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.