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Nov. 22, 2013
Easy meals to impress guests
New cookbook offers 60 (kosher) recipes that taste and look great.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Made easy it certainly is. But Starters & Sides: Made Easy (Mesorah Publications Ltd.) by Leah Schapira and Victoria Dwek is much more than starters. And don’t mistake easy for plain-looking or bland tasting because presentation and flavor are what make these recipes such gems.
The second in Schapira and Dwek’s Made Easy series – the first comprised Passover recipes, and Schapira has also published Fresh & Easy – Starters & Sides is also a project of cookkosher.com. It contains 60 kosher recipes, each accompanied by a full-color photo, as well as plating and serving suggestions and a spice guide (also with vibrant, imaginative photographs and design). The creative team is highlighted in the book’s acknowledgements: stylist Amit Farber, photographer Daniel Lailah, graphic artist Rachel Adler and operations manager Zalman Roth.
For a couple of different occasions, I made four of the dishes in Starters & Sides. I contributed the green bean, basil and pecan salad to a potluck dinner and happily had no leftovers to bring home. For a family get-together, I made the crispy beef and the seed-crusted salmon, with steamed broccoli, for the meal, and we enjoyed the peach cracker crumble for dessert. (Both the beef and fish dishes go well with rice, very easily making them a complete meal.) From the family dinner, there were some leftovers of everything, and they were as tasty the next day: the fish I ate cold on its own for brunch, the beef I warmed up and had with rice for supper, and the crumble, warmed slightly, was even better that second night.
Every dish looked like I had spent much more time and effort on it than I had. What was especially nice about making these recipes was how many substitutions I could make without harming their quality, and the fact that I could play with the amounts a bit.
The salad recipe I followed pretty much as written, but only saw as I was about to head out the door (having started to make it only an hour before I was supposed to be at my friend’s place) that the “best results” would have resulted from marinating the beans and red onions in the dressing overnight. It was really good nonetheless.
For the crispy beef, I fried the meat in much less oil than was suggested, used a little less brown sugar and salt, and substituted white wine vinegar for the rice vinegar – it was still more yummy than I could have imagined.
For the fish, I used unsalted sunflower seeds rather than salted, I didn’t use poppy seeds and I only had walnuts, so I chopped them up instead of pecans. At this point, I had already used all my regular honey for the beef and crumble (both of which took longer to cook, so were prepared first), which meant that I had to scrape out what I could from a jar of lavender-infused honey I had in the cupboard. Only during one bite while eating the fish did I taste the lavender, and it was actually a welcome flavor.
Finally, it being fall, I also had to adapt the crumble, using canned peaches instead of fresh and blackberries instead of blueberries; as a matter of course, I also cut down on the brown sugar a bit. Again, it was very good nonetheless, and it, along with every other dish I tried, I will make again.
GREEN BEAN, BASIL AND PECAN SALAD
2 lbs green beans
1 tbsp olive oil
2 red onions, cut into thin strips
1/2 chopped pecans, toasted
Dressing:
2 tbsp minced fresh basil
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp salt
pinch coarse black pepper
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add green beans and blanch for two minutes. Drain; rinse beans with cold water until the steam is no longer rising from them.
Heat oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add red onions and sauté until caramelized and deeply golden, 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.
Prepare the dressing: in a small bowl, combine basil, vinegar, oil, garlic, salt and pepper.
In a large bowl or large plastic container, toss green beans and red onions with dressing. (If using a container with a lid, place the lid on and shake it up.) For best results, cover tightly and marinate in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. Top with pecans before serving.
Serves eight.
(Once you have made this salad often, you may want to change it up a bit. To do so, use different flavored vinegars (like tarragon) or nuts (like hazelnuts) in the variations.)
CRISPY BEEF
1 1/4 lbs shoulder steak or London broil, cut into thin slices
1/4 cup cornstarch, for marinade
1 tsp salt
pinch coarse black pepper
oil, for frying
1-2 tbsp cornstarch
1 onion, cut into thin strips
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 red pepper, diced
Sauce:
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp honey
4 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp chili powder (or up to 1 tsp for spicier)
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup water
In a medium bowl, combine meat, quarter-cup cornstarch, salt and pepper. Marinate 30 minutes at room temperature.
Heat two to three inches oil in a saucepan or deep fryer over medium-high heat. Right before frying, toss meat with an additional one to two tablespoons cornstarch. Add meat and fry until cooked through, about two minutes per side. Remove meat from pan and set aside.
Prepare the sauce: in a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, brown sugar, chili powder and cornstarch mixture. Set aside.
Pour out most of the oil from the saucepan, leaving only about a tablespoon. Heat pan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and red pepper and sauté until onion is beginning to soften but still crunchy, about five minutes. Add in sauce and beef and cook an additional two minutes, until warmed through.
Serves six to eight.
SEED-CRUSTED SALMON
4 (4-6 oz) salmon fillets
3 tbsp honey
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup salted sunflower seeds
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/4 raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp poppy seeds
(2 tbsp flax seeds: optional)
1 tbsp minced garlic
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking pan with parchment paper. Place fish into prepared pan.
In a small bowl, combine honey and soy sauce. Smear over tops and sides of salmon.
In a small bowl, combine sunflower, poppy and pumpkin seeds, pecans and garlic.
Press topping onto fish. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
Makes four servings.
PEACH CRACKER CRUMBLE
2 tbsp honey
2 lbs peaches, sliced
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cups blueberries
1 tbsp flour
Crumble:
1 1/2 cups crushed saltines (not unsalted)
3/4 cup brown sugar
5 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Preheat over to 350°F. In a small microwave-safe dish, microwave honey for 20 seconds. In a large bowl, toss honey, peaches and lemon juice. Pour peaches into a deep nine-inch baking dish or individual ramekins.
Prepare the crumble: in a large bowl, combine saltines, brown sugar, oil and cinnamon. Mix one-third of the crumble mixture with the peaches. Bake for 20 minutes.
Raise oven temperature to 400°F. In a medium bowl, toss blueberries with flour. Layer blueberries over cooked peaches. Top with remaining crumble, packing it in to form a crust. Bake until golden and crisp, about 15 minutes.
Makes 10-12 servings.
(You can substitute apples and pears for the peaches and blueberries, but add 10-15 minutes to the first baking time. Frozen peaches and blueberries also work.)
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