SpiceLines

Mild-mannered eggplant gets a spicy kick from mint, olives, and jalapeno peppers.

Did you know that solanum melongena is called “eggplant” in America because some 18th century cultivars looked like goose eggs? Elsewhere the prolific purple fruit is an aubergine or maybe a brinjal. “Mad apple” came about when someone confused the Italian melanzane with mela insana.

Of course “insana” is how you may feel when you stumble over yet another sack of eggplant left on your doorstep by a stealthy and definitely anonymous benefactor. Like the tomato and potato, it is part of the deadly nightshade family and for centuries people assumed all three were poisonous.

Yesterday the wondrous box of organic vegetables from Elysian Fields Farm, our amazing CSA, disgorged a few more pounds of slim, curvy dark purple and pale lavender eggplants. They are so lovely and tender at this time of year that I usually rush to put them on the grill, brushed with a little miso mixed with sugar and sake. Soft, a little sweet and slightly charred, they are delicious with anything else you might want cook over hot coals, especially lamb chops or pork tenderloins.

I love Paula Wolfert’s recipe for caponatina, a Sicilian dish of eggplant with celery and green olives in homemade tomato sauce, splashed with lots of red wine vinegar. Ditto for her Moroccan eggplant and tomato salad, in which both are cooked to the consistency of jam. Both recipes are in my well-splattered copy of her cookbook, A World of Food, and in true Wolfert fashion, they need to be prepared a day or two before serving.

But this week I’m tired. I’m also crazy for fresh mint from the garden, fruity Kalamata olives and ricotta salata, a flavor-packed trio that worked magic with summer squash a few days ago. I decided to try them with eggplant.

When very fresh eggplant is cut into chunks and sautéed in olive oil, the flesh becomes rich and almost creamy. To spice it up, I added chopped onion, lots of garlic and a slivered jalapeno (more bounty from the garden), then tossed in some tomato. At the end, I stirred in the mint, olives and ricotta. It was even better than the squash.

From start to finish, this is a 25-minute dish and so satisfying that it’s all you need for supper on a hot summer night. Which leaves you lots of time to pick whatever else is ripening in the garden.

Eggplant with Fresh Mint, Kalamata Olives, Jalapeno and Ricotta Salata

To serve 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main dish

Ingredients:

1 pound slender Asian eggplants
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and slivered vertically
1 small tomato, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 small handful fresh mint, about 1/2 cup of leaves stripped off the stems
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted
3 ounces ricotta salata, crumbled in largish pieces

Method:

1. Trim off the tops of the eggplants and cut them into 1/2-inch chunks.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large pan over a medium flame. Saute the onions and garlic for 1 minute, then add the eggplant and sauté for about 8 minutes until it becomes soft and creamy and starts to brown around the edges. The eggplant will quickly absorb most of the olive oil, so add the remaining 2 tablespoons as soon as needed.
3. After 8 minutes of sautéing, add the jalapeno and tomato and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more.
4. Remove the eggplant mixture from the heat and add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir in half of the mint leaves, and all the olives and crumbled ricotta salata. Set the mixture aside for 5 minutes so that the flavors can mingle. Just before serving, stir in the rest of the mint and serve warm.

At 1913, a restaurant whose name commemorates the most prosperous year of
Russia's economy, we ate delicious dranki, potato pancakes stuffed with bacon and
wild mushrooms. Plain dranki are served with sour cream, dill and red pepper.

Three days was not long enough to taste all of St. Petersburg’s treasures, culinary and otherwise.

Between visits to Peterhof and the Hermitage, we couldn’t squeeze in a meal at Khinkalnaya-Khachapurnaya, a Georgian restaurant which offers Eastern Mediterranean style dishes like grilled shashlik, or lamb skewers, and eggplant with walnuts. Nor did we have time to eat blini stuffed with mushrooms and cheese at one of Teremok’s fast food outlets. Ditto for Molokhovets’ Dream, where the menu includes dishes from the 1861 Russian cookbook, A Gift to Young Housewives. (You can read about all these eateries in “36 Hours: St. Petersburg,” by Clifford J. Levy (The New York Times, Sunday May 12, 2007, Travel Section, p. 13).

Although St Petersburg is not known for great food—our best eating was at Podvorye in Pavolvsk--we did visit three restaurants where we dined reasonably well. Here’s where we ate—and what we most enjoyed.

Restaurant Polovtsev’s Mansion

A mosaic of lightly salted salmon with lemon and mint.

The former home of a Russian senator, this opulent mansion is known as the Architects’ Building, since it houses an architectural institute. The restaurant on the ground floor is in two rooms: a small bar for cocktails, with pale walls and lavender curtains, a place for Nora Charles, swathed in furs, to have a vodka martini, and a 19-century robber baron's dining room (think Orson Welles) with high carved walnut ceiling and elaborate panels streaming with medallions, flowers and ribbons. Darkly exotic paintings of elephants, a turbaned gentleman with a camel, and hunters in pursuit of lions, an ostrich and black boar are set high up on the walls.

We zigzagged our way through the enormous menu, sampling mostly small dishes and sipping the excellent Baltic Beer, a light, bitter lager brewed in St. Petersburg. We adored the mosaic of lightly salted salmon, hot-smoked sturgeon and halibut served with tiny olives, thinly sliced lemon and fresh mint, and a meat assortment of pork baked in mustard and garlic, beef tongue with horseradish and a gorgeous rabbit roll stuffed with bright green pistachios. Other winners included beet borshch with diced tongue and marinated chanterelles and milk mushrooms with garlic and dill. Alas, the vareniki, dessert dumplings stuffed with sour cherries, were slow in coming and leaden when they arrived. But as our waiter marched repeatedly into the kitchen, where voices were raised over the banging of pans, we had time to observe four men downing shots of vodka, becoming louder and pinker of face as the minutes ticked away. The one woman in the group, handsome with silver streaked hair, circumspectly sipped a glass of fruit juice.

