The Kosher Cheeseburger

I don't eat at McDonald's.

The only things their burgers fill me with is sadness.
Their meals are unsatisfying, and generally feel like a waste of bovine life.

It may therefore surprise some readers that once a year I make a pilgrimage to my local McDonald's and willfully order a McRoyal.
It may surprise you even more to read that that annual tradition is reserved for Passover, but hear me out.

First, a little background for the benefit of the uninformed.

As you probably know, bread is considered un-kosher during the week of Passover. This culinary law is due to the tale of the exodus and how the Hebrews did not have time to let their bread rise before fleeing Egypt. In memory of this anecdote, Jews can only eat unleavened bread during this time - hence the invention of Matzo bread.

As Israel is a Jewish country, there is a law prohibiting the sale of bread during the Holiday. This means that most businesses serve bread substitutes during this time. This includes major fast food chains like McDonald's, that serve their sad, grey patties on even sadder potato dough buns (not to be confused with American potato bread buns that contain some regular flour - these, to the best of my knowledge, contain either no wheat at all, or matzo flour) - tragic, chewy, foam-like abominations that barely feel digestible.

Why then, of all the days of the year, would I actually want to visit McDonald's on the week their food is even worse than usual?

To celebrate the absurdity of institutionalized religious tradition, of course.

DON'T JUDGE ME

Yes - it's possible to order a kosher (for Passover) cheeseburger.

When The System offers opportunities to openly mock it like this, I can't help but do so. Year after fucking year.

Yuck.

Cherry Tomato and Strawberry Jam

It's the end of the strawberry season here in Israel, which is the perfect time for making jam. Prices are low, the fruit are beautiful and the farmers don't bother with pesticide.

Here's my take on red jam, in which I use hot chilis, ginger and tomatoes alongside the strawberries to achieve a more complex and somewhat surprising flavor. The resulting jam is sweet and at first feels like traditional strawberry preserves, but finishes off with a warm chili-ginger flavor.

Ingredients

• Ripe strawberries - 750 grams
• Cherry tomatoes - 750 grams
• Apples - two medium sized apples, preferably a bit under-ripe, of a pectin-rich variety.
• Fresh chili peppers - 2 to 3, depending on how hot you'd like the final result.
• Ginger
• White sugar - 1.5 to 1.7 kilograms

Preparation

Thoroughly wash and dry your fruit. Cut the strawberries and tomatoes into a size that's approximately 3 times larger than the size you would like the eventual fruit chunks in your jam to be. 

Chop the ginger as thinly as possible - it will not shrink much during the cooking process. 

Cut the chilies down to small cubes. The more seeds and membranes you keep in your chilies, the hotter the final product will be. One chili is barely noticeable, three would make the jam almost chutney-hot. 

Pour the cut fruit and vegetables into a large pot, and add the sugar. Mix well until you can't see any dry sugar. As the produce sits, the sugar will draw out a substantial amount of liquid into the pot. 

While this is going on, cut the apples - make sure to leave their skins on, as they are the most pectin-rich part, and will help the jam to congeal - and add them to the pot. 

Stir well, and light a low flame. 

Stir frequently, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom, and let the mixture warm through and bubble.

What we're looking to do here is to reduce the liquids in order to thicken the mixture, as well as to cook the fruit and draw out as much flavor as possible from them.

The amount of time the cooking process will take depends on the size of your pot, the strength of the flame and the amount of liquid your fruit originally contained.

You can check if the jam is ready by taking a small amount of the cooking liquid in a metal teaspoon and placing it on an ice cube to cool the liquid rapidly. If the liquid has reached a thick, jelly-like consistency when it has cooled, your jam is ready. 

Take the pot off the heat and pour your jam into sterilized jars. Make sure to do this while your jam is still hot so that your jars won't crack and because it's easier to ladle out when it is still warm and runny.  

Store in a cool, dark place, or in the fridge.

HaSovel

As I walk back to our apartment down Ibn Gvirol street, making my way from the Reading parking lot to Rabin Square, I pass the HaSovel pizzeria. HaSovel, roughly translated, means “The Sufferer” or “The One Who Suffers”.

