hour and forty minutes.
Braised Cabbage & Carrot
A Special THANKS!!!! to Kwame Onwuachi for sharing this family style recipe.
I watched the Foodnetwork show Big Restaurant Bet where the winning chef made these faux crab cakes out of Lions Mane Mushrooms. Everyone was raving about how great they were. I couldn’t find the winning chef’s recipe on the internet but I did find this James Beard award wining blog called Forager Chef. I thought that his recipe seemed pretty solid. A few minor things I did change to make the recipe a little more foolproof.
This recipe makes 4 servings
12 oz lions mane mushrooms (Whole Foods sells them in 6oz tubs cheaper than anywhere else I’ve found them ($5.99 a tub))
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoons water
1/4 cup scallions – minced
1/4 cup red bell pepper – minced
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs (plus a small amount more ( 1/4 cup) to finish cakes)
1/4 cup high fat mayonnaise
2 Tablespoons cilantro chopped (or tarragon or parsley leaves)
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire
1 teaspoon Old Bay
1 large egg – beaten
sea salt to taste
non stick spray
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 shallot minced
1/4 teaspoon prepared horseradish
lemon wedges for serving
optional chives for serving
Directions
Break down the lions mane mushrooms into shreds. Add the mushrooms to a covered fry pan with the water and salt and simmer till the mushrooms are cooked. Take off the heat. When the mushrooms are cool enough to handle squeeze all the water out of them. I put mine in a colander over a tub to catch the liquid.
Now mix up the mix that you mix into the mushrooms.
In a medium bowl combine the scallions, bell pepper, 1/2 cup panko, 1/4 cup mayonnaise, herbs, Worcestershire, Old Bay, egg. Mix well and adjust seasoning if necessary.
When the mushrooms are drained and cool you can mix them into this mixture. Everything needs to chill very well. You need to let this sit in the refrigerator for at least 5 hours or over night.
This is when you might want to make the remoulade. In a small bowl mix together the mayonnaise, vinegar, soy sauce, smoked paprika, dijon, shallot and horseradish. Refrigerate and use when serving.
When you are ready to cook. Set your oven to 350 degrees F. and spray a baking sheet with neutral non stick spray. Make 4 even size patties and dredge them lightly in panko and place on baking sheet. Sprinkle each side lightly with sea salt and pepper.
They go on a middle rack for 20 minutes. Finish them and get them crispy by placing under the broiler a couple minutes on each side.
Look how flaky they come out. They have the texture very similar to crab.
Serve with lemon, remoulade, and chives if you have any.
Lions Mane Mushroom faux Crab Cake
A Special THANKS!!! To Forager Chef for his amazing recipe so I could come up with what you see here today!
I happened to have some avocados and some herbs to use up. Yesterday I made the crisps……because I was mad when I followed a high end chefs recipe for crisps and they didn’t come out right…..(I KNEW something was wrong with THAT recipe….it sure didn’t sound right)…Anyways This pesto is delicious don’t worry about measurement exactly for the pesto because avocados run different in in size and so to the herb bunches……The crisps here also do come out but that you have to measure exactly. I did a variation on Epicurious Flatbread Recipe…same recipe but I swapped out 3/4 cup of flour for whole wheat graham flour ( Avery tasty sweet nutty tasting flour) because I KNOW THAT RECIPE COMES OUT. I seasoned the flatbreads with fancy salt flakes, fresh crushed black pepper, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds. It is so yummy with the Avocado Walnut Pesto. Either you won’t stop eating it or you can impress people with it. Serving size is hard to say. I don’t know if you want this as an appetizer or a lunch. I’d say it makes 4- 8 servings. I’ll say a conservative 4 servings based on the amount of avocado I used but you really have enough crisps for eight.
Ingredients for at least 4 servings
1 cup AP flour
3/4 cup whole wheat graham flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
flake sea salt for finishing
poppy seeds for finishing
fresh crushed black pepper for finishing
sesame seeds for finishing
2 avocados – just the flesh
1 cup basil leaves – rough chopped
1 cup parsley leaves – rough chopped
5 oz walnuts
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 garlic clove – ground to paste
1/2 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
crushed red pepper to taste (I used 4 Calabrian piri piri peppers)
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
a small amount of water to get things blending
Directions
Set oven to 450 F. You need three parchment papers to cover sheet pans.
In a big bowl mix together the flours, baking powder salt, water and oil. Once you’ve got it mixed well make it into three balls. Cover the balls with plastic wrap so they don’t dry out.
You have to cover the dough with plastic wrap and roll each ball out thin with a rolling pin. (make sure the dough is at least as thin as a tortilla.)