We emerged at 11:20 PM (“open till the last customer leaves”) as twilight was deepening, but the streets were crowded. During summer’s “white nights” the bridges on the River Neva are raised around 2 AM to let large ships pass through; everyone stays up to watch the silhouettes arched against the pink and purple-streaked dawn sky.

Restaurant Polovtsev’s Mansion, 52 Bolshaya Morskaya, St. Petersburg. Telephone: 812-973-8467.

1913 Restaurant

A pristine salad with chives and crisply fried eggplant.

The name celebrates the best-ever year of the Russian economy, which coincided with three centuries of Romanov rule. (It all came to a bloody end in 1917.) We lunched upstairs under a milky glass-domed ceiling in an elegant room with pale green curtains. Dishes were whisked on and off the table by a precisely choreographed battalion of waitresses. A pair of stolid men with impassive faces—I fantasized that they were Russian security agents--smoked cigarettes and drank wine at a nearby table.

We began with a pristine salad of tender lettuces, warty-skinned cucumbers, red peppers, and fresh chives with pesto and a few slices of paper-thin eggplant fried crisp and golden, then segued to delicious dranki--potato pancakes, one plain with dill and sour cream, the other stuffed with smoky bacon and succulent wild mushrooms. There was a lot more sour cream to come--in the whipped potatoes, in the mushroom soup and the meatballs in…sour cream sauce. The blueberry ice cream was lovely.

1913 Restaurant, 13/2 Vosnesensky Prospekt, St. Petersburg. Telephone: 812-315-5148.

Adamant

One blini with caviar, another with ham and cheese.

One evening we walked across St. Isaac’s Square to Adamant, a “luxury” restaurant on the Moika River, where we dined in a pretty room with red curtains and a trompe l’oeil vista of a terrace that could have been Versailles, but was probably Peterhof, Peter the Great’s palace of many fountains on the Gulf of Finland.

Here we had wonderful blini, thin butter-soaked pancakes topped with sevruga caviar and icy cold shots of Russian Standard Imperial Vodka. This was followed by clear fish broth with chunks of very fresh sturgeon, perfumed with dill, and chicken kiev, spurting with butter. A troupe of elaborately costumed “gypsy” dancers peered at us from the door, but, thankfully, never performed.

Adamant, 72 Nabereznaya Reki Moiki, St. Petersburg. Telephone: 812-311-0409.

“Breakfast at nine. Green figs. Yoghurt. Coffee. Very black.”

--James Bond in From Russia with Love (1963)

Let’s get one thing straight: there’s only one Bond. Sean Connery, of course. Only he could order breakfast from room service in that steely burr and make it sound like a threat and a caress.

Breakfast with Bond—this time he was in Istanbul—would send a few shivers up the spine. You’d find yourself on your back, pressed against a cold tile floor, though it’s hard to say whether you’d be dodging an assassin’s bullet or murmuring “Take me around the world again, James.” (This from Dr. Holly Goodhead—played by Lois Chiles, actually a high school classmate of mine--in Moonraker, 1979.)

But let’s talk about the breakfast, which you can have in the relative safety of your own kitchen. Right now the Marseilles fig tree I planted near the porch four years ago is sprouting small hard green figs. The Marseilles was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite—he planted it in the South Orchard at Monticello and called it “the finest fig I’ve ever seen.”

If you have ever tasted one, you will know why. When it ripens, almost overnight, the fruit softens and swells to three times its size. Plucked sun-warmed from the tree, the now yellowish Marseilles has a pale, pearly sheen. Drops of milky sap rise from the broken stem. Now bite into one. Engorged with sweetness, the pale pink flesh is utterly seductive, with a luscious honeyed flavor.

I can’t imagine a more perfect breakfast, especially if, like Bond, you eat the fresh figs with a small bowl of thick, tangy Greek yoghurt and a pot of strong coffee.

If you don’t have a tree, you can probably buy fresh figs in your farmer’s market or at the grocery store during the summer. While I’m waiting for our own fruit to ripen, I’ve been paying ridiculous amounts of money for lime green Calimyrna figs from Whole Foods. Calimyrna figs originally came from Turkey, where they were grown in the Menander Valley, but they arrived in California in the 1880’s and are now cultivated for fresh and dried fruit.

Although the Calimyrna is good—some say it tastes like a banana, others call its pale flesh nutty, neither of which seems right to me—the skin can be tough and the fruit somewhat unyielding since they are picked before they are fully ripe.

The best way to cure the problem is to gently stew the figs until they become soft and succulent. Leafing through Christine Ferber’s cookbook, Mes Confitures, I came across a simple recipe for fig jam with vanilla, sugar and lemon juice. Ferber lives in Alsace and she makes her delicious small batch jams with perfect summer fruit, in this case luscious purple-skinned Bourjasotte figs. Never mind. Not so perfect green skinned Calimyrna figs are wonderful cooked in honey with a vanilla bean, a strip or two of lemon zest and a sprig of lemon thyme.

Now all you need is yoghurt and black coffee. And Bond.

To read more about figs, see "In the Garden: Figs" by Carol Williams (House and Garden, September 2007, pp. 145-147; 227. The Marseilles fig can be ordered from Edible Landscaping in Afton, Virginia.

Green Figs Stewed in Honey with Vanilla, Lemon Zest and Thyme

Can't wait till breakfast? This also makes a delectable summer dessert.

