Turkey kabob koubideh

If you know me well, and have been to my parents' house, you have had my father's kabobs! He makes a lot of different kinds, but one of his best is kabob koubideh, which is a Persian kabob made with ground meet grilled on flat skewers over a fire!
Now, me living in New York City means I have no grill and no place to store skewers, but I still love my kabobs. So after talking to my dad he taught me how to make a similar kabob in my oven using a cookie sheet.

What you need:
Lean ground meat (turkey, beef or chicken)
Onions (1 for each pound of meet)
Turmeric
Paprika
Chili powder
Salt
Pepper
Egg yolks

In a food processor grind the onions to a fine pulp. In a large mixing bowl, mix the ground meat and the onion pulp, add turmeric, salt, pepper, paprika and chili powder to taste. Then for each pound of meat add to egg yolks and mix everything together with your hands, really working everything into the meat. You can also add in other spices, my mother adds in saffron, I have added spiracha, and you can try minced fresh herbs.
After thoroughly mixing the meat, pulse the whole mixture in the food processor for about 10 seconds, you don't want it to be too fine, just really well mixed.
Then press out the meat into a half inch layer on a nonstick cookie sheet.
Place the sheet in the top rack of your oven and broil on high for about 10 minutes. After ten minutes, take the sheet out of the oven, cut the meat into 1 inch wide strips, space them out and flip each one over and broil again for about 10 minutes.



You can serve it with pita bread, rice, salad, or whatever you like.





Also featured in this picture is kabob joujeh ostkhan, which may make a recipe appearance on this blog soon!

Also FYI... this winter I will be focusing on making Persian and Indian food, so look out for those recipes!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Festo

The other night I had one of my a favorite couples over for dinner! The hubby from the couple and I are watching our carbs, but the wife is pregnant, I also had a half bag of strozzapretti (that's the name of the pasta I used with the eggplant sauce) so I decided to make her a pasta dish aside from the proteins and greens her husband and I were having.

Being Persian I always have pistachios in my fridge, and I had a bunch of fresh mint too. And so I decided to make a fake pesto inspired sauce which the hubby called "festo"
To make festo you need:
Mint
Pistachios
Coffee grinder
Pecorino Romano (could substitute with any other dry aged cheese like Parmesan)
Olive oil
Garlic
Crushed red pepper
Pasta

I used my coffee grinder to grind about a half cup of pistachios into coarse particles. If you are Indian or Persian I know you have an exclusive spice coffee grinder. Others out there you can try the same grinder you use for coffee but it may taint the taste a lot so you could try a food processor or even a mortar and pestle!
After you have your pistachio powder, then sauté some chopped garlic along with the crushed red pepper in olive oil, add the pistachio powder, after about a minute of cooking the pistachio powder (constantly moving it so it doesn't burn) then add in some chopped mint, just barely letting it wilt. Then toss the pasta into it and grate the pecorino cheese to taste.
Remember to salt your pasta water well since you are not adding any additional salt in the sauce.
I had the leftovers of this dish cold the day after and it tasted just as good cold as it did warm.
I am planning to try a different festo in the winter, using sage, walnuts and gorgonzola.
I think this is fun recipe so choose a fresh herb, a cheese and a nut and experiment! Or try an Asian flare, use kaffir lime leaves, peanuts, rice noodles and green mango shaving, with some sesame oil or fish sauce. (i definitely have not tried that one yet, so if you try that let me know how it goes)

Kale, eggplants and heirlooms oh my!!

So this week I got my hand on some beautiful baby eggplants, kale and heirloom tomatoes. What to make?



So I decided to make a kale appetizer inspired by things I have eaten at Franny's (my favorite restaurant in Brooklyn, btw they are coming out with a cookbook soon). And as for the eggplants and tomatoes I made a gorgeous sauce for pasta.

For the kale appetizer I used:
1 bunch of lacinto kale
1 can of cannelinni beans (Eden brand)
1 leek
1 lemon
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Pecorino romano

I sautéed some thinly sliced leeks with the kale, which I left whole. I used a normal olive oil for sautéing. As soon as the kale was wilted and cooked, I added in the cup of beans and cooked it all together for a minute. Then I chilled the whole concoction, dressed it with lemon juice, fancy olive oil, salt and pepper, and of course some pecorino romano. It made a delicious appetizer.



For the pasta sauce I used
8 baby eggplants
12 heirloom medium sized tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 a can of tomato paste
Red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese

I sautéed the garlic and chunks of cut up eggplant in olive oil, then added diced tomatoes and the tomato paste, covered the whole thing and let it simmer, until it turned into a thick chunky sauce. I then grated a ton of parmesan cheese into it!
I put it on some pasta called spagiatelle or something like that. I think you could do it on a fusilli or ziti or penne!

Coq au Vin

In the interest of being completely forthright, this is not actually a recipe for Coq au Vin, but more of a fake coq au vin created by me!
So I had a half stalk of leftover celery, and some mushrooms in the fridge, and a 2 month old (since opening) bottle of red wine sitting in my fridge... that's the beginning of this recipe.
I began by sauteeing the celery and mushrooms for a minute in a big pan, I then lay the chicken pieces on top, added the wine and some more olive oil and baked it for about 45 minutes.
This is what the finished product looked like

I use drum sticks because I like them best, but you could just as well use chicken breast.  I first baked for about 40 minutes and the last 5-10 minutes I put the settings on high broil.
This recipe turned out excellent, we could not get enough of it. 
I think it is more of a winter recipe though we ate it in the summer... I think you can make it with butternut squash, or parsnips.
The celery and the mushrooms cooked in the wine broth became so creamy and delicious.  Don't be stingy on the salt in this recipe because you need it to balance the acidity of the old wine.  I am sure it might be even more delicious if you use wine that is not so old.
Bon appetit!