Author Archives: Rich

Gusht Non

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In my last post about Bosu Lagman at Kashkar Café, 1141 Brighton Beach Ave, I mentioned an item that was so yummy, it’s a permanent fixture on my Little Odessa ethnojunket through Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood. So much so, in fact, that on a recent visit there I asked my dining buddy, “Is this really, really good or have I just been eating too much of my own home cooking?” His reply between bites: “It’s really, really good.”

The first photo shows Gusht Non (гушт нон), literally “meat bread”, in its pristine state. Think Turkish gözleme with lamb meets Chinese scallion pancake via Kazakhstan.


The inner workings.

The menu humbly describes gusht non as “lamb meat, onions, and greenery baked in a pan” which is certainly accurate as far as it goes, but once you’ve had a bite, you’ll gush with pleasure – nononsense!

Ethnojunkets will be starting up soon – stay tuned for the official announcement! (No extra charge for mnemonics. Or bad puns. 😉)
 
 

Bosu Lagman

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I’ve written previously about Kashkar Café (here and here), 1141 Brighton Beach Ave, Brooklyn, and since I’m in the throes of revivifying my food tours, a return visit was in order; I’m pleased to report that Kashkar is still thriving and still reliably delicious. They serve the food of the Uyghur people, a primarily Muslim ethnic group who live in the Xinjiang region of northwest China near Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan; as you’d expect, the cuisine is a comingling of Chinese and Central Asian fare and definitely worth getting to know.

On a recent visit, we opted for Bosu Lagman; linguistically, the Chinese influence is easy to identify from the cognates: lo mein → lagman. On the menu, you’ll see жареный лагман, literally fried lagman, delectable noodles with a perfect chew accompanied by tender lamb and vegetables.

Stay tuned for another dish from Kashkar that’s so tasty, it’s a permanent fixture on my Little Odessa ethnojunket.

Looking forward to seeing you just as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer!
 
 

Afrosiab Café

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One component of reviving my ethnojunkets involves the always fun task of checking out locations where restaurants along my food tours have closed and new ones have opened in their stead. Such is the case for Afrosiab Café which is firmly ensconced in the former digs of Café At Your Mother-in-Law at 3071 Brighton 4th St, Brooklyn.

Named for the settlement of Afrosiab in Samarkand, Uzbekistan (dating back to about the 6th century BC), Afrosiab describes its cuisine as Middle Eastern although the choices on the menu point to Uzbek food.

My dining buddy and I ordered Jiz Biz; we’ve enjoyed a dish of lamb offal – spelled djiz-biz – many times at Azerbaijani restaurants, but the menu here described this simply as lamb chops. And indeed they were. Accompanied by fried potatoes, sliced red onions and tomatoes, and grilled wedges of Uzbek bread, it was an artful presentation.


Achichuk, Uzbek tomato and onion salad.

More reports of revisiting Little Odessa to come….
 
 

Navruz

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Yesterday, I published a post about Nowruz, the Persian New Year, and fesenjan. But the vernal equinox is heralded as the first day of the new year by more than 300 million people worldwide, particularly in countries along the Silk Routes including Iraq, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Central Asia, and others. As a matter of fact, in 2010, the United Nations officially proclaimed March 21 to be the International Day of Nowruz. And of course, every culture has its own unique dishes to celebrate the occasion.

In Uzbekistan, it’s known as Navruz, and it may well be their most popular holiday. I consider myself fortunate to live not far from Brooklyn’s Tashkent Market, a sprawling center of appetizing prepared food indigenous to Central Asia and Eastern Europe, because it affords the opportunity to sample some authentic treats considered to be essential delicacies for Navruz.

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One such dish is a succulent meat paste (for lack of a better word – paté isn’t quite right) known as halim or haleem in Tashkent and halissa elsewhere concocted from pulverized meat, sprouted wheat, and flour; it takes about 12 hours to cook it down to delicious perfection. I’ve plated it here with griddled flatbread, sliced hard boiled eggs, and caramelized onion.


One time I decided to see how I might incorporate it into a dish rather than consuming it straight up, so I cobbled together a noodle kugel (Yiddish for pudding) with sliced fresh mushrooms, sautéed leeks and other good stuff (hey, I was improvising) that I thought would do the halim justice and serve to make it a little less monotonous. Really yummy, if I do say so myself.


Another quintessential dish served for Navruz in Uzbekistan is sumalak, a traditional sweet pudding whose sole ingredient is sprouted wheat. The age-old process of preparing it is a ritual that fosters brotherhood, cooperation, and unity: Each family brings a handful of sprouted wheat to be cooked together overnight in a kazan, an enormous common cauldron; it must be stirred constantly lest it burn with a shovel-like implement traditionally wielded by women. (I hear that men make the halim.) As the sumalak thickens, it becomes more difficult to stir so the women work in shifts mixing the dense pudding. When it’s ready, it’s shared by neighbors, relatives, and friends; there’s even a role for the children in the heartwarming legend.