To serve two

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon water
1 6-inch vanilla bean (I prefer Mexican)
2 or 3 strips of lemon zest
1 sprig of lemon thyme (or any other thyme)
8 ounces fresh Calimyrna or other green-skinned figs

Method:

1. Rinse the figs and pinch off the stems. Cut them in half and set aside.
2. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and cut each half into 2 or 3 pieces.
3. In a small saucepan, combine the honey, water, vanilla bean and lemon zest over the lowest flame. Stir to dissolve the honey and turn off the heat. Add the figs, gently toss them in the honey mixture, and let them macerate, covered, for an hour.
4. After an hour, add the lemon thyme. Turn the heat to very low and gently simmer the figs for 30 to 40 minutes, turning them carefully so that they don’t fall apart but are just cooked through. Remove the pan from the heat and let them cool to room temperature.
5. You can eat the figs now if you like, but they are even better if you leave them overnight to soak up the syrupy vanilla and lemon-infused juices they have exuded. To serve, divide the figs between two bowls and spoon their pale pink syrup over them. Serve with Greek yoghurt, of course, and coffee. Very black.

Mint, red currants and green peppercorns make a spicy pot of summer tea.

I’ve been fooling around with basil, mint and thyme.

It's August and the herbs I planted in the garden a few months ago are exploding. The basils—purple, Thai, Genovese and lemon—are towering over the well-worn brick path, full, lush leafed and with tall flowery spikes that have to be pinched back constantly. The mint has run wild, sending out long runners criss-crossing the soil underneath the cherry tomato vines clambering up the bamboo tutuers. In other beds, the thymes—lime and lemon—have masses of delicate leaves on their wiry stems. The lemon balm looks like a fluffy lime green cloud, and lemon verbena, a touchy herb hard to grow herb, at least for me, is strong and vigorous.

In the midst of this aromatic jungle, I’ve fallen in love with herbal teas. Not just the usual mild tisanes using a single herb, but stronger more flavorful brews, fragrant with spices like saffron and green peppercorns, sweetened with summer fruit like raspberries and peaches.

I love to experiment with different mixtures in my Zen glass teapot, a lovely minimalist thing with a flat top and bamboo handle. It looks exquisitely fragile but is actually made of tough tempered glass. On even the hottest days, the sight of bright green mint, red currants and green peppercorns steeping in this transparent vessel is cooling to the senses.

Here are a few things I’ve discovered:

1. Don’t use boiling water -- it will literally cook the delicate leaves. Instead heat the water in a tea kettle until you see the first wisps of steam escape the spout.
2. Put all the ingredients into the pot, pour in the hot water and walk away. Do something else for at least 20 minutes—paint your toenails a luscious shade of pink, call your mother (good for at least 20 minutes), order that black asymmetrical Armani jacket you saw on line. Never mind how you’re going to pay for it. Or where you’ll wear it.
3. When you return, the tea will be fully flavored and still deliciously warm. If you let it continue to steep over the next hour or more, the taste of the tea will evolve as the individual flavors deepen and come to the fore. Saffron, for instance, takes a while to fully show itself.
4. Sweeten, if you like, with honey or sugar. But taste it first—the fruit may add all the sunny sweetness you need.

Here are a few blends that I love:

Garden mint, red currants, green peppercorns

Use lots of fresh peppermint for the strongest, most refreshing flavor—not those paltry stems sold in clamshells, but a really big handful that has to be stuffed into the pot. Red currants not only contribute a sweet, tart flavor but they turn the tea bright pink. Green peppercorns had a touch of spicy heat.

To make four 6-ounce cups

Ingredients:

A large handful of fresh mint
½ cup of red currants
1 teaspoon green peppercorns
24 ounces fresh cold water
Honey or sugar, if desired

Method:

1. Rinse the mint and currants, but don’t bother to strip the leaves or berries off the stems. Put the mint, currants and peppercorns in the teapot.
2. In a tea kettle, heat the water until wisps of steam curl out of the spout. Pour the hot water into the teapot, replace the lid, and allow the ingredients to steep for at least 20 minutes or longer.
3.Strain, if desired, into a glass teacup. Add honey or sugar to taste. To serve cold, allow the tea to steep for 20 minutes more, sweeten if desired, then pour into a glass filled with ice.

Citrusy Herbs with Basil and Red Fruit

Combine all the citrusy herbs from the garden with the sweet fruitiness of raspberries and strawberries. Add a sprig of basil for complexity. Each of the citrus-flavored herbs has a different flavor profile and when combined in a tea, they create a medley of aromatic flavors-- pungent, grassy, earthy—linked by the bright taste of lemon.

To make four 6-ounce cups

Ingredients:

A few sprigs each of at least three citrus flavored herbs (lemon grass, lemon balm, lemon verbena, lemon or lime thyme)
1 small sprig basil
½ cup raspberries
1 or 2 strawberries, stemmed and cut in half
24 ounces of fresh cold water
Honey or sugar, if desired

Method:

As above.

Saffron with Blackberries and Rosewater

This is based on the delicious the au safran from the Paris spice shop, Goumanyat et Son Royaume. The owner, M. Thiercelin, travels twice a year to Khorasan in northeastern Iran to bring back wildly fragrant saffron which he sells in many different forms, including this tea. The base is a blend of green, oolong and black teas to which unnamed epices, fleurs, fruit--spices, flowers and fruit—are added. I won’t pretend that I’ve managed to recreate Goumanyat’s exquisite tea, but I do like this version, flavored with blackberries and rosewater.

This is one tea that must steep awhile for the flavors to come into balance—the taste is much different after 40 minutes than at 20 minutes. The saffron turns the tea golden.

To make four 6-ounce cups

Ingredients:

Large pinch saffron threads
1 tablespoon green tea, such as Gyokuru Pearl Dew
1/2 teaspoon green oolong, such as Green Dragon
½ teaspoon mild flavored black tea, such as Ceylon
½ cup ripe blackberries
24 ounces fresh cold water
Few drops rose water
Honey or sugar if desired

Method:

1. Put the saffron, the teas and blackberries in the teapot.
2. In a tea kettle, heat the water until the first wisps of steam curl out of the spout. Pour the hot water into the teapot, replace the top and steep for at least 30 minutes. Taste and continue to steep for 10 or 15 minutes more, if desired.
3. Now for the tricky part: add rosewater a few drops at a time. Stir into the pot, then taste. The rosewater should not dominate the flavor of the tea. Rather it should just be a mysterious floral essence lurking in the background, mingling with the aroma of the saffron.
4. Add a little honey or sugar if desired and serve warm.