Then sprinkle the sea salt flakes, fresh ground black pepper, poppy seeds, sesame seeds and pat them in slightly so they don’t roll off. Remove the plastic wrap and put in the preheated middle rack of a 450 F oven for about ten minutes.
To make the avocado walnut pesto I used a stick blender and blended together the avocado, basil, parsley, walnuts, parmesan, garlic, lemon juice, salt, crushed peppers, olive oil and after it was hard to blend I added a small amount of water that might have been 2 or 3 tablespoons. It’s so delicious with these flatbreads.
Avocado Walnut Pesto with Flatbread Crisps
A special THANKS!! To Epicurious for a reliable flatbread recipe that we can customize.
WOW! I hit gold when I tried this recipe. I never heard of or had a pickled vegetable that was grilled and mixed with the perfect chermoula sauce before. Charmoula is always a tasty sauce that is often served with fish. It usually is a lot of herbs with parsley and a lemon taste……….This one is taste completely different with the addition of tahini but was perfect for this recipe. This combination is magical. Usually there is a little story about who came up with the Food & Wine recipes but for this one I had to do the digging myself. I looked up Johnny Clark & Beverly Kim and found out that they won a James Beard best chef award and also have a Michelin Star Restaurant in Chicago. There wasn’t much I had to change in this recipe. A few ingredients I did have to swap out but what I used were very similar. I also didn’t have carrot greens to add to the chermoula. The only part of the recipe that I had to change (maybe because I didn’t have carrot greens?) was the amount of herbs that go into the chermoula…..For me the larger amount of herbs needs to be in the chermoula and the smaller amount is for finishing……..(they had the herbs the other way around)…..I also finished slightly different…The original recipe has you using two tablespoons of chermoula to mix oil and your finishing herbs for finishing. Do what you what it’s all good.
This recipe makes around four servings.
1 Tablespoon black peppercorns
3 cups white vinegar
1 3/4 cups water
2 Tablespoons kosher salt plus extra for seasoning
1 lb carrots (regular size carrots – cut in half and cut each half in half longways (I did not do this but if you are lucky enough to have carrot greens you can add them to the chermoula)
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 1/2 cups lightly packed parsley leaves
1/2 cup lightly packed cilantro (tender stems ok)
1 Thai chile – rough chopped
1 garlic clove
2 cubes or one ounce ice
1/4 cup tahini
1 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice
freshly ground pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup roasted almonds
Directions
In a medium sauce pan toast the black peppercorns over medium high heat till fragrant (about 3 minutes). Add the vinegar, 1 1/2 cups water and two Tablespoons of kosher salted bring to boil. Remove from heat and pour over the carrots. Let sit on counter till cooled to room temperature. Pickle a few hours in the refrigerator or up to over-night.
Next. Toast the cumin seeds on medium high heat swirling the pan till fragrant (about 2 minutes). Blend the seeds, a cup of parsley leaves, (carrot tops if you have them), cilantro leaves, chile, garlic, 1/4 cup water, lemon juice. Add ice and tahini and blend some more. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Get either your grill ready or use a grill pan in a preheated 420 degree F oven with an oiled grill pan.
Drain off and dry your carrots. (you can discard the brine or reuse it) Toss the carrots with a tablespoon of oil. Grill carrots till tender crisp. Transfer to a plate.
Spread the chermoula on a plate or platter. Top with carrots. finish with parsley and roasted almonds.
Grilled Pickled Carrots with Charmoula and Almonds
A Special THANKS!!! To Johnny Clark and Beverly Kim and Food and Wine Magazine for sharing such a FORKING Amazing recipe! So I could do what I got here!!!
Chili Crisp is this amazing condiment that adds flavors, textures, crunch, and heat to food. It makes anything interesting and flavorful. It’s great on plain vegetables, grilled meats, and as a spread for sandwiches. I’ve made Asian chili crisp. Recently I made Italian Chili Crisp so this time I made an Indian Inspired Chili Crisp. I based the flavors on Indian five spice that is usually equal amounts of toasted cumin seeds, brown mustard seeds, fennel seeds, nigella seeds (also called black cumin), and fenugreek seeds that are usually kept whole. I did a mix of ground and whole seeds for this recipe. I also added a few other things that chili crisp needs like oil, garlic, shallots, and nuts. Serving size is difficult to judge. I don’t know if you want a small amount for a sandwich or a lot for a big piece of grilled meat. I will guesstimate based on the amount of oil 12 servings. Also I need to add that I recommend wearing gloves and a mask for grinding the spices and picking the dried chilies.
