30 Apr
Anissa: It has been quite some time since the great Charles Perry wrote a guest post and I was delighted when he suggested mastic, one of my favourite ingredients, except that he is writing about it in the context of savoury cooking which is fascinating.
Charles: With its heady resinous aroma, mastic seems a natural flavoring for sweets. The Greeks and Turks drink mastic syrup with coffee; they put it in ice cream and Turkish delight. The Moroccans can’t seem to grind almonds without throwing in a little mastic.
And yet medieval Arab cooks scarcely ever flavor sweets with mastic – it was more likely to contribute its aroma to meat dishes. The greatest mastic fan on record is Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Baghdadi, because mastic appears in more than half of the 96 red meat recipes in his 1226 book Kitab al-Tabikh.
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20 Apr
I should have people over for lunch every day. Well, perhaps every week. I just had a super lunch party. Friends came from all over, Honk Kong, New York, Putney, Fitzrovia, Hampstead, Dalston and Sussex and each came with one or more wonderful present: chocolates from l’Artisan du Chocolat, spicy peanuts from Beijing (the best ever), a special red rice from Dimen village (will write about it and Joanna, Ken and uncle Kit in a separate post), beautiful jars of fried garlic, lovely wine, and the most amazing mooncakes from Honk Kong.
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17 Apr
Yesterday I posted a recipe for a beetroot dip but it wasn’t the only one I had made for today’s lunch. I often make three, each with a different texture and colour and, of course, a different flavour. My favourite in the trio is baba ghannuge, where the secret is to get the aubergines as close to the grill as you can so that the skins burn a little and you get the smoky flavour that is so typical of this dip. Also, once you have peeled off the charred skin, you need to let the flesh drain for about half an hour to get rid of the excess liquid — you would be surprised at how much liquid drains out. Oh, and never use a blender with aubergines otherwise your dip will have no texture. It needs to be chunky even if it is very soft. I used to mash the aubergines with a fork but I now use a potato masher (much quicker) but I make sure not to pulverize the flesh too much.
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16 Apr
I love beetroot. I can’t remember which author it was who taught me to bake instead of boil it. It was many years ago and I don’t think I ever boiled beetroot since. The great thing about baking beetroot is that you avoid any wateriness which makes a difference when you are using them to make a dip like the one below which I learned a few years ago in Aleppo, at Maria’s, the lady chef who does the cookery demonstrations on my culinary tours — not happening this spring because of the revolution!