How this dish turns into something sweet is a miracle in itself as far as I’m concerned.


To give you an idea of the viscosity.

And yes, both of these goodies along with many more are available at Tashkent Market, one of the highlights on my Little Odessa ethnojunket. It’s coming soon, so watch this space!
 
 

Nowruz

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Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about observing New Year’s Day in January or February or September, but you have to admit that it does seem eminently logical to herald the inauguration of a new year on the first day of spring, doesn’t it?

And that’s exactly what Nowruz is about: literally “new day” in Farsi, it’s celebrated in Iran and the Persian diaspora on the vernal equinox, around March 20. There is a multitude of holiday conventions practiced for Nowruz, some of which harmonize with universal rites of spring including “shaking the house”, a preparatory spring cleaning, and painting eggs in festive colors (sound familiar?) and of course a cavalcade of traditional foods.

Pictured here is my homemade fesenjan, a splendid dish often earmarked for special occasions. Fesenjan is a koresh, a thick stew, sometimes made with chicken, sometimes with duck like this one; the other two essential ingredients are walnuts and pomegranates in some form – my version uses pomegranate molasses although I’ve seen pomegranate juice pressed into service as well. It’s served here with saffron rice in a supporting but essential role. (And that’s my grandmother’s serving dish if you’re curious.)

But fesenjan is distinctly Persian and other cultures commemorate the holiday with very different foods. Stay tuned for more….
 
 

Sfingi for St. Joseph’s Day

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It seems like every world cuisine has its own version of fried dough – Zeppole are Italy’s contender. You’ve probably seen them at street festivals or perhaps you were fortunate enough to have grown up watching your nonna make them as she confidentially disclosed her signature special ingredient, amore, which of course elevated hers above all others. They’re usually dusted with a sprinkle of powdered sugar but on occasion are dressed with a shot of pastry cream.

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These first cousins are sfingi (pronounced SFEEN-jee), Sicily’s answer to Neapolitan zeppole, although the two are not mutually exclusive. Sfingi are fried cream puffs filled with cannoli cream and can be found in Italian-American bakeries in celebration of Saint Joseph’s Day, March 19, honoring the husband of the Virgin Mary. (BTW, I’ve seen recipes that call for baking them, but….No.) This pair, chocolate on the left, bursting with ricotta-based, cinnamon-inflected, sweet cannoli cream shot through with mini chocolate bits, came from Court Pastry Shop, 298 Court St in Brooklyn.

The inside scoop:

Crunchy crispitude.


Puffy and floofy.
 
 

Holi Mubarak!

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(Originally published on Holi in 2019.)

The Equal Opportunity Celebrant strikes again, eating my way through Holi today, the Hindu festival of spring and colors celebrated predominantly in India and Nepal. Prowling around the Indian neighborhood in Jackson Heights yesterday in search of traditional Holi treats, I enjoyed watching children choosing packets of powder in every color of the rainbow to sparge at anything in their path, thus producing a glorious festive mess. The holiday recounts the heartwarming legend of Krishna coloring his face for Radha, his love, and heralds the arrival of spring.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Jalebi are one of the most widely available Indian mithai (you can read about my addiction to them here); they’re made from chickpea or wheat flour batter, usually orange but occasionally yellow (no difference in flavor, just a color preference) which is drizzled into hot oil in coil shapes. The resulting deep fried confections look like pretzels; they’re crispy when they come out of the oil, then they’re soaked in super sweet syrup so you get the best of both worlds. For Holi, however, jalebi get the royal treatment; this one is about 7 inches in diameter and generously adorned with edible silver foil, sliced almonds and pistachios. Because this sticky jumbo jalebi (jalumbi? jalembo?) is larger and thicker than the standard issue version, it provides more crunch and holds more syrup in each bite so it’s even more over the top, if such a thing is possible.


This is gujiya (you might see gujia), a classic Holi sweet, half-moon shaped and similar to a deep-fried samosa. Crunchy outside and soft within, it’s filled with sweetened khoa (milk solids), ground nuts, grated coconut, whole fruits and nuts (raisins and cashews in this one), cumin seeds, and a bit of suji (semolina) for texture.

These Holi day treats came from Maharaja Sweets, 73-10 37th Ave, Jackson Heights, Queens.

Holi Mubarak! Have a blessed Holi!
 
 

St. Patrick’s Day

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I checked into Wikipedia before I started writing this to see what gaps in my knowledge of Irish cuisine might exist: the extensive article boasted almost 9,000 words and explored the cuisine beginning with its roots in the prehistoric Mesolithic Period (8000–4000 BC)! So for the sake of our mutual sanity, we’re going to stick with Irish food that I actually know and love.