At Turquoise, braised lamb shank is wrapped in thin slices of fried eggplant,
bathed in tomato sauce and baked until the ingredients melt into each other.

Every time I go to San Antonio, the decline and fall of the city’s vaunted Mexican --OK, Tex Mex--food sends me into a tailspin of despair.

Grease oozes from puffy tacos—a really bad local invention, whatever Bobby Flay says. Lava flows of melted cheese smother enchiladas, and portions of everything from rice and refried beans to chalupas compuestas are supersized. I’ve sworn off most of my old flames, as once great eateries like El ****** and La ****** sink into the maw of blender-made salsa.

So yesterday I jumped ship and had lunch at the Turquoise Grill. Turquoise is Turkish, and the vibe at this strip mall enclave is super-hot. Think Moroccan pierced screens and sponged apricot-gold walls where kaleidoscopic kilims clash with retro-exotic oil paintings. There’s belly dancing on Friday nights, wailing music, and a shop selling evil eye amulets and baby blue hookahs.

With all this exotica swirling around, it’s amazing how clean and vibrant the flavors are. On a sweltering August day, a quintet of appetizers were as cooling as a dip in the turquoise waters of the Bosphorous. Here’s what we ate:

Lebni: Thick tangy Turkish yoghurt, chopped walnuts, fresh dill and garlic, drizzled with bright orange, paprika-infused oil.

Babaganoush: Smoky grilled eggplant and tahini, or ground sesame paste; smooth, creamy, totally addictive, especially with the pillowy homemade pita bread. A great rendition of a classic dish.

Kisir: Bulgar or cracked wheat salad with green onions, parsley and tomatoes; light, lemony, a perfect summer snack.

Ezme: Not a salad, not a salsa; finely chopped tomatoes, onion, parsley, crushed walnuts, seasoned with sweet-hot Maras biber red pepper from Turkey

Cacik: A lovely bowl of cold yoghurt soup with cucumber, garlic, dill and dried mint,; tangy and refreshing. I could have this for lunch every day.

Three spices widely used in Turkish cooking: From left to right, maras biber or
crushed red pepper, ground sumac berries and dried mint.

I peppered owner Kamal Cenki, a genial Ankara native married to an Austin gal, with so many questions about the subtle seasonings in these tantalizing appetizers that he disappeared into the kitchen. Moments later he reemerged with three little glass dishes holding the spices he uses. "Everyone thinks that Turkish food is spicy, but really we only use a few,” he said. “The three main ones are maras biber, sour sumac and dried mint. Sometimes we use a little cumin or paprika, but that’s about it.”

I tasted a pinch of the maras biber, This moist crumbly Turkish red pepper is pleasantly hot: but just as it starts to burn, a sunny sweetness steps in to temper the heat. Ground sumac, made of astringent dried rhus berries, is staggeringly sour. It is prized throughout the Eastern Mediterranean for its lemony flavor and is often added to olive oil for dipping. At Turquoise it is sprinkled over raw onions served with grilled meats.

Even though the temperature was hovering around 98 degrees in the parking lot, I let Kemal talk me into ordering Lamb Shank a la Turka. An enormous lamb shank, “boiled” in water, salt and pepper, was wrapped in thin slices of fried eggplant and cooked in a thin sauce made with Turkish tomato paste. The lamb was so tender that it actually melted into the creamy eggplant—this three-step slow cooking is the simplest, most wonderful kind of culinary wizardry, coaxing maximum flavor from two ingredients that can be ho-hum in a lot of Eastern Mediterranean dishes.

Behind the pierced Moroccan screens there’s a room with a few shelves of food to buy—everything from the essential maras biber and sumac to bags of bulgar wheat and flavors for your hookah. I left with a mouthful of rose-scented Turkish Delight, a delicious gummy candy dusted with powdered sugar—and a bright new flame.

Turquoise Turkish Grill, 3720 NW Loop 410. San Antonio, Texas 78229. 210/736-2887
www.turquoisegrill.com

On a hot day, cold yogurt-cucumber soup, seasoned with dried mint
and maras biber Turkish pepper, is an easy, refreshing supper.

The mercury was nudging 102 yesterday.

The question du jour was: How not to cook for supper in the midst of a stultifying heat wave. Soon I found myself dreaming of the cacik I had at Turquoise last week. Tangy and subtly flavored with dried mint, this chilled yogurt and cucumber soup can be prepared in a food processor in just a few minutes. You don’t even have to go near the stove.

“Yogurt” is actually a Turkish word and, in some quarters, considered the country’s most famous contribution to world cuisine. In Turkey there are several soups made with yogurt, both hot and cold. Yayla Corbasi, for instance, is a warm restorative soup thickened with rice and a beaten egg. On the chilly side, there is a version of yogurt-cucumber soup with scallions, fresh mint and raisins in Claudia Roden’s New Book of Middle Eastern Cooking. All around the eastern Mediterranean chefs use yogurt as a cooking medium for lamb, chicken, eggplant and kibbeh (lamb and bulgur dumplings).

Turkish yogurt is like Greek yogurt—thick, creamy and very tangy. I can remember walking through the sun-baked streets of Nauplion years ago and inhaling the fresh, sour scent of yogurt being made in kitchens behind tightly closed shutters. Luckily Greek yogurt is widely available in this country. Look for the Total Fage brand at Whole Foods and at Greek or Middle Eastern food markets. If you can’t find it, try Roden’s idea of mixing plain whole milk yogurt with a little sour cream for richness.

This version of cacik is adapted from Turquoise. The original recipe calls for diced cucumbers. This creates a lot of crunch, which is nice when cacik is served as a sauce with grilled kebabs. But a soup should have a slightly smoother texture so I pulsed the cucumber in the food processor until it was finely chopped—and in fact, this is the way Kemal Cenki served it at his restaurant. At the end I couldn’t resist sprinkling the soup with a little of Kemal’s wondrous maras biber. This moist crushed red pepper from Turkey adds a touch of fiery heat to the cold, creamy soup—an untraditional, but tasty twist.

