Foul Mudammas: Fava beans in a thick, flavorful sauce

Ramadan was in September this year. It moves a little earlier each year, since the timing is based on a lunar calendar, and in the fall the daylight hours start to get fairly long. A couple weeks ago I was on the hunt for something filling to eat in the morning before fasting, which made me think of making foul.

Foul mudammas is a saucy bean dish, traditionally served for breakfast. It originated in Egypt, but most Arab countries have adopted some variation of foul. Some cultures rely more on the bean as the dominant flavor, adding minimal amounts of extra flavoring, and some use heavily mashed beans, almost like refried beans. I prefer the kind that has mostly whole beans, with onions, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs to flavor the sauce.

Generally, foul is made using fava beans but my dad likes to make it with chickpeas instead. I've had it both ways, and each type of bean contributes a distinct flavor, but each works equally well. I think that using fava beans leads to a slightly creamier, heavier dish than using chickpeas. I even found a variety of canned foul that has both chick peas and fava beans together, but I haven't tried it yet.

Canned fava beans can be a bit hard to find in a standard grocery store, but any store stocking Middle Eastern ingredients will have them. If you're in San Francisco, Semiramis is a convenient shop to check out. The cans are labeled "foul mudammas" in Arab groceries and sometimes contain additional spices and flavorings. For this recipe, I usually buy the plain variety, which contains salt and sometimes a bit of lemon.

While foul is traditionally a breakfast dish, I think it also makes for a great, quick lunch. I like eating it with a loaf of pita bread, using the bread to soak up the extra sauce. You can also sprinkle some olive oil on top to make it a little richer. Hope you enjoy!

Foul Mudammas: Fava beans in a thick, flavorful sauce
(serves 2-3)

1 can chickpeas, or fava beans (labeled foul mudammas in Arabic groceries)
3-4 cloves garlic
3/4 - 1 cup finely chopped onions, about 1/2 onion
3 small, or 2 large tomatoes, chopped
1-2 Tbsp lemon, the juice of about 1/2 of a lemon (Note that you'll want to tone this back a bit if your canned foul already has lemon in it.)
1/4 - 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, or parsley

Add the beans, with liquid from the can, garlic, and onions to a small pot. Heat on medium-low until it comes to a slow simmer.

After 10 minutes, begin to crush some of the beans with the back of a spoon, mixing and crushing until the sauce reaches your desired thickness. I probably crush about 1/4 cup of the beans, until the sauce looks less watery and just begins to thicken.

Add the chopped tomatoes and lemon. Start conservatively with the lemon, and adjust the flavors to taste. The tomatoes are sweet, and the lemon balances this out, so you may want more or less lemon depending on what kind of tomatoes you are using.

Finally, add the cilantro (or parsley) and remove from the heat. Ladle some foul into a bowl, and optionally garnish with a bit of extra olive oil. Enjoy with some toasted pita bread.

Spaghetti with Shelling Peas in Infused Olive Oil

I've started to go to farmers markets a lot lately. Between one on Tuesday and one on Saturday, I end up having fresh produce to cook with all week long! I love the process of wandering through the stands, searching for the freshest vegetables available, and discovering new ingredients to experiment with.

One of the staples of the farmers market over the past few months has been summer squash. By trying out the numerous varieties, I discovered that I love the subtle flavor and tender texture of the green patty pan squash the most. I also found some things I didn't expect at the farmers market, like Thai chilies and Thai basil, which saves me a trip to the Asian market when I want to make curry.

Recently I decided to try a new ingredient from a stand that sells peppers in all sorts of shapes and colors. I had walked by it without stopping numerous times, unsure of where to start with so many varieties. This time I decided to ask the woman working at the stand for a recommendation, and she pointed me to the red sweet Italian frying peppers.

These peppers actually look like they might be spicy, but obviously, given the name, they are not. They have very few seeds, thinner flesh than bell peppers, and a mild, slightly sweet flavor. I decided they might be a nice addition to a light pasta with oil.

The rest of this recipe came together with some other ingredients I picked up at the farmers market, including shelling peas and sundried tomatoes. The sundried tomatoes I used are actually made from cherry tomatoes, which gives them a really sweet pop of flavor. In this dish, they help to reinforce the sweet flavor of the peppers.