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Some dishes are quintessentially Irish like colcannon (potatoes and cabbage), bacon and cabbage (which begat corned beef and cabbage), Irish stew (traditionally mutton and potatoes), boxty (a potato pancake), coddle (sausage, bacon, and potatoes), black pudding and white pudding (sausages), shepherd’s pie, and more.

But in honor of St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, here is a favorite that does not include meat, potatoes or cabbage: Irish soda bread. Baking soda activated by buttermilk takes the place of yeast as a leavening agent in this delicacy; that accounts for its delicate, crumbly texture and puts it somewhere along the bread <-> cake continuum.


I purchased this sweet raisin-studded beauty from Court Pastry Shop, 298 Court St in Brooklyn, and it was truly outstanding. It’s served here with Irish cheddar cheese, radicchio marmalade (a change up from the traditional coarse cut orange) and whipped butter.

Excellent, as always.
 
 

Purim 2022

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The Jewish holiday Purim begins this year (it’s 5782 according to the Jewish calendar) on Wednesday evening, March 16, and ends on the following Thursday evening. Although the photos in this post were originally published a year ago, some things never change. Tradition!

The story of Purim memorializes the time in ancient Jewish history when Haman, royal vizier to King Ahasuerus of Persia, had been plotting to exterminate all the Jews in the empire. His plan was thwarted by Mordecai and Queen Esther, his adopted daughter, and the deliverance is one of joyful celebration, steeped in traditional ceremonies and festivities. Among the many icons of the holiday, one of the most renowned is the hamantasch, literally “Haman’s pocket”.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Hamantaschen are delicious triangular baked pastries conventionally filled with thick prune jam (lekvar) or ground poppy seeds (muhn), but these days creative cookery presents some serious competition. Happily, the always mind-blowing Breads Bakery with four locations in Manhattan, covers the entire spectrum. On this plate, there’s sweet poppy seed, halva, chocolate, and apple along with a pair of savory challengers, purple haze and pizza. The former, covered in sesame and nigella seeds, holds sauerkraut – a little sweetish and worth a bite even if you don’t care for sauerkraut. The latter is filled with a blend of tomato paste, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, basil, garlic, and olive oil and tastes exactly like what you’d expect with that set of ingredients; try warming this one up. Fusion food for sure. This year’s specialties are apple, apricot, poppy, chocolate, and pizza with walnut pesto.


Sometimes a change of focus helps to make a point – or six.
 
 

Pi Day

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From a visit to the amazing Petee’s Pie Company in Manhattan back in 2018 – and they’re still going strong!

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Pi Day is upon us! The official day that celebrates the astonishing discovery in 1988 that the first three digits of the mathematical constant pi (π≅3.14) correspond to the calendar date using the month/day format (3/14).

Provided, that is, that you don’t use the MM-DD format with its leading zeros. Or that you’re literally anywhere in the world outside of the United States where, intuitively, DD-MM-YYYY puts the numbers in order of significance. Or that you’re not enamored of the eminently more logical and sortable YYYY-MM-DD format.

But I digress.

IMHO 🥧 > 🍰 and Petee’s Pie Company at 61 Delancey St in Manhattan and 505 Myrtle Ave in Brooklyn dishes up some of the best I’ve ever tasted, but making the decision about which of the delightful daily selections to choose is neither as easy as pie nor is it a piece of cake. Of course they have wonderful fruit pies, nut pies, and custard pies, but their chess pies are always first to grab my attention.

Chess pie occupies (ahem) the middle ground between cheesecake and custard pie. Devoid of cheese and generally with a little more body than custard pie (often due to the addition of cornmeal) they are incredibly rich and, unsurprisingly, hail from America’s South.

Folktales about the genesis of its name are plentiful. One has it that chess pie is so sweet, it needs no refrigeration and could therefore be kept in the kitchen pie chest → pie ches’ → chess pie. Another speculation involves a tangled explanation involving English curd pies (think lemon curd as opposed to cheese curd and therefore sans cheese) and an American corruption of the British pronunciation of “cheese pie” – a long way around if you ask me. I favor the simpler, homespun tale that goes, “That pie smells incredible! What kind is it?” to which the modest Southern baker’s humble response was, “It’s jes’ pie.”

This incredible black bottom Almond Chess Pie infused with amaretto, topped with toasted almonds, resting on a layer of chocolate ganache and served with housemade vanilla ice cream was the capper on a day so packed with pigging out that we wondered if we would have room, but it was so delicious that it wasn’t a stretch. (Not so my belly, however.)
 
 
Visit Petee’s Pie Company on the web to check out their complete menu.