Cacik, or Chilled Turkish Soup with Yogurt, Cucumber and Dried Mint

Serves two for dinner or four as an appetizer

Ingredients:

2 cups Greek yogurt (see note)
1/4 to 1/2 cup cold water
2 medium cucumbers
2 cloves garlic
1-1/2 teaspoons dried mint
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon maras biber (optional) (see note)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, stir together the yogurt and 1/4 cup water until well mixed.
2. Peel the cucumbers and cut them in half vertically. Using a teaspoon, scoop out the seeds and discard. Coarsely chop the cucumbers and place them in the bowl of a food processor. Add the garlic. Pulse until both are finely chopped—but do not liquefy. The soup should have some texture.
3. Stir the cucumbers into the yogurt mixture. Add a little more water if necessary to achieve a soupy consistency. It should be fairly thick, but on the liquid side. Stir in the dried mint and salt to taste. Chill the soup in the refrigerator for two hours.
4. Just before serving, sprinkle with a little maras biber if desired. Or, for color without heat, sprinkle with sweet paprika.

Note: Fage Total Greek yogurt is available in Greek or Middle Eastern food shops and delicatessens, and also at Whole Foods. Maras biber can be ordered from www.kalustyans.com.

A delicious Veracruz-style seafood soup, brimming with fresh fish and shellfish,
is a surprise hit at Taqueria Lopez on Hillsborough Street in Durham.

The burnished Caldo de 7 Mares—“soup of the 7 seas”—comes to the table, bristling with antennas, spiky fins and claws. Plump langostinos crowd the peppery red-gold broth alongside small shrimp, succulent crab claws, mussels in the shell, and a meaty tilapia head. The fish and shellfish are sweet and fresh, the sopa de mariscos is briny, spiked with tomato and a touch of hot chile. No aioli, of course, but who cares when you’re eating an authentically delicious seafood soup that’s come almost a thousand miles from home?

Home would be Veracruz, on Mexico’s east coast, one of my favorite eating and hanging out cities. And even though owner Alberto Lopez serves great tacos, tortas, quesadillas, and the most flavorful handmade corn tortillas, it’s clear that his first love is the briny soups and other seafood that top the menu at the eight-month-old Taqueria Lopez in Durham. So even though I was dubious—how good could seafood be at a Mexican café occupying an ex-pizza joint in a nearly defunct shopping center?—I let Alberto talk me into ordering his heart’s delight. I loved the soup--and everything else we ordered, from tacos laden with savory chorizo and carne asada (grilled marinated beef) to the huge. frosty, salt-rimmed glasses of Tecate beer. Everyone else was drinking Micheladas—ice-cold beer laced with hot sauce, lime and Lea & Perrins—and next time I will too.

Two kinds of tacos--al pastor (with sweet and savory pork) and asada (with grilled
marinated beef)--are wrapped in homemade tortillas and garnished with cilantro,
onion, radish and a roasted serrano pepper.

Taqueria Lopez is one of five not-so-well-known Durham Latino eateries that appear in the September, 2007 issue of Gourmet. In “Carolina Cocina” (pp.31-36), contributing editor Colman Andrews sates his prodigious appetite sampling endless platters of barbacoa, tacos al pastor, sweet tamales stuffed with roasted chiles and white cheese, and much, much more. All this good food has come with the 570,000 Latinos who’ve moved to North Carolina over the last 20 years—and the cooks who’re dishing up memories of Oaxaca, Veracruz and other points south for their homesick customers.

There were very few anglos at Taqueria Lopez today, but I expect that will change. Here’s the info on the five Durham restaurants in “Carolina Cocina." And to read more about Vera Cruz, see Travel Diary--V eracruz in the Categories column. You might start with my trip to the fish market and a recipe for sea bass in tomatillo salsa.

Los Comales
2105 N. Roxboro Rd.
919-220-1614

El Paraiso
111 S. Alston St.
919-680-4728

Super Taqueria
2842 N. Roxboro Rd.
919-220-9884

Taqueria Lopez
3438 Hillsborough Rd.
919-383-1917

Taqueria La Vaquita
2700 Chapel Hill Road
919-402-0209

Sometimes the world seems awash in greenish extra-virgin olive oil.

Everyone, from the big box discounters to the chicest artisanal gourmet shops, is hawking it, at prices ranging from a few dollars to upwards of $40 a liter. The U.S. market alone is worth $1.5 biliion, and is growing at the rate of 10 percent a year.

Where does it all come from? Can it possibly be the real thing?

In “Slippery Business,” (The New Yorker, August 13, 2007, pp. 39-45), Tom Mueller reports that the international olive oil business is indeed rife with fraud. “Adulteration is especially common in Italy, the world’s leading importer, consumer, and exporter of olive oil. (For the past ten years, Spain has produced more oil than Italy, but much of it is shipped to Italy for packaging, and is sold, legally, as Italian oil.”

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Mueller recounts how shipments of Turkish hazelnut oil and Argentine sunflower oil were imported into Italy as Greek olive oil and sold, sometimes mixed with the real thing, to Nestle, Uniliver, Bertolli and Oleifici Fasanesi “who sold it to consumers as olive oil and collected about twelve million dollars in E.U. subsidies intended to support the olive-oil industry.” Ultimately this hurts the small, premium producers “who struggle to make a living in a market awash in cheap, counterfeit oil.’

But it is possible to differentiate the good from the bad, if only you know what you’re doing. Mueller sits in on an olive oil tasting of five premium oils organized by the Corporazione Mastri Oleari, a private olive oil association attempting to combat widespread fraud in the industry. “The Mastri Oleari panelists were remarkably consistent, agreeing not only on the subtle flavors—artichoke, fresh-cut grass, green tomato, kiwi—suggested by the oils but also on their intensity….Even the most creative criminals have difficulty outwitting a properly trained tasting panel.”