A long, slow saute of the garlic, sweet peppers, and sundried tomatoes infuses the olive oil with flavor and stains it a shade of red. A good quality, nutty cheese is really a necessity to finish this dish off and balance out the sweetness.

I love that this pasta is so light and simple. I usually tend to make pastas with tomato sauce, so this was a nice change from that. And as a bonus, it's really quick to make!

Spaghetti with Shelling Peas in an Infused Olive Oil

(serves 2-3)

2 lb. fresh shelling peas, in shell
1/4 cup olive oil
4-5 cloves garlic
1 cup chopped sweet Italian frying peppers, about 6
1/4 - 1/2 cup chopped sun dried cherry tomatoes
1/2 lb. spaghetti
1 - 1 1/2 cup shredded cheese, some kind of good quality hard cheese - I picked up Carnia Mezzano after tasting a few cheeses from a local Italian specialty store, but something like Parmesan would work just fine
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup chopped parsley

Shell the peas, rinse them, and set them aside. Remember that while fresh shelling peas last for up to a week, they have the sweetest flavor when used within the first couple of days of purchase. I picked mine up from the Ferry Building Farmer's Market.

Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta.

Put the olive oil in a large saute pan (I use a 4 quart pan). Add the garlic and the sweet peppers and heat slowly over medium low heat, stirring occasionally. After about 5 minutes, add the sun dried tomatoes. When the peppers are cooked through, keep the oil warm on low heat while the spaghetti cooks. The long, slow saute will infuse the oil with flavor.

When the water comes to a boil, salt generously and add the spaghetti. When the spaghetti has two minutes left to cook, add the peas to cook with the spaghetti.

Drain the spaghetti and peas well. Add to the oil and toss well, ensuring that each strand of spaghetti is coated in oil. If it looks dry at all, you can add a little extra oil at this point.

Add the cheese and mix well. Salt and pepper generously, to taste, garnish with parsley and enjoy!

A Long Overdue Update, plus Chocolate Covered, Coconut Stuffed Stawberries

I took a break from posting to my blog for awhile, but I definitely haven't stopped cooking! Here's a sample of what I've been making for the last few months...

This Filet Mignon with Caramel-Brandy Mushroom Sauce was delicious, with a sweet sauce that complimented the tender filet. My only mistake was substituting some re-hydrated dry mushrooms for fresh mushrooms, since they ended up being a little tougher than they should have been.

This Spinach Gratin was decadent - cheesy and creamy, with a hint of nutmeg to compliment the spinach. It was also really easy to make. If you are in the mood for something rich, I definitely recommend it!

Inspired by the lentils in the Crispy Salmon with Warm Lentils and Balsamic Essence recipe, these lentils with chicken were hearty and flavorful, but I do think the dish needed something sweet to go with it, like the balsamic essence in the salmon recipe.

This mushroom risotto was yummy, but my favorite part were the roasted carrots. They are incredibly easy to make and the carrots get really tender and sweet. You can compliment the carrots with your favorite herb - in this case I used parsley.

This started out as a good concept: scrambled eggs, with sundried tomatoes, spinach, and onions, on some crusty french bread covered with goat cheese. Then I realized I had some leftover turkey and decided to add that in to the mix.  Wow, it was terrible!  There was something about the flavor of the turkey and the eggs that completely clashed - maybe they are too similar? Trust me: turkey and eggs is not a good idea.

These chocolate covered strawberries stuffed with coconut are really easy to make and very yummy!  Since you can make them in advance, they are great as a dessert when you have company over.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries Stuffed with Coconut

10 strawberries

about 5 ounces white chocolate (or dark, whatever you prefer)

1 vanilla bean

1/2 cup shredded coconut, just enough to fill the strawberries

Cut the stem off of each strawberry. Instead of cutting the whole top off, angle the knife and cut just around the stem and the white part of the strawberry.

After you remove the stem, this should reveal a hole in the middle of the strawberry.  Fill liberally with shredded coconut.  (Or, try your favorite ingredient as a filling instead.)

Line a cookie tray with wax paper, to hold the strawberries after they have been dipped in chocolate.

Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over boiling water, or in a double broiler. Cut the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds to the melted chocolate and mix well.

