There is no traditional dish called Moroccan gazpacho.

I just want to be clear about that up front.

I made it up.

I wasn’t the first person to make it up, apparently, but rest assured that any version of this soup you run across is not authentically Moroccan.

It may be gazpacho, but it sure isn’t Moroccan.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s just talk about how this recipe came to be.

We needed a lunch special at Salaam.

And there were large fresh local tomatoes, lots of basil, red onions, garlic, green and red peppers, cucumbers and lemons newly preserved with salt in the Moroccan style.

Oh, and we had stale pita bread, olive oil, harissa, red chili pepper, cumin and cinnamon.

I wondered what gazpacho would taste like if I made it with preserved lemons and Moroccan spices.

So, I decided to find out.

It turns out that preserved lemons, harissa, cumin and cinnamon take the ubiquitous chilled Spanish soup and make it taste fresh and new, which is, as Martha Stewart would say, “a good thing.”

Generally speaking there are two general textures for gazpacho–blended smooth or chunky with diced ingredients.

I make mine so it is half blended and half chunky, which gives the best of both worlds. The liquid is thick and smooth, with finely diced vegetables throughout. To make the smooth liquid, I puree the bread with olive oil, a cucumber and garlic. (If you are gluten intolerant, leave out the bread, although your gazpacho will lack a certain body and creaminess that the bread imparts.) Most recipes at this point add water to thin out the liquid, but I always use V-8 juice, which coincidentally, we keep in Salaam’s pantry.

I find that using the vegetable juice blend gives a more complex flavor than just using water would do.

Then, I dice up tomatoes, onions, peppers and seeded cucumbers, add salt and pepper, and whatever herbs I have on hand, and voila–gazpacho.

For the ersatz-Moroccan version, I pureed a whole preserved lemon, a tablespoon or two of harissa sauce and a bunch of cilantro with the bread, olive oil, cucumber and garlic, and then added to the diced ingredients toasted, ground cumin, some cinnamon and a lot of fresh basil, roughly chopped.

It turned out beautifully, and nearly sold out at lunch, which is always a good sign.

I loved the complex fragrance, flavors, the textures and especially the summery bright calico colors of this soup and I will be making it again and again this summer.

Moroccan Gazpacho
Ingredients:

Garnish with whole basil leaves.

These potatoes are so simple to make, and they taste and look beautiful.

This recipe started out with baby Carola potatoes. Carola is a German heirloom variety with thin, golden skin and creamy yellow flesh that has a slightly sweet, earthy flavor. Of course, you could use any kind of baby potatoes to make this dish–fingerlings or tiny Red Bliss, or Yukon Gold would be just fine.

I made these potatoes to go with my traditional Fourth of July dinner, which consists of foods from elsewhere. In recognition that our country was founded by immigrants, and in support of my belief that what makes America strong and great the diversity of cultures which call this country home.

This year, we had Indian food. Other years, we have had Thai food, Mexican food and Italian food.

Next year, I have no idea what we will have to eat at our Fourth of July bash, but no doubt, it will be tasty, and I will likely do what I have always done–make a mix of traditional recipes and my own dishes inspired by the traditions of whatever cuisine we are cooking and eating at that time.

These roasted potatoes are not traditionally Indian. They are basically made the same way that potatoes are roasted in European traditions, but instead of drizzling them with olive oil, I used peanut oil, although melted ghee or canola oil would have worked. I also seasoned the oil with salt and my own house mixture of garam masala, which includes cloves, black peppercorns, cumin, cinnamon, black cardamom, dried cayenne chili and a bit of green cardamom. In order to boost the natural golden hue of the potatoes, I added about a quarter teaspoon of ground turmeric.

And, after the potatoes were done, I sprinkled freshly chopped parsley over them as a garnish. If I would have had some Aleppo pepper flakes left, I would have used those as well to add sparkles of rosy red to the dish. Mint would have worked just as well, but I had more cilantro than mint in the garden, so that is what I used.

These roasted potatoes would be great with roasted chicken or a leg of lamb. I also happen to think they would be great as part of a vegetarian Indian meal with mattar paneer, broccoli with panch phoron and bhindi masala.

Garam Masala Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients:

Sprinkle with cilantro, mint or scallions and Aleppo pepper flakes for garnish and serve immediately, while still hot.

When I was a little girl growing up on my grandparent’s farm, my least favorite vegetable was beets.

I loathed and despised them–I thought that they tasted like dirt.

Paradoxically, I used to love helping Grandma can and freeze the bounty of our gardens (every year we grew two one-acre plots–enough to feed the entire family) my favorite project was canning beets, even if I hated the way they tasted.

Why was this?

Because for whatever reason, I was intoxicated by the smell of cooked beets, and I found their brilliant rubine color to be be mesmerizing. The fact that packing slippery slices of these brilliantly colored roots tinted my hands pink was a fun bonus. I especially liked helping to make sweet and sour pickled beets–the fragrance of the hot carmine-colored vinegar-sugar pickling liquid was delicious, even if I didn’t like the way it tasted.