Ingredients for around 12 servings
1 oz dried chili peppers ( I used japones) – crushed (Be careful and put in a bag, wear gloves and a mask and bash up the bag with something hard to break down the chilies)
1/4 cup cashews – lightly broken
2 1/2 Tablespoons course sea salt
1 Tablespoon cumin seeds
1 Tablespoon brown mustard seeds
1 Tablespoon fennel seeds
1 Tablespoon nigella (black cumin) seeds
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup shallots – sliced very thin on a mandolin
1/2 cup garlic cloves – sliced thin on a truffle slicer
Toast till fragrant on medium heat the chilies, cashews, salt, and first batch of seeds (cumin, mustard, fennel, nigella, fenugreek, and black pepper. Let cool.
Tost till fragrant the smaller second batch of seeds (cumin, mustard, fennel, nigella, fenugreek) Let it cool off and keep to the side.
Heat up the oil on medium high.
Cook the shallots till brown but not burnt and use a strainer to get them out and let them drain on a paper towel lined baking sheet. They will take at least five minutes and during that time you can blend (preferably with a stick blender) the first (bigger) batch of seeds. PLEASE WEAR A MASK AND USE GLOVES FOR YOUR SAFTY. GOGGLES AREN”T A BAD IDEA EITHER. Keep this to the side.
Next use the oil to fry up the garlic slices till light brown and crispy. Use a strainer and take out the garlic chips and let them drain on a paper towel lined baking sheet.
Take the oil off of the heat. You can add both batches of seeds to it. Let it sit on the counter till room temperature. Then you can add the drained shallots and garlic and mix. Put in a container and refrigerate.
ENJOY on vegetables, eggs, grilled meats, and sandwiches.
This is sort of a combo of recipes that I found in Food and Wine Magazine. I wanted to try a new recipe for shishito peppers. The shishito peppers are based on Nancy Singleto Hachisu’s recipe from Food and Wine Magazine called Blistered Shishito Peppers with Miso Sake. I thought that is a good idea. I’ll try it…something different. I didn’t change to much there. But instead of dried chile I used a fresh serrano pepper and also instead of brown miso I used white miso because that is all I buy. I also found a recipe called Ginger-Miso Sweet Peas…by Grace Parsi also from Food and Wine Magazine. I thought that recipe would elevate the first recipe…But that recipe I had to change some. I do need to let you know that the flavors do fad a little by day two but the shishitos are so darn flavorful it really doesn’t matter.
This recipe makes 4 or more servings
1 lb frozen peas (thawed)
1/2 cup scallions – sliced thin
1 Tablespoon minced ginger
1 jalapeño – sliced thin or rough chopped
3 Tablespoons white miso
3/4 cup water
3/4 lb shishito peppers
1 1/2 Tablespoon white miso
1 1/2 Tablespoon sake
1 Tablespoon canola oil
1 serrano chile – sliced thin (or to taste)
1 Tablespoon minced ginger
Directions
Make the ginger-miso sweet peas. Blend together the peas, scallions, ginger, jalapeño, miso with some of the water. Blend and add water as desired. You will want to warm this up to serve with the shishitos. You can warm this up at 350F in your oven for about 30 minutes. Or you can warm this up on your stove top on medium high in around 5 minutes. Or you can microwave in around 4 minutes.
Make the Miso Sake Blistered Shishitos. Stir the miso and sake in a bowl till smooth. Heat oil in a skillet till shimmering. Then add the shishitos and ginger on high heat and keep tossing them till blistered. (2-3 minutes(. Remove from heat and add the miso sake and toss and serve.
Plate the shishitos and the ginger-miso sweet peas together.
Miso Sake Blistered Shishito Peppers with Ginger-Miso Sweet Peas
A Special THANKS!!! To Food and Wine Magazine so that I could do what you see here!
This is a basic potato salad with added home made pickles that make it unique. The pickles add a tasty surprise factor that also lightens the salad up some. I made the dressing flavorful and reduced the fat as much reasonable. Equal parts of fat free sour cream, reduced fat mayonnaise, dijon mustard and apple cider make a pretty indulgent dressing that can pass as full fat. I think the purple potatoes seem a little sweeter than other potatoes and I read that they are a healthier potato for you too. Whenever I boil potatoes for something I add a banana pepper….(not the sweet banana pepper)…The banana pepper…that is plain is actually spicy. For some unknown reason if you boil potatoes with a banana pepper that is cut in half it adds the most delicious flavor to potatoes…..
