Home Cookin’ – Albanian Sudzuk Soup

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Instagram Post 8/29/2018

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I haven’t posted much home cooking lately, so here’s another experiment pursued with my customary reckless abandon and utter disregard for recipes: Albanian Sudzuk Soup. (Although they probably don’t really make this in Albania. But you never know….) Hot Albanian sudzuk (so many spellings for sujuk!), a dry, spicy sausage, was the basis for this soup; leeks and potatoes figured in prominently along with dried mushrooms and a few herbs and spices, the most significant of which was dill. Added a little heavy cream at the end to round it out.
 
 

Allerton Avenue International Food Festival

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Instagram Post 8/25/2018

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Scenes from the Allerton Avenue International Food Festival in the Bronx.

It was a treat to see Mama G African Kitchen at the festival. I’ve written about one of their brick and mortar restaurants (3650A White Plains Road in the Bronx) here and here so I don’t need to repeat how much I like their food; I’ll just show you what we got:

Waakye – you may see variant spellings but the pronunciation is wah-chay (rhymes with watch-way) and it’s Ghana’s culinary claim to fame. Similar to West Indian rice and peas, it’s made with rice and black eyed peas or cowpeas; the characteristic reddish-purplish-brown color can come from dried red sorghum leaves, millet leaves, or even baking soda. Yellow gari (ground cassava) on the side.

Jollof rice – There’s a keen rivalry among West African countries over whose version is the best but tomato paste figures heavily into all of them.

Fried turkey (the part that goes over the fence last – yum!), plantain, and fried croaker submerged under spicy sauce.

Delicious!
 
 

Sagara

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Instagram Post 8/24/2018

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When it comes to Staten Island’s Sri Lankan enclave, the only thing I like more than visiting it is revealing it to someone who’s unaware of it. On a recent excursion, we went to Sagara, the new Sri Lankan restaurant at 98 Victory Blvd, to scope out their lunch buffet.

[1] Dishes included red and white rice, dal curry, and coconut sambal…
[2] …yuca, deviled chick peas, kale salad, papadam…
[3] …deviled chicken (the best dish in terms of flavor but tricky to eat because of bone shards in every bite), vegetable fried rice, vegetable chop suey, noodles with egg…
[4] …an assortment of breads including plain dosa, uthappam, dal vada and urad dal vada, along with chutney and sambar…
[5] …and fresh fruits and ice cream for dessert. But props for the most interesting dessert go to lavaria (also spelled lewariya), coconut stuffed string hoppers.
 
 

Paterson’s Peruvian Parade – 2018

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On the last Sunday of July, Paterson, NJ, plays annual host to its exuberant Peruvian Parade and festival celebrating the country’s culture and national heroes. Here are some photos from this year’s culinary extravaganza in “Little Lima”, home of America’s largest Peruvian community, starting with dessert – because life is short:

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Picarones, Peru’s answer to the doughnut: a wok in progress.


Topped with one of a variety of sweet sauces.


Two of my favorite ice cream flavors sharing a single cup: lúcuma and cherimoya with big hunks of fruit. It’s difficult to find fresh lúcuma locally but the frozen pulp is easy to come by in Latin American markets. Cherimoya, sometimes called custard apple, can be found fresh without much ado – frozen pulp is also readily available. If you have a blender, buy the frozen pulp and try your hand at making a batido!


Anticuchos. Grilled skewers of tender, marinated beef heart always accompanied by boiled potato; Peruvian street food at its finest. Don’t be repelled by the fact that it’s heart – it’s just another cut of beef, and a particularly delicious one at that. Try it, you’ll like it.


Causa, another Peruvian favorite. This cold dish takes many forms, but the base is always seasoned, mashed yellow potatoes. From there, it’s layered with tuna, salmon, or chicken salad, olives and other vegetables, and topped with another layer of sunshiny potatoes.


Ceviche. I saw easily a half dozen different versions at the festival; stands offered divergent types of fish and each had its own custom recipe for leche de tigre, the ceviche marinade.

Mark your calendars for next year’s event!
 
 

Cafe Dushanbe

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When I write about restaurants on Instagram, they’re usually brief takes accompanied by a photo or two. (You can see my feed right here on ethnojunkie.com, updated almost daily, by selecting the “Instagram” category from my home page – no signup required.) But because of Instagram’s character count limitations, it’s often necessary to break up a review into several parts. This one originally appeared as three posts from 2018 and three more from 2019.

Named for the capital of Tajikistan, Café Dushanbe (formerly Café Rokhat) brings its yogurty cuisine to Brooklyn and does so admirably. The Kurutob alone was worth the trip to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn but there’s lots more to recommend Café Dushanbe.

Here, in no special order, are a few of the extraordinary dishes we sampled.

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Kurutob

One of the most impressive dishes we experienced (so much so that one of our group requested an additional order of it to go) was Kurutob (you might see qurutob), the pride of Tajikistan’s gastronomy. It starts with a base of fatir, flaky, layered flatbread which is then invigorated with qatiq, a delicious homemade yogurt, along with sautéed onion, red onion, tomato, cucumber, herbs, and spicy green pepper for an essential kick. Mix well for maximum enjoyment. Tajikistan’s answer to Italy’s panzanella, perhaps?

Qatiq, Fatir, and Kulcha

Straight-ahead qatiq along with two breads – the fatir and puffy kulcha – plus a ramekin of flavorful herb butter. If your only encounter with yogurt has been in the dairy aisle of your local supermart, you need to try this posthaste.

Non-toki

A concave behemoth with a nod to matzoh.