And when we were done, the jars, when they were lined up on tea towels on the kitchen counter, looked like jewels or stained glass when the late afternoon sun poured through the window, bathing the cooling beets in golden light.

It wasn’t until I was pregnant with Morganna that I finally decided I liked beets, and it was because of a craving for iron.

I was unable to take the iron supplements ordered by my doctor, because they made me very ill, so in order to avoid anemia–a problem that I have faced my entire life–I was told to eat more iron-rich foods. Spinach was simple, because I love it, and red meat was no problem as I was craving it. Liver should have been a problem for me to eat, as well as beets, for I hated them, but the truth was, my body needed iron so badly, I started craving them. I would smell chicken livers cooking, or liverwurst, and would start salivating. And when I smelled my then mother-in-law cooking sweet and sour beets, I nearly went mad with hunger and started eating them out of the pot before they were quite finished cooking!

They tasted divine–earthy and sweet, and the “dirt” flavor that so repelled me as a child was infinitely attractive when I was pregnant. And their sauce was buttery, sweet and sour at the same time. So delicious! I took to eating beets nearly every day, I loved them so much.

Too bad I had never heard of borscht at that time, or I would have been eating it all the time–beef, beef bones, sauerkraut and beets–I would have been in heaven!

Surprisingly, my love of beets stayed long after Morganna was born and I was finished nursing her. Over the years, I discovered various ways to make beets, ways that made them palatable to even the most vociferous of the anti-beet brigade. I particularly liked introducing baby roasted beets to beet haters presented in a salad with pears and chevre, dressed in a honey-balsamic vinaigrette.

Last night, I had a craving for beets, which was convenient, because I had a little bundle of baby beets in the fridge from Shade River Organic Farm I bought at the Farmer’s Market the week before.

But I didn’t have time to roast them, so I decided to peel them, cut them into quarters and boil them until they were just tender enough to pierce with a fork, but not so tender that they were mushy. Mushy beets, unless we are talking about pureed beets in borscht, just don’t do it for me.

I cooked them in as little salted water as possible, and after they were done, I added about a tablespoon of local wildflower honey, and a half tablespoon or so of balsamic vinegar.

A pinch of salt, and then about a quarter teaspoon of my house made toasted and ground garam masala and a teaspoon of butter finished the glaze for the beets, which I garnished with lacy fresh cilantro leaves.

So simple, and so very like the sweet and sour beets my Grandma made, and yet still, different. The balsamic vinegar added a floral note as did the honey, and the garam masala drew out the earthiness of the beets and embraced them with the warmth of sunny spices.

“Garam masala” means “hot spice mixture” and refers to the warming spices used in Indian foods. It doesn’t necessarily refer to chilies, however, and not every garam masala blend includes chilies. Each family or cook has their own blend of spices that they use, usually toasted and ground in small amounts in order to ensure that the spices are as strongly scented and flavored as possible.

My garam masala blend is made of one teaspoon black peppercorns, 3 cloves, 1/4″ stick of cinnamon, c1 tablespoon oriander and 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, and 2 green cardamom pods, all toasted in a skillet then cooled and ground to a powder. I keep it in an airtight jar on my counter, and use it at the end of cooking whenever I have a dish that needs a little extra something to make it sparkle. You can use your own recipe for garam masala or use whatever commercial blend you like. Penzey’s Garam Masala is pretty darned good if you don’t want to make your own.

These beets make a great side dish for any summer meal–whether you are making American, French or Indian food–they are delicious. They are just as good hot off the stove, at room temperature or lightly chilled, though if you are going to chill them, I suggest using olive oil instead of the butter.

This recipe is only enough to serve one or two people, but you can scale it up however you like in order to make more. Just be aware that the garam masala should be added to taste in larger quantities–spices never ever scale up perfectly by simple multiplication the way other ingredients do.

Baby Beets With Balsamic Honey Glaze and Garam Masala
Ingredients:

Sprinkle with the cilantro leaves and serve either immediately or after allowing the beets to come to room temperature.

Inspiration for a new dish often strikes me in odd moments.

Some flavor combinations come to me in dreams, if you can believe that.

Others lay in wait in my subconscious mind and pop out in the midst of a conversation about an unrelated topic.

The kernel of the idea for this appetizer, which consists of strawberries macerated in a bit of sugar, black pepper and rosewater, topped with chevre which has been breaded with matzo meal and lightly fried, and dressed with pomegranate vinaigrette, came circuitously into my consciousness by way of seeing batik fabric that called to mind the exact shade of strawberries, combined with flecks of gold and swirls of deep, rich reddish brown.