Ingredients for about 10 servings
3 lbs purple potatoes – cut in large bite size pieces (depending on the size of your potatoes that might be half, quarter or more….you want the peices on the big side because they will break some when you stir)
1 Tablespoon salt – to boil potatoes
1 banana pepper – cut in half on a diagonal to boil with potatoes and then throw out
1 medium size sweet onion – chopped
2 celery ribs – chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley – chopped
1/4 cup dijon mustard
1/4 cup fat free sour cream
1/4 cup reduced fat mayonnaise
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon dried dill
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
fresh ground sea salt to taste
fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/2-1 dill pickle – preferably a home made one or one you purchased from a farmer’s market or got from a very good deli – (depending on size …….maybe around a 1/2 cup) – chopped
Directions
In a sauce pot on medium high heat add the potatoes, salt and banana pepper and boil till the potatoes are fork tender……timing will differ but mine took only 10 minutes. (I do note purple potatoes cook up faster than other potatoes.)
While the potatoes are cooking mix up the dressing in a large bowl. Mix up the dijon, sour cream, mayo and vinegar. Then add the celery seed, cayenne, dill, white pepper and mix well. Add the onions, celery, parsley.
When the potatoes are done drain them and then gently toss them in to the large bowl with the pickle chunks.
Depending on your taste you might want to adjust with a little bit of fresh ground sea salt and fresh crushed black pepper.
Reduced Fat Purple Potato Salad
It’s a healthy tasty potato salad! (gets a prettier more purple color the next day)
This recipe is a happy accident. I was reading up on how to make Toum sauce. Toum sauce is that garlicky thick white sauce that you eat with shawarma. Most of the recipes were very similar…..almost exact for toum sauce…….They all involved blending together garlic, neutral oil, salt and lemon………but all toum recipes I read also suggesting adding one more ingredient to soften the garlic flavor and also for thickening…….One person suggested adding mashed potatoes. Other suggestions were egg whites, yogurt, and mayonnaise. I made the toum and it came out probably the way everyone else’s toum sauce come out…….It came out thinner than what I would like and also far more garlicky than anyone on earth can handle. This stuff can kill all the vampires and maybe weeds and insects too!. ….I was planing on making the leeks and serving them up like Shawarma with the sumac onions, toum sauce and tehini sauce………..Then I got inspired from chef Neil Campbell’s recipe for charcoal roasted leeks with tarator and date brown butter….I thought that sounds really good but I don’t have any charcoal……….and I already had my toum sauce……..So I thought that I could change the toum sauce into tarator sauce. Tarator sauce is an emulsified sauce of nuts, garlic oil, and other things. Unlike toum sauce every recipe that I read was completely different but they all had nuts, oil, and garlic. Then I read latter that there are at least three main kinds of different variations of tarter that are different. The Turkish version is made with walnuts, garlic and sometimes bread. The Lebanon and Syrian versions are made with tahini instead of nuts and the Balkan style is more yogurt with cucumbers…….At the time I was in panic mode when I made tarator style sauce so I didn’t measure…… You got guesstimates there. Anyways….Leeks are very delicious with tarator and date brown butter. This recipe makes more tarator sauce and maybe more date brown butter than you might use but they are delicious together and would be great on most vegetables.
This recipe makes at least 4 servings
1 bundle of leeks (these were the biggest leeks ever with lots of green leaves that I boiled with vegetable bullion and pureed for other things) Greens trimmed off. Cut in half long ways. Tips cut off to fry crispy. I think this dish is best served at room temperature.
canola oil for frying.
1 head garlic – all the garlic cloves peeled and ground to paste
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 large lemon – just the juice
1/2 large lemon – just the juice (this goes on the leeks latter)
1/2 cup toasted walnuts
1/2 cup roasted almonds
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup yogurt
6 oz feta cheese
1/2 cup home made jalapeño brine
4 oz butter (I used unsalted but either works here)
2 Tablespoons date syrup (or to taste because they all taste different…some are sweeter and some taste more like dates)
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
sea salt to taste
fresh ground black pepper to taste
Directions.
Make the date brown butter. In a sauce pan on medium heat add the butter. Let it go till it turns brown. Take off heat and add date syrup to taste.
Make the tarator sauce. Blend together the garlic, sea salt, canola oil, lemon juice, walnuts, almonds, mayonnaise, tahini, yogurt, feta cheese, and home made jalapeño brine till it’s like a thick sour cream consistency. Put to the side.
Put a fry pan on medium high heat with around three tablespoons of canola oil. When the oil is hot add the leeks cut side down and leave them there till the brown. Flip them over and add 1/2 cup of water and let them cook about ten minutes. (you can leave them that way but I prefer to cut them up because they are easier to eat that way. When they are done remove the braised leeks and put them to the side. Add salt, pepper, thyme, and remaining lemon juice to the leeks.
Clean out the pan and add enough oil to fry up the leek tips (around an inch) on medium-medium high heat. When the oil is hot add the leek tips. Fry till crisp (around seven minutes)
Put together however you like and enjoy.
Braised and Crispy Leeks with Tarator Sauce & Date Brown Butter The Forking Truth
