Easy Cooking

Some elements of creative meal engineering

I haven't had many opportunities to cook for guests this summer, so I jumped on one that presented itself on Sunday. I wanted to make something impressive, but not too difficult or taxing. I recalled a couple of dishes from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Jerusalem: A Cookbook that were among the most delicious I've ever made. That seemed timely, given that I was working on an essay on how to end the Netanyahu-Trump wars in the Middle East, and I hoped to be able to present at least some of my ideas to my guests. So what better setting could I arrange than a menu of Israeli-Palestinian flavors?

As it turned out, I've struggled with my essay, coming no way near finishing it, so I had nothing to distribute, and we easily found much else to talk about. But the food was a smashing success. The biggest surprise for me was that nothing serious went wrong, and I had gauged the schedule so perfectly that two hours before our planned 6PM serving time, I could jot down a short list of remaining tasks:

• Turn on oven at 5 and slide chicken in at 5:15.
• Add dressing to the two salads.

Usually the last hour before dinner is an insane fire drill, with dozens of prep platters, most of the 6-burner stove occupied, and piles of tools and dishes accumulating. By the time I finish and serve everything — always "family style'; the only things I ever plate are desserts — I'm a wreck, and the place is an awful mess. This time, everything was ready to go, much of it was already on serving dishes, and the sink and dishrack were empty. And a couple minutes after 6, my plate looked like this:

The dishes, starting from top and mostly moving clockwise, are:

• Roast chicken with fennel, mandarins, and arak.
• Baby spinach salad with dates, almonds, and toasted pitas.
• Old City [Jerusalem?] eggplant with tomato sauce.
• Parsley and barley salad, with cashews and feta.
• Yogurt with cucumber, scallions, sultanas, black walnuts, and mint.
• Roasted sweet potatoes with dates, scallions, and balsamic.
• Not pictured is the dessert: Eretz Israel cake.

I knew I was going to have limited time to prepare before cooking on Sunday, so I needed to shop early, mostly on Friday. I knew I could get the chicken and produce at Dillons, but I did some exploratory shopping on Thursday, to tick a few of the more esoteric items off my list. First stop was a liquor store, to pick up the arak. Then on to World Market, where I found marzipan, and then to Whole Foods, where I hoped to find clementines. I didn't, but picked up a bag of mandarins, and a few other things. But I had never seen their produce in such sorry state, so I skipped much of my list. On Friday, I went to Dillons, which netted everything I still needed, except for the eggplant — their produce section was in better shape, but not much. I went to Trader Joe's for an eggplant. I also stopped at Natural Grocers, just in case I found some inspiration, but left empty-handed.

On Saturday, we had two events to attend: a Tallgrass Film Festival showing of Matty Wishnow's documentary, The Last Critic, about Robert Christgau, and the Global Learning Center's annual UN banquet, where Phyllis Bennis was speaking. Before we went out, I managed to make some candied orange peel (for the cake), and the yogurt-cucumber salad. After we got back, I baked the cake, and marinated the chicken. I figured that was all I really needed to do. I would have at least six hours on Sunday to finish everything else. Only the chicken was to be cooked just in time to serve, but it needed no attention once it was in the oven. And while there were many steps to the other dishes, none required much time and few depended on order. Should be easy.

Indeed, it was. I'm not going to write out recipes — they should be easy enough to find (some are on my site), but I'll give you brief notes on how each dish was prepared. Most come from Jerusalem, except for the eggplant and cake, which came from Joan Nathan's The Foods of Israel Today, and the cucumber-yogurt is based on Tess Mallos's The Complete Middle East Cookbook.

Roast chicken with fennel, mandarins, and arak: I bought a 4.5 lb. package of chicken thighs, with bones and skin. The night before, I mixed up a double batch of marinade: arak, olive oil, orange juice, lemon juice, grain mustard, light brown sugar, thyme, fennel seeds, salt, pepper. Trim and cut up two fennel bulbs. Cut four ¼-inch slices of five mandarins, discarding top and bottom. Dip the chicken, fennel, and mandarins in the marinade, and pack them into two plastic bags, adding the marinade. Refrigerate them overnight, occasionally flipping them over. Mid-afternoon, arrange them in a large baking pan (mine has a rack), basting several times. An hour before service: heat the oven up to 475°F, and roast for 35–45 minutes.

Roasted sweet potatoes with dates, scallions, and balsamic: Cut three sweet potatoes into thin wedges (skin on). Dress with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and arrange in a baking pan. Heat the oven to 475°F, and roast for 25 minutes. I did this first thing on Sunday, then arranged them later. Slice mejdol dates into quarters lengthwise, and slip them between the wedges. Cut scallions into 3-inch lengths, sauté in olive oil, and scatter on top (with the oil). Scatter goat cheese crumbs, and then decorate with squiggles of balsamic reduction. (I've made my own, but these days I can buy it readymade.)

Parsley and barley salad, with cashews and feta: Cover ¼ cup of pearl barley with water, and boil 30-35 minutes. Drain, and add to a salad bowl. Crumble feta cheese, and add olive oil, za'atar, coriander, and cumin. Chop parsley, scallions, garlic, and green bell pepper. Mix dressing: olive oil and lemon juice. (I used roasted garlic, adding it to the dressing, instead of using raw garlic.) Assemble: add roasted cashews, feta, chopped greens, and finally dressing. Season with allspice, salt, and black pepper.