Dip each strawberry in the chocolate, large end down, using a toothpick to hold the strawberry steady, and spooning the melted chocolate up the sides to coat. Optionally, leave the top of the strawberry uncovered.

Place each strawberry on the cookie sheet, large end down, and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes, or up to 24 hours, before serving.

Chunky Triple Nut and Chocolate Biscotti

Despite seeing countless variations of biscotti featured on Everyday Italian, I was never inspired to make any myself until recently. The problem is that anytime I think of biscotti, I think of the rock hard, tasteless stuff that shows up in places like Starbucks. However, I finally decided to try it out the other day after I saw Gina DePalma, a pastry chef from Babbo, do a demo of the Mosaic Biscotti recipe from her new book.

I loved listening to Gina tell her story. She seemed very genuine, talking about herself and her career openly and with a sense of humor. She is obviously passionate about food, and her approach to cooking emphasizes tradition, attention to detail, and quality ingredients.

One thing I thought was interesting is that she stressed the importance of whisking together the dry ingredients before adding them to the wet ingredients. When I bake I'm always tempted to skip this step because I'm never sure how necessary it is, so it was nice to hear an opinion on that from someone as experienced as her.

Gina talked about how she got into the food business and how she started culinary school intending to become a chef, falling into the pastry side of things when she did an internship and found that she really enjoyed it. She said that she thinks this background helps her as a pastry chef since it's important to understand the savory aspects of a menu to do the dessert part well. I think that makes a lot of sense, and I would imagine that this might help her to be more creative with flavor combinations in her desserts.

As a slight tangent, could someone please explain why there is such a rigid division between being a pastry chef and a chef? If you watch shows like Top Chef, you'll know what I mean - the downfall of several of the very talented chefs on that show has been a dessert that they threw together with the disclaimer "I am not a pastry chef". It seems like a well rounded chef ought to be able to do both, so it doesn't really make sense to me that there is such a separation between the two specialties.

Anyway, back to biscotti. I followed Gina's biscotti recipe exactly, except I changed the types of nuts in the biscotti and used three different kinds of nuts instead of two. The quantity of nuts and chocolate in this biscotti astounded me. When you get the dough mixed together, there's very little dough to actually hold all of the filler together. I think that's what makes it so good - the result is chunky, chocolaty, and packed with nuts.

Biscotti is actually just one big cookie, baked in a long log and then cut into slices and baked again. It's actually easier than making regular cookies in a way, since you don't have to portion the dough for each cookie. Another great thing about biscotti is that it keeps for a long time. These should be good for at least 2 weeks.

Chunky Triple Nut and Chocolate Biscotti
based on Mosaic Biscotti from Dolce Italiano

For the biscotti:
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk, reserve the egg white for the glaze
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 ounces chocolate, coarsely chopped, whatever type you prefer, I used 4 ounces of bittersweet and 2 ounces of semi-sweet
1 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

For the glaze:
1 egg white, reserved from above
3/4 Tbsp sugar

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt and stir so that the salt and baking powder are evenly distributed.

In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla extract on medium speed for several minutes, until well combined. Change the speed of the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients gradually, allowing each portion to incorporate before adding more.

Add the chocolate and nuts and stir in by hand. Place the dough onto a cookie sheet that is lined with a silpat or greased. Form a long log that runs the length of the cookie sheet, about 4 inches wide and 1-2 inches high. The dough will be pretty sticky, so you might want to flour your hands before forming the logs to make it easier, and prepare to get messy.

Lightly beat the reserved egg white to break it up a little (Gina says you just want to break up the protein a bit) and brush the top of the log with it. Then sprinkle granulated sugar on top.

Bake at 325 for 20-25 minutes until lightly brown and firm to the touch.

Wait for it to cool completely, about an hour. Then use a serrated knife to cut into slices, on a slight diagonal, to form individual cookies. I like the slices to be about 1/2 inch wide, but you can personalize this to whatever you like.

Put the slices back on the baking sheet and bake at 200 degrees until the biscotti dries out a bit and is a little crisp to the touch, about 25 minutes.