Incidentally, next month I’ll be taking a course in the Sensory Evaluation of Olive Oil at U.C. Davis. The two-day class will include blind tastings of oils from California and Europe, as well as Africa, South America, Australia and New Zealand--and by the end, if I haven't floated away on a sea of oil, I'll know a little about a lot of topics including "the multitude of flavor attributes...and the subtleties of complexity, depth and harmony in olive oil." Can't wait....

At Kuznechny Market in June, we found glorious
red gold cherries and enormous peonies--and,
to our surprise, many vacant stalls.

When we visited Kuznechny Market in late June, we were surprised to find so many empty stalls. Was it the early morning hour? Or was it the fallout of a controversial law banning non-Russian citizens from selling spices and other foods at the fresh produce markets?

I fear we now have the answer:

A few days ago, our St. Petersburg correspondent emailed an excerpt from Pulse, a “monthly entertainment magazine” published in both Russian and English. Pulse also keeps up with local current events: this is from a recent article, “Market Forces: Kuznechny Market.”


“At the entrance there's a hand-written notice:
'Gardeners of the Leningrad region are provided with
free places. Contact the administration.' Under the
notice, perhaps at the provided place, sits an
elderly gardener selling onions. After the infamous
law banning non-citizens from working at the
markets, the once-lively Kuznechny Market has become
a lot more subdued. There are many empty counters,
and the ones that remain are occupied by traders,
who look more or less like Slavs. They invite
customers to try their fare- in an insistent yet
friendly manner.
Apart from the familiar fruit and veg, fish and
meat, the market has a great selection of dairy
products (from Leningrad region) and honey (from
Altai, 280 rubles). Kuznechny also has a wide
selection of spices. You can even find Iranian cumin
for pilaff and sumac for basturma."

To my regret, the honey sellers did not make an appearance during our visit and there were only one or two stalls selling spices. I did buy a packet of blue-black sumac berries which, though dried, were still quite fresh and very tart.

Basturma, incidentally, is a dish which turns up in various guises in Russian, Armenian, Georgian, and even Turkish cuisine. In some recipes, basturma is a dry cured beef that has been rubbed with an incendiary paste of red and black pepper, garlic, allspice, and fenugreek. In others it refers to grilled skewered lamb or beef that has been marinated in something sour like vinegar or pomegranate juice and fresh herbs. But nowhere have I found a recipe for basturma made with sour sumac.
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A profusion of chile peppers--some hot, some not-- from Peregrine and
McAdams Farms at the Carrboro, N.C. Farmers Market last Saturday.

I went crazy over a late August explosion of fresh chile peppers at the farmer’s market. Some were incendiary. Mouth searing. Lip-blistering. Others were sweet fruity, complex. All—OK, the ones I tasted--were delicious.

I scooped up a few dozen, stashing each variety in its own paper bag. Here's a list of the ones I brought home and their Scoville ratings. (The scale, which was invented by Wilbur Scoville in 1912, measures the “hotness” of peppers based on the amount of capsaicin they contain. It ranges from 0 for sweet Bell peppers to 16,000,000 for pure capsaicin.)

Clockwise, from the top:

Poblanos, green and red: 1,000 to 2,000 units. A mild pepper with just a little bite.

Aji Dulce, red: Looks like a fiery red habanero, but has almost no heat at all.

Habaneros, yellow and orange:: 100,000 to 350,000 units. Blistering.

Cherry Bomb, red: 2,500 to 5,000 units. Fruity with some heat, although these were mostly just sweet.

Serranos, green and red: 10,000 to 23,000 units. Favorite chile for pico de gallo.

Hungarian wax peppers, red and yellow: 5,000 to 10,000 units. Good for pickling.

Cayenne peppers, red and green: 30,000 to 50,000 units. From French Guinea, intense heat. Can be substituted for Asian peppers.

Red Savina habaneros: 350,000 to 577,000 units. A mutated habanero; searing heat; world’s second hottest pepper.

Peter peppers, green and yellow: Wrinkly, phallic in appearance, very mild. Sometimes described as ornamental.

Center:

Naga Jolokia: 835,000 to over 1,041,427 units. From India. Officially the world’s hottest pepper.

I’m trying to get up my nerve to taste this one.

Are you put off by the idea of irradiated food? I am. But I confess that I’m also a little leery of eating raw spinach and other leafy greens after the last fall’s deadly E. coli debacle.

Now there’s hope for extreme germaphobes and all the rest of us who’d like to be sure that our food is safe to eat.

In “Edible Films with Superpowers” (The New York Times, August 29, 2007, Dining Out, pp. 1 and 5), Kim Severson reports that chemists are developing edible films and powders that make use of the “natural pathogen fighters found in everyday food." “If their work pans out, thin films woven with thyme derivative that can kill E. coli could line bags of fresh spinach,” Severson writes. Yesss!

Invisible films, made from ingredients such as fibers from crab and shrimp shells mixed with lysozyme, “a protein found in both eggs and human tears,” may be impregnated with molecules from bacteria-zapping spices and herbs—among them, cloves, thyme and oregano, all of which have powerful anti-microbial properties. “The result is a film that could coat fruit or meat or even become an edible yogurt lid.”

It’s not all about bacteria, though. Scientists are also working on films with flavor. The article mentions curry-like smells wafting from the Rutgers University Food Science Department, and “a company called Origami Foods now wraps sushi…in carrot film” invented by Tara McHugh. a food researcher with the Department of Agriculture in San Francisco. There are a lot of hurdles to overcome—from the films’ sensitivity to humidity to potential allergic reactions to eggs and shellfish—“but food scientists believe the potential for using these everyday ingredients to make a safer food supply is huge.”