Baby spinach salad with dates, almonds, and toasted pitas: Slice half a red onion, and macerate in white wine vinegar. Cut two pita breads into bite-sized triangles. Heat a skillet with butter and olive oil, and toast the pitas and almonds. Season with sumac, Aleppo pepper, salt, and black pepper. Chop dates. Later, assemble (I use a walnut salad bowl): baby spinach, dates, onions, pitas and almonds. Dress with olive oil and lemon juice.

Old City [Jerusalem?] eggplant with tomato sauce: Cut eggplant into ½-inch dice. Salt in a colander to draw bitter juices out. After awhile, rinse and dry. Meanwhile, slice onions and cook in olive oil, adding garlic. Add eggplant and toss around. Add a can of pureed tomatoes, some tomato paste, and spices (cinnamon, sumac, salt, black pepper. Simmer slowly for an hour. Recipe called for uncovered. Since I started early and had more time, I covered it. I also added more spices (paprika, oregano) and pine nuts. Eventually, I turned it off, then reheated it, but served it merely warm.

Yogurt with cucumber, scallions, sultanas, black walnuts, and mint: Peel two cucumbers, scoop the seeds out, and dice. Put in a colander, and sprinkle with salt to macerate. Chop scallions and put in a bowl. Add sultanas (golden raisins) and black walnuts, mint (fresh chopped or dry) and sprinkle with white pepper. Drain plain yogurt if needed. (I use Greek Gods, which is fine as is.) Add cucumbers (don't wash the salt off) to the bowl, and fold the yogurt in. Refrigerate. I did this the day before. Every country from Greece to India has a version. This one started as Iranian, but I noticed walnuts in the Bulgarian version, and thought that would work.

Eretz Israel cake: Part of the reason I chose this was that I had some candied orange peel left over, but I wound up deciding that I didn't have enough, and what I had was too hard. I had hoped to find something I could use, but when I couldn't, I decided to make a new batch. I did this the day before: peel two oranges, removing as much pith as possible, then slicing into narrow strips; blanch the orange peel 5 times for several minutes each; make a simple syrup (sugar and water, 1⅓ cup each) and cook the orange peel for 45-60 minutes; dust the orange peel with sugar, and allow to dry on a rack.

I made the cake the day before: zest two oranges, and mix with sugar and marzipan (should break down like sand, but my marzipan was too moist); melt butter; sift flour and baking powder; mix four eggs into marzipan mixture, then add butter, flour mixture, salt, and orange juice; finally fold in chopped dates and candied orange peel (both should be lightly dusted with flour to keep them from settling, but they did anyway); bake 40 minutes at 350°F.

Nathan's cookbook does not offer a topping, but Jerusalem has a very similar cake with a chocolate frosting, so I made that (on Sunday, so it would be fresher): in a double boiler, melt butter and chocolate (I used 60% bittersweet), add some honey and cognac (I used cointreau). I served vanilla ice cream with the cake.

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To review the scheduling: Thursday and Friday I shopped (5 stores). Saturday afternoon I made the candied orange peel and the cucumber-yogurt. Saturday night I marinated the chicken and baked the cake. Sunday I got started around noon. I roasted the sweet potatoes; boiled the barley; made the frosting; organized salad bowls; salted the eggplant; macerated the onions, spiced the feta. I started the onions early, knowing I could take them slow. After that, the order blurs, mostly because it didn't matter. I divided the dates between the sweet potatoes and the spinach salad. I toasted the pitas, but held them back until the end, so they'd retain some crunch. I turned the fire off the eggplant, then decided to add the pine nuts, so I reheated it. I had so much time, I toasted the remaining two pitas, and cut them into quarters, in case anyone wanted some bread.

The only disappointments, and they were marginal, were with the chicken and the cake. One person complained that the chicken was underdone, but I felt that if anything it was overdone. It was nicely browned, and measured 175-180°F in several spots. I had considered the option of turning the broiler on, but judged it browned enough already. I've made it several times, and recall the flavor as being more dramatic. Maybe more basting? At the very least, it could have used a bit more salt. Later it occurred to me that I could have deglazed the pan, added the leftover marinade (there was quite a bit), reduced it, and used it as a sauce. That would have intensified the flavor.

As for the cake, it was a bit dryer than ideal. I tend to err on the side of overdone. The dates sunk to the bottom, suggesting the batter should have been thicker. I don't know whether this goes back to the problem breaking up the marzipan, but by the time it was all mixed, the clumping of the marzipan wasn't evident. But I'm really nitpicking here. I've had guests yell at me for that. And I've never really wanted to repeat anything often enough to get really good at it.

Whenever I make a dinner like this, I usually post a picture and a short note on my Facebook (latest seems to be August 6), and sometimes I write some more in my notebook. At some point I should collect all of that into one of my "pile" files — especially the birthday dinners. I could have done that again here, but thought this might fit under the "everyday life" rubric.

By the way, my birthday dinner is just a week away, so it's something already on my mind. I'm going to try my hand at Italian this year: I've cooked a fair amount over the years, but never on my birthday. Biggest problem is that there are too many dishes I'd like to try. And too many of them need last-minute attention. So I'm expecting it will be much more frustrating and aggravating than this menu. But should be good for another report.