It is usually closed when I pass by since he does not keep regular hours. On a good day, HaSovel opens at around 1 AM, and closes at five in the morning. That’s HaSovel. He doesn’t give a fuck.

There used to be a large neon-lit sign above the little corridor that is his pizzeria. Of course, it didn’t say “HaSovel”, or even depict a pizza. Instead, it was a black silhouette of a chimera-like creature with the head of a dog at one end and the head of a cat at the other. That’s HaSovel. Fuck you.

He took it down a few months ago, and when I saw that all that was left of the chimera-sign was a naked wall of flickering fluorescent lights unceremoniously strung together, I rushed to the neighboring business and asked, frantically, if HaSovel closed shop.

“No,” they said. “Why would you think that?”

“He took the sign down..!”

“Sometimes he takes the sign down!”

That’s HaSovel. Fuck signs.

It is close to 3 AM. I cross the street and make my way towards the counter.

The place is packed. Under harsh, bright lights a crowd of teenagers emanates a hostile, tense sense of immanent violence that can only be generated by the singular cocktail of sweatpants, cheap cologne and gelled hair with stiff peaks that shares the texture, grandeur and flakes of a cum-stained gym sock.

There are only two options on the non-existent menu. You either get a slice with egg (hardboiled), or without. Don’t like the topping? Fuck you. This is HaSovel.

I order a plain slice, but warn him that I only have large bills. “Do you have change?” I ask, politely.

“Hey, what the fuck do you think this place is?” The small, gaunt man behind the counter – HaSovel himself! - asks me through clenched teeth and hollow cheeks. “A drug station? Give me the money, take your fucking pizza, take your fucking change and fucking leave.” He waves a lukewarm pizza slice in my general direction, held between a dirty thumb and a dirty paper napkin. I grab it and scramble to catch the coins he dumps into my other hand.

“Thanks!” I say as I shove my wallet back into my pocket.

“Get the fuck outta here.”

As I continue walking down the street I bite into the slice and taste the MSG, garlic powder, thin crust and cheap tomato paste. Heaven. 

AMERRRIIIICAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

'Muricah, you're monstrous. This video verges on the sublime.

Chef - The Movie

So my better half and I watched Jon Favreau's "Chef" yesterday. A lot has been written about it online already so I won't bore you with details, but it was very enjoyable - particularly, recognizing a lot of my personal mannerisms in the cooks on screen. (Is it good? Really? Are you sure..?)

Anyway, I left with a hankering for Latin American food.
Since I'm studying for a big exam, I won't burden you with words this time:

Sweet Corn

Plantains

In the oven, with olive oil.

skirt steak

done.

add the corn and chili peppers.

tomatoes.

When charred, bring back the steak with its liquids. 

Pour hot over diced mangoes, top with avocado, coriander and pickled onions.
Add a few generous squirts of lime juice.

Faqus Salad

It's not often that I come across an ingredient that I've never heard of before, let alone one that is considered local.

Reading Alma's wonderful post on Jerusalem (Warning: Hebrew), I became intrigued with the vegetable she called "Faquz".

After some Googling, it appears that what Jerusalamites call "Faquz" or "Faqouz" and the rest of Israel calls "Faqus", "Arabic Cucumber" or "Palestinian Cucumber" is a local version of the Armenian Cucumber, and that it's in season now.

It being exam period in Tel Aviv university and my having a big exam two days from now, this was the perfect excuse to procrastinate, so I got up and went to the Carmel market to see if the produce stalls have any in stock.

When I got there I headed for the Arabian stalls next to the Carmelit and was informed by the local stall owners that they're fresh out and that I might have better luck closer to Nehalat Binyamin. The stall owners there told me they don't carry Faqus but that maybe closer to the center of the market I might find something.

As I slowly honed in on one specific stall I also bought some figs, mint and, to my surprise, lime. It's either suddenly in season, or just that I've never noticed it before, but I was really happy to find some. And if there's lime, there's calls for ceviche, so I also bought a small trout.