Spices have a long history as germ fighters—especially food-borne bateria. To read more, see “Darwinian Gastronomy: Why We Use Spices,” by Cornell University scientists Paul W. Sherman and Jennifer Billing in the June 1999 issue of Bioscience, Vol. 49. No. 6, pp. 453-463.

Plump jalapeno peppers are rated at 2,500 to 8,000 on the Scoville scale--hot,
but not blistering. When they ripen, they turn red and are used to make chipotles.

No, this is not about chile peppers misbehaving on spring break in Cancun. Or exposing their nether regions from the backseat of a stretch limo on Hollywood Boulevard…

This is about jalapenos in the garden, so rambunctious that every time I even peek at our four thriving bushes, there is a new crop of pendulous green and red firebombs screaming “Pick me! Pick me!” Just a few days ago I had collected 62 of them in a bowl—and there were another 17 on the stem.

I adore jalapenos. They peg in at 2,500 to 8,000 on the Scoville scale, pretty low on the heat index—but while their flesh often tastes like a cross between red and green Bell pepper with a trace of burn, their seeds can be hot as smoldering coals. This means you can control the degree of heat by removing some or all of those innocent-looking white seeds—or none at all, if you crave a real incendiary rush.

Last year in Xalapa, the state capital of Veracruz and home of the jalapeno, I trudged up a very steep hill to the covered Mercado Jauregui. Here, alongside dark sweet mole de Xico and strange bundles of magical herbs, vendors were hawking gigantic fresh jalapeno peppers, some as big as a small banana. The air was filled with cries of, “Una docena para rellenar!” (“A dozen to stuff!”). Around the corner I found tubs of smaller jalapenos pickled in homemade escabeche, a vinegary herb-spiked sauce with carrots and onions. I took some chiles back to my hotel where I ate them with alternate bites of fresh quesito de cabra, a rich, salty goat cheese. The mingled flavors of the tangy hot peppers and the creamy, crumbly cheese was pure bliss.

My own jalapenos are more modestly sized. I usually pick them when they are about two inches long. This gives them enough time for the flavor and heat to mature, but keeps them a manageable size for cooking. The burn, by the way, comes from capsaicin, a fiery compound found in all chile peppers that irritates the mucus membranes of humans and other predators.

Last Sunday I had a jalapeno blow out in the kitchen. A big pile of peppers, around six or seven dozen, were subjected to serious culinary abuse—they were chopped, roasted, slit, mashed, seeded, pureed and pickled. Half way through the party, there was bellowing from upstairs. “What on earth are you doing,” asked Bill, usually very tolerant of my culinary experiments, but sounding a little testy. “My eyes are watering.” Later, the air was “perfumed’ with vinegar. Note to self: Next time, use the exhaust fan and close the kitchen door.

Here’s what went on:

1. First I decided to roast two dozen jalapenos. This brings out the sweetness of the peppers and gives them a deliciously smoky flavor. The best way to roast chiles is to use an earthenware comal, a flat high-fired pottery plate that can sit right over the lowest flame of your stove. Quite naturally, I discovered that the comal I had lovingly carried back from Oaxaca a few years ago was cracked right down the middle. So instead I roasted the jalapenos in a dry cast iron skillet until they were blackened and blistered all over. I left some whole and slit the others, removing most of the seeds. I put both in small containers and covered them with olive oil to use as a delicious condiment with fried eggs, grilled steak or rolled up in warm corn tortillas slathered with butter and slices of ripe red tomatoes.

At this point you might be wondering how to remove the seeds from the jalapenos without turning your fingertips into red hot pokers. The truth is I never ever use rubber gloves: Cookbooks that recommend this are written by clueless people who know nothing at all about handling chiles. (They are related to the same people who fret about children falling off the monkey bars in the playground and the ones who sue McDonalds for serving coffee that is too hot.) Life is full of risk and you might as well get into it.

But of course, you do know that you shouldn’t touch your face or your eyes while your fingers are covered with capsaicin—don’t you? The best way to neutralize all that hot stuff, when you’re done, is to cut a lemon in half and douse it with salt. Work your fingers down into the lemon, getting them really juicy and salty. Do this for a minute or two, then rinse them off. This will remove most of the burn—I still wouldn’t rub my eyes—and the rest will come off in the normal course of washing and rinsing at the sink.

Back to the jalapeno project:

2. Next I decided to make a roasted salsa, similar to a luscious one served at La Fogata in San Antonio. Everything in this salsa is roasted: onions, tomatoes, jalapenos, and garlic—and then chopped in the food processor until all the ingredients are blended but not smooth. Add a little salt and a squeeze of lime, and you have one of the most superb salsas ever made. It is especially good now when tomatoes are full of flavor and so abundant that you are probably trying to think up new ways to use them up. This charred. hot, mildly sweet salsa is delicious with everything—eggs, grilled meats, fish and chicken, and left over cooked vegetables like eggplant and zucchini. A dollop will bring any soup to life, even a chilled gazpacho.

3. Speaking of chilled, at this point I was ready to cool off. What could be more refreshing on a torrid day in a chile-flavored kitchen than a spicy Indian style lassi or cold yogurt drink spiked with a single fresh jalapeno? I frothed a cup of plain tangy yogurt with ice cubes in the blender, added a jalapeno—some seeds removed—and whirred until the mixture was icy and smooth Over the top I sprinkled a little salt and some ground cumin. It was a little spicy and completely delicious.

4. I saved the most ambitious stage for last: pickling the jalapenos. I made three different kinds: First, a traditional Mexican-style pickle in escabeche--sautéed chiles, onions and carrots simmered in vinegar and salt with fresh oregano, marjoram and thyme. Next, I tried a fresh Indian pickle with cauliflower, string beans and jalapenos tossed in vinegar and sugar with abundant spices like fenugreek, cumin, pepper, cinnamon and ginger. And last, I concocted a rather restrained French-inflected pickle in which the jalapenos were doused with hot white wine vinegar, and packed in small jars with sprigs of tarragon, peppercorns and allspice. The first time around I added sel de guerande to the vinegar. Big mistake: all the sediment that makes the salt grey turned the mixture cloudy. I had to dump out the liquid and remake it with plain white kosher salt. (How did they turn out? I'll know in two weeks.)

