Hummus, Shakshuka and More

 

Sunday, December 9, 2012 – Hummus, Shakshuka, and More

So, this is about food, specifically food that is enjoyed in Israel.  Let’s start with hummus since that’s an item you can always find in my refrigerator.  I can’t imagine a day going by without dipping some crackers or raw veggies into the tasty chickpea based mixture.  In fact, when I’m on vacation and can’t have my daily ration of hummus, I experience hummus withdrawal.  Currently, my hummus of choice is Trader Joe’s Mediterranean Hummus with the parsley, red pepper, and pine nuts on top. 

Just recently, I mentioned to Elisa that I used to make my own hummus because, thirty years ago, you couldn’t just walk into a supermarket and buy it ready-made.  I remember quite well dumping chickpeas, tahini, garlic, and lemon juice into a blender (this was when I lived in Boston, before I had a food processor) and surprising my friends with the “exotic” flavors.  Times have certainly changed.  With hummus as prevalent as peanut butter in nearly every grocery store, I haven’t even thought about making my own.  Until Sunday, that is, when I spent a delightful afternoon at an Israeli cooking class organized by my Hadassah group.  For two hours, in the company of 22 Hadassah ladies, I chopped, stirred, and tasted my way through a typical Israeli meal.  Our instructor, Yael, chose a menu of tahini, hummus, eggplant salad, pita, shakshuka (more about that shortly), Israeli salad and halva.  

Yael, our Israeli cooking teacher

 

First of all, I learned the difference between raw (or naked) tahini and the kind that’s served as a dip or dressing.  The raw tahini, which you can buy in jars, is simply ground sesame seeds.  When you add lemon juice, garlic, salt and cold water, you turn it into a tangy sauce that you can drizzle on salads or cooked vegetables, or use as a dip for pita.  The raw tahini is also an important ingredient in hummus.  It took just a few minutes for us to whip up a batch of hummus in the food processor, and it was delicious.

Homemade hummus

While we were making the tahini sauce and the hummus, eggplants brushed with olive oil were roasting in the oven.  When they were tender, we scooped out the smoky flesh and mixed it with a little of our fresh tahini sauce for a delightful eggplant salad that we gobbled up with pita bread triangles.  The Israeli salad is a dish that I often make at home.  It’s a very simple mixture of chopped fresh vegetables (tomatoes, red onions, sweet peppers, cucumbers, carrots), fresh herbs (parsley, mint, cilantro are fine), extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  There are countless variations to this salad.  Just remember, if you make it yourself, not to combine the ingredients until just before serving.  

But the real revelation of the afternoon was shakshuka.  I don’t recall when I first heard of this dish of eggs poached in a bed of simmering tomatoes, onions, and red peppers.  I’ve read about restaurants in Israel that base their fame on their shakshuka.  Somehow, I missed it when I was in Israel many, many years ago.  Finally, I was able to remedy this lapse.  We sautéed the chopped up vegetables with garlic in olive oil and simmered them for a good half hour until we had a thick chunky sauce in the pan (and a mouth-watering aroma in the kitchen).  Then we dropped whole eggs into shallow depressions in the sauce and let the dish cook until the eggs were just set.  I wish I knew how to say delicious in Hebrew.  

Shakshuka, before the eggs have set

After sampling all of the good food we’d prepared, we nibbled on halva for dessert.  This sugary sesame seed paste brings back memories of my childhood.  When I was growing up on Long island, my mother would often buy a slab of it at the deli since it was one of my father’s favorite treats.  Looking around at the Hadassah group made me think especially of my mother.  Throughout her life, she devoted many volunteer hours to this women’s organization that supports a major hospital, medical research and other worthy programs in Israel.  Until a few years ago, she would have enjoyed this program very much, and I’m sad that she can no longer participate in such activities.