Spicy Fennel Cupcakes with Date Buttercream Icing

I came up with the idea for these cupcakes when I saw the theme of this cupcake roundup: "Re-Invention". I had just made the lamb tagine, and when I saw the theme it occurred to me that the date and fennel flavors in the tagine might actually translate well to a dessert. If you've been following my blog, you'll recall that the first time I experimented with a baking recipe wasn't that long ago. So, I approached the project of creating my own cupcake recipe with excitement and a bit of trepidation.

I began by doing a little research online to find out what mix of ingredients is usually used as a base for cupcakes. I discovered that most recipes have a similar proportion of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, so I started out with that base as well. Since I love the spicy/sweet contrast of the tagine, I wanted that flavor to resonate in the cupcakes. To achieve this contrast, I decided to put fennel in the cake part, with some of the tagine spices, and to use the dates to enhance the sweet flavor of the icing.

I ended up trying this cupcake recipe 3 times before settling on a version that I liked. You may think I'm crazy, but one of the biggest surprises to me was that none of the tries actually flopped! I mean, I was always taught that you need to be very careful about measuring everything when you bake, but the more I experiment the more I realize that you can play around with many of the ingredients without compromising the end result.

The biggest challenge for me in making this recipe was creating the flavor profile that I wanted. For example, a decision I struggled with was which spices I should add to the cake. Ginger and cinnamon seemed like obvious choices, as they are commonly found in Moroccan food, and they are also often used in sweet recipes. I was pretty hesitant at first with spices like coriander and cumin, since I wasn't really sure they belonged in a dessert. However, I ended up increasing the amount of these spices as I tested the recipe, since I found that they made the final product really unique and spicy.

Another important decision was how to incorporate the fennel and date into the cupcake. One of the things I've heard about fennel is that roasting it can really bring out the flavor, so I decided to roast the fennel before adding it to the cupcake. I pureed the fennel in a bit of milk, which helped to incorporate it into the cupcake. For the date, I didn't want the peel to interfere with the smooth texture of the icing, so I ended up making a date puree.

One idea I had didn't work. You guessed it - I tried throwing some cilantro into the cake. Unfortunately, I found that the baking process dilutes the flavor to the point where you can't even taste the cilantro anymore, so I removed it from the recipe.

I think the color of these cupcakes could use some work. However, overall I was very pleased with the result of my first very own cupcake recipe!

Spicy Fennel Cupcakes with Date Buttercream Icing
(makes 12 cupcakes)

For the fennel cake:
2 fennel bulbs, about 1 1/2 cups after roasting
olive oil, enough to coat the fennel before roasting
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon

For the icing:
5-6 dates, chopped into large pieces, about 1/2 cup after chopping
1/4 cup water
1 cinnamon stick
1 stick butter, room temperature
2 cups confectioners sugar, or less if you don't like very sweet icing
1/2 tsp vanilla

First, roast the fennel. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chop the fennel bulb in half and then into chunks about 1/2 inch thick. Place on a baking pan and drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Mix to fully coat in olive oil. Cook for 15-20 minutes, turning the fennel pieces over halfway through, until the fennel is soft and beginning to brown.

After the fennel cools, it needs to be chopped before adding to the cupcakes. Put the fennel in a food processor and pulse it several times while adding the milk. If you don't have a food processor, you can also chop by hand.

While the fennel is cooling, begin the batter for the cupcakes. Mix the butter and sugar and beat on high speed for a couple of minutes, until the butter begins to lighten in color and the texture becomes smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until fully combined.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees for the cupcakes.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices in a separate bowl. On low speed, add the dry ingredients to the batter, mixing until just combined. Now add the fennel and milk mixture, stirring until just combined.

Use an ice cream scoop to portion the batter into 12 cupcakes. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

For the icing, first make the date puree. Put the chopped dates, water, and cinnamon stick in a small pot. Cook over low heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally until the dates begin to break down and fall apart. Set aside to cool.

For the icing, combine the butter, confectioners sugar, and vanilla and beat on high speed for 5 minutes until light and fluffy, stopping a couple of times to wipe down the sides of the bowl.

After the date mixture is cool, pass the mixture through a sieve. You should end up with about 1/3 cup of date puree that passes through the sieve. Add the date puree to the icing and stir just until combined.

After the cupcakes cool, ice them and enjoy!