Anyway, after touring up and down the Carmel market, passing several Taglit groups that were simply fascinated by the plastic junk gizmos and the stupid tourist t-shirts on sale, old women arguing with fishmongers and the Davka Gourmet cheese shop (which I don't buy at after seeing they label their Gruyere cheese as French in origin)  I found these babies nestled between some cucumbers and sweet corn:

It's difficult to see in this image, but they are slightly fuzzy and have a more rotund figure than regular cucumbers, besides the obvious differences in color.

Taking my loot back home, I examined the Faqus in more detail.

Ooooh, you touch my Tralalala

Besides the obvious similarity between the Faqus' seeds and The Mouth of Sauron's teeth its was very firm, slightly sweeter than a cucumber, and its outer skin (after I've washed and toweled it off to get rid of the fuzz) reminded me of a very thin layer of melon rind - but in a good way! All in all it was very tasty.

I cut it lengthwise and then into thin slices, and mixed it with the figs, mint, some lemon juice, olive oil and sumaq. 

The resulting salad was astonishingly good.

The sweetness from the figs mixed with the coolness of the Faqus and mint, alongside the acidity and tartness from the lemon and sumaq created a super refreshing salad which was a huge pleasure to eat. 

Served alongside cubed trout fillet in a quick salt and lime pickle, this was one of the better (and easier) meals I've treated myself to lately. And so should you!

Summer Ceviche

Hot town summer in the City
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the City
All around people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk hotter than a match head 

I love this song, and this version especially. Something about it manages to convey the sweaty, humid fatigue of deep summer days and the throbbing aliveness of the nights.
At times like these I crave cool, refreshing foods. Recently I've been living off of practically nothing but prickly pears, mangoes and water, with the occasional slice of industrial pastrami snuck at night straight from the fridge, but the fact that we've finally received our city parking permit and are able to park the car close to our apartment makes it harder to find an excuse not to leave the house and get some quality ingredients.

One of the cool things about Israel is that it is both very small and very geographically and climatically diverse, which means we can get excellent fresh produce of all kinds easily.

I let my mind wander for a bit, thinking about what I'd like to eat, and kept on returning to the tastes of Vietnam. The bright, fresh, acidic and spicy flavors and textures were exactly what I needed to cut through the heat, and so I headed out to the market to buy some coriander, basil,  ginger and cucumbers, with the intent of making a simple cucumber salad with sugar, sesame oil, rice vinegar, red onions and garlic.
But when I arrived at the market the produce practically cried out to me. Mouth-watering, bright red Italian plum tomatoes, deep orange mangoes and ripe avocados all winked and beckoned. Of course I bought some. And then I bought a fish (a Meagre). And then I realized what I was going to make was no longer even remotely Vietnamese - it was South-American with East-Asian influences, at best.

No matter! It's still delicious.
You can easily switch out the raw fish in this recipe with cooked, (I'd recommend pan seared or deep-fried), with other animals such as shrimp or chicken, or even leave out the animal protein altogether. It won't be a ceviche anymore but it will still make a great, refreshing summer salad.

Ingredients:
For the Salad

• 1 Italian plum tomato (or any other tomato you like), diced
• 3 medium-smallish cucumbers, cut in half lengthwise and then halved again lengthwise, then sliced as thinly as possible
• A generous handful of coriander leaves and another of basil. Use Thai basil if you can get it.
• 1 Mango, diced (I used the Maya variety but any will do.)
• 1 mediumish avocado, diced.
• One small red onion, sliced into fine slivers.
• 1 fresh fish fillet, cut into bite sized pieces.

Mix.

For the dressing:

• Juice of 1 small lemon, or two limes if you can get them (I couldn't).
• One large clove of garlic, minced or crushed to a pulp in mortar and pistil. 
• About three cm of ginger root, minced finely.
• About a spoonful of sriracha sauce
• About 3/4ths of a spoonful of sesame oil
• About 3 spoonfuls of canola or other neutral tasting oil
• About a spoonful of white sugar
• About a third of a cup of distilled vinegar
• About a spoonful of white rice vinegar

Shake well in a sealed jar to combine and pour over the salad.

I suggest cutting and adding in the fish and avocado last, just before adding the dressing, so that they don't oxidize too much.

Serve in a tortilla, in rice paper rolls, or as a salad, and enjoy!

And just because I really like how this photo turned out..