The smells in the kitchen were good and vinegary by the time I finished and even my own eyes were watering. The dog, normally underfoot, had fled to a friendlier environment. But I had a refrigerator full of jalapenos in various guises that would spice up weeks of late summer meals.

Now, what to do with the 26 jalapenos that absolutely have to be picked tomorrow?

I'll post recipes tomorrow.

Roasting the jalapenos and other ingredients in this chunky salsa brings out the
natural sweetness of the vegetables and adds a wonderfully smoky taste.

Once upon a time La Fogata was a cheery Mexican restaurant housed in an old gas station on the north side of San Antonio. It was famous for its delicious salsa. One day the owner gave me a quick recipe, which mainly consisted of roasting large quantities of tomatoes, onion, garlic and Serrano peppers on a cast iron griddle and then whirring them in the blender. Probably he left out a secret ingredient (or maybe two), but I’ve been making it for years and love it just as it is.

Today, La Fogata is more like a posh hacienda with trickling fountains and carved stone columns, and the famous salsa is bottled and sold over the internet. But last Sunday, when I was roasting jalapenos and a huge bowl of ripe tomatoes was glaring at me, it occurred to me that now was the perfect time to make some of my favorite salsa. Roasting over moderately high heat brings out the natural sugars in all the vegetables and gives the salsa a wonderfully sweet, smoky flavor. Lace with fiery jalapenos and you have one of the most irresistible salsas ever.

Jalapenos are actually not as hot as Serranos (8,000-22,000 Scoville units)—so this has the advantage, if you see it that way—of being a milder salsa than the original. I tend to roast the ingredients separately in a dry cast iron skillet: first the whole fresh chiles, then the garlic cloves and onion, and finally whole small tomatoes. It’s important that the vegetable are cooked, or at least heated, all the way through. (That’s why it’s best to use smallish tomatoes and onions.) When they’ve cooled a little, I pulse the ingredients together in the food processor until they are uniformly chopped very small, but never until the salsa is smooth.

If the tomatoes leak their juices into the cast iron skillet, it may become a little crusty. To clean, let the pan cool slightly, then sprinkle the encrusted areas with salt and a little oil, and rub with a paper towel. Most of the debris will come loose and can be rinsed away with warm water.

Makes about 1-1/2 to 2 cups of salsa

Ingredients:

5 whole fresh jalapenos
3 or 4 small onions, peeled but left whole (1-1/2 to 2 inches in diameter)
8 garlic cloves, whole and unpeeled
4 or 5 small ripe whole tomatoes (2-1/2 to 3 inches in diameter)
Squeeze of lime
Sea salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat a dry cast iron skillet or griddle over a medium flame. When it is very hot, add the jalapenos and roast them, turning occasionally, until they are blackened and blistered all over. Remove to a small plate.
2. Separately use the same technique to roast the onions, garlic and tomatoes. Each ingredient should be left whole and roasted until it is blackened and cooked, or at least heated, all the way through. Leave the garlic unpeeled to keep it from burning and turning bitter.
3. When all the ingredients are roasted and have cooled slightly, combine them in the bowl of a food processor. (If desired, slit the jalapenos and remove some of the seeds to lessen the heat.) Pulse until they are uniformly chopped fine, but not until the salsa liquefies. The texture should be composed of tiny chunks, but never smooth. Add lime juice and salt to taste and stir.
4. Pour the salsa into a jar. It may be refrigerated for two days, but is much better if used at once—on eggs, grilled meats, fish and chicken, tossed with grilled or sautéed vegetables or as a dip for homemade tortilla chips. A spoonful can be used to flavor soups.

Chilled Indian lassi gets a touch of heat from a fresh jalapeno.

There is almost nothing quite so refreshing on a torrid summer day than an Indian lassi—a frothy iced yogurt drink scented with spices and other flavorings. Most Indian cookbooks have at least one recipe: In Classic Indian Cooking, Julie Sahni offers two, one with rosewater and another with fresh mint, while in From Curries to Kebabs, Madhur Jaffrey has recipes for lassi with freshly grated ginger and with cardamom seeds.

As Sahni writes, the quality of the yogurt is paramount. It must be tangy, above all, but also thick and creamy, or else the drink will become watery when it is blended with ice cubes. She advises adding a tablespoon of cream to plain yogurt, but you could also use wondrously thick Greek yogurt or blend the cream that come on top of full fat plain yogurt into the drink.

Since jalapenos are exploding all over my garden, this week I’ve been making lassi with a single fresh chile blended into the mix. I like it a little spicy, so I slit the pepper and take out half the seeds before tossing it into the blender. I’ve also found that it helps to crack the ice cubes beforehand—this makes them easier to blend.

The fresh jalapeno turns the frothy drink a pale, icy green—a bit of deception if served to an unsuspecting guest. But you wouldn’t do that, would you?

Indian Lassi Spiced with Cumin and Jalapeno

To serve 2

Ingredients:

8 to 10 ice cubes, cracked
2 cups thick, tangy plain yogurt (see note)
1 or 2 small fresh jalapeno peppers
Large pinch ground cumin
Sea salt to taste

Method:

1. Combine the cracked ice and yogurt in the blender.
2. Cut the jalapenos in half and remove some or all of the seeds, depending upon how much heat you’d like in the drink. Add the peppers and any seeds that you are using to the blender.
3. Whir until the drink is very smooth and icy.
4. Add a pinch of cumin and blend. Add sea salt to taste.
5. Pour into two tall glasses and serve at once.

Note: I recommend using the Fage brand of Greek yogurt because it is thick, rich and deliciously tangy. You could also blend in the cream found on the top of plain whole milk yogurt, or add a tablepoon or two of cream to any plain yogurt.