Pan Fried Calf’s Liver

GBD (Golden Brown and Delicious). Are you a liver lover or a liver leaver? In the aftermath, not a morsel remained – and I had been hoping for leftovers. Ah well.
 
 
Everybody loves dumplings and every cuisine has its own traditional renditions. I’m no exception to that sweeping statement and IMHO, Café Dushanbe has it knocked in this department. Manti are fist-sized steamed dumplings stuffed with chopped lamb, onions and herbs and are widespread throughout Central Asian and South Caucasian countries. This version is filled with relatively large, succulent hunks of seasoned lamb and are truly among the best I’ve ever tasted. We ordered two styles, fried…

Fried Manti

…and steamed. Both came with Tajik yogurt and were superb.

Steamed Manti

Samsa Gizhda

And just to round out the trio, we ordered Samsa Gizhda – baked (for contrast, right?) meat pies, a savory blend of lamb and beef encased in a light dough and served with a tomato based sauce.

Morkovcha Salad

Abbreviated history lesson: In the 1920s-30s, the Japanese occupied Korea; some Koreans managed to escape to Russia, but Stalin subsequently moved them to Central Asia, mostly Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. These people, the Koryo-saram, unable to obtain the cabbage they needed to prepare kimchi, created a version made from carrots, red pepper, garlic, and ground coriander seeds. Abbreviated gastronomic review: yum.

Shashlik

Three remarkable selections from the Barbecue section of the menu. In front, the biggest, juiciest, most perfectly seasoned lamb ribs I’ve ever tasted. Behind those, Beef Roulade “Dushanbe”; I usually eschew beef in favor of meats with a little more personality. Dushanbe’s beef roulades are rolled around fat for flavor and accentuated with indescribably delicious seasoning; they were so good, they made me believe in beef again. Lurking beneath, skewers of tender, flavorful lamb.

Homestyle Potatoes

Where would meat be without potatoes? This skillet of potatoes topped with saucy shiitake, oyster, and button mushrooms in the company of fried onions and herbs was the perfect partner.

Syuzma

A bracing salad of radishes, cucumbers, and greens was dressed with yogurt by a different designation, “syuzma”, sour milk that had been strained through a canvas bag; for comparison, see qatiq above. Indeed, Syuzma was the name (and the whole point) of the dish. So many yogurts, so little time.

Okroshka

Okroshka is a cold summer soup of Russian heritage, yogurt-based of course, made from boiled potatoes, raw vegetables, eggs, dill and other herbs. I neglected to inquire about specific ingredients, but I can assure you it was delicious; I guess I’ll just have to go back and ask.

As if I need an excuse. 😉
 
 
Café Dushanbe is located at 1788 Sheepshead Bay Road, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
 
 

Cevichochos

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Instagram Post 8/22/2018

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Ceviche isn’t always about seafood. This Ecuadorian ceviche de chochos (lupini beans), known colloquially as cevichochos, was served up by a street vendor near Our Lady of Sorrows Church, 104-11 37th Ave in Corona, Queens. The beans are combined with tomatoes, maiz tostado (toasted corn), red onion, and cilantro and marinated in a citrus blend. Often a vegetarian dish, this version included bits of fried pork (see second photo), a happy addition. Typically, it’s garnished with a crunchy topping – here it’s chifles, fried plantain.
 
 

Pretty Pastries from Portokali

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Instagram Post 8/21/2018

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Whenever I’m in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, I pay a visit to Portokali Gourmet Market at 1509 Sheepshead Bay Road. As their signage reminds us (see second photo), the name comes from the Turkish word for orange, portakal. In addition to Turkish delicacies, you’ll find a respectable assortment of Russian and near-Russian products in this medium sized well-stocked market as well: cheese, meats, olives, coffee, dried fruits and nuts in bulk, preserves and the like, candies, cookies, and fresh baked goods. My guess is that local carbnivores come in to grab a “coffee and” before they start their day.
 
 

The Garifuna Annual Culture Pot Celebration

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Instagram Post 8/20/2018

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The Garifuna Indigenous People of St. Vincent and the Grenadines held their Annual Culture Pot celebration recently in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and the food was delightful.

[1] The emblematic dish, cassava bambam, is made from compressed grated cassava and coconut grilled in a ring on a hot griddle. (The name Garifuna actually means cassava-eating people.)
[2] Smoke herring with breadfruit salad; it’s similar to potato salad but with breadfruit as the base. The flatbreads are madungo bakes made from arrowroot starch.
[3] Saltfish (dried cod) with more breadfruit salad (it’s delicious) and provision (boiled plantain) hiding beneath; coconut dumpling on the right.
[4] Pelau. Think pilaf but deeply flavored. And even more breadfruit salad (no, really – it’s delicious) on top.
[5] One of our desserts was dukuna (aka dukana), a gingery sweet potato dumpling, wrapped in a banana leaf and boiled.
 
 

Yu Tea

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Instagram Post 8/17/2018

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For all the times I’ve visited their neighbor, Pata Market, I had never made it into Yu Tea at 81-18 Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens until now. Without hesitation, I went directly to the Cheese Fruit Tea Smoothie section of the menu and selected Cheesy Doubleberry (strawberry and blueberry). The three layers you see here are meant to be well stirred, but of course I had to sample each individually: the bottom was sweet and a little syrupy, the middle represented what the final mixture would taste like without the final fillip from the top layer which is where the salty, cream cheesy magic happens. If you’ve ever had cheesecake flavor ice cream, imagine a strawberry/blueberry combo of those; now liquefy it, thin it out, sprinkle in a bit of salt, and mix well. This popular admixture of cheesy-salty-fruity-juicy can be found in malls around your favorite Chinatowns, and yes, it totally works!