These colors danced into my mind, and as I stared at the fabric, I had a taste memory of some strawberries I had once eaten at a fine Italian restaurant in Boston which had been lightly sugared, then seasoned with balsamic vinegar and black pepper. The unlikely combination popped on my palate, flooding my senses with wild imaginings of satyrs playing flutes for golden nymphs dancing on meadows perfumed by the wild strawberries they crushed underfoot and fed each other with rosy-stained fingers.

But as the fabric’s colors danced to the satyrs’ reedy melody in my imaginal memory, balsamic vinegar was replaced with pomegranate molasses–for years, every summer at least once or twice, I had been serving a leafy green salad with strawberries, almonds and pomegranate vinaigrette to great effect. And, of course, as I pondered salad, I remembered how well-loved a bit of fried chevre is when presented with greens and a tart dressing.

And so, as it traveled through my imagination, the dish evolved from a dessert I had tasted over a decade ago, to a combination of two of my favorite salads, finally coming together as an appetizer that combines bits of each of these dishes into a cohesive whole.

And it all came about while I was shopping for quilt fabric.

Such is the way in which my mind works–ideas bubble up from my subconscious, stirred by the most unlikely of utensils.

I am certain that you will want a recipe for this dish, but the truth is that I cannot give you one.

Not an exact one, anyway.

Why?

Well, so much of the dish is contingent upon the flavors and textures of each component. The thickness of the chevre patty depends on the texture of the cheese–if it is firmer, then it can be cut more thinly–if it is very soft, it should be shaped to be more thick. The seasoning of the strawberries requires an understanding of how sweet your berries are–if they are very ripe, they will need a minimal amount of sugar–only enough to bring out the juice and soften the berries to a velvety finish. If they are more tart, not only will they take more sugar, but also a tiny bit more rosewater, to bring out the floral quality in their fragrance. And if they are too sweet, the tiniest of pinches extra of the freshly ground black pepper will not only counterbalance the sugar, but it will also bring out a haunting fragrance that the berries possess which can often be overpowered by a too heavy hand with the sugar spoon.

The amount of sugar and oil you add to the pomegranate molasses to make the vinaigrette also depends upon the acidity of the molasses itself. Each brand differs in flavor, thickness and color, so I suggest that cooks make salad dressings with whatever molasses they have on hand, doing it all by taste and feel. I will say that the basic ratio of oil to molasses is about 3:1–as is the case with the strawberries, it is the amount of sugar which is variable, depending on the intrinsic flavor of the boiled down pomegranate juice. (Which is, of course, all that pomegranate molasses is–pomegranate juice boiled down to a thick, dark, sour-sweet syrup.)

Just use a judicious hand in making a dish like this. The beauty in it comes from the interplay between the fragrant, sensuous berries, kissed by two floral aromas–rosewater and black pepper–, the chevre, with its golden crisped exterior and melty, tangy interior, and the sweet and sour notes from the vinaigrette, which ties everything together. Do not add too much sugar, use a light hand with the rosewater and black pepper, and drizzle the vinaigrette onto the plate and the cheese with a squeeze bottle for perfect control.

And please don’t forget to take out your chevre patties to let them warm up slightly before dipping them in lightly beaten egg whites and then coating them in matzo meal. If they are completely cold from the fridge, the center will not become melted enough to be interesting. And fry them in a neutral flavored oil like canola, over medium heat. You want the oil to only be a scant 1/2 inch deep in the pan and you want it to be hot enough that the patties will start to bubble immediately upon entering the pan, but not so hot that the coating immediately begins to burn.

You want it to cook quickly enough to not soak up too much oil, but not so quickly that the matzo scorches, leaving a nasty, acrid taste in the back of the diner’s palate after they take a bite.

I hope that my instructions and admonitions are not too vague to be of use–but I really haven’t developed this into a full-fledged, tested recipe.

I only just ran it as an appetizer special this Friday, when it sold out two thirds of the way through the evening, so in essence, I was cooking by the seat of my pants.

And, judging by the blissful expressions and soft moans coming from the tables, I believe that my navigation was unerring as I brought dish inspired by a piece of fabric, a dessert I ate once long ago and the sweet song from a satyr’s flute from the liminal world of my imagination into the realm of consensual reality.

I’ve been meaning to try baking with King Arthur Flour’s white whole wheat flour for quite some time. White whole wheat flour is ground from a different variety of wheat–hard white winter wheat, to be exact–than the usual whole wheat flour which comes from hard red winter wheat. Lacking the tannin that comes with the coloring of the bran in red wheat, whole grain flour ground from white wheat is supposed to be milder in flavor and paler in color. (Not that the color of whole wheat bothers me, mind you–even when I was a kid, I preferred my bread to be brown–it had more flavor that way.)

But alas, I didn’t get down to experimenting until yesterday, when I decided to make my first cherry pie of the season using fresh local sour cherries, only a little bit of sugar, butter from grass fed cows and of course, the white whole wheat flour. Instead of just replacing a portion of the all purpose flour in my recipe with white whole wheat, I decided to try making pie with just the whole wheat.

And you know–it turned out pretty darned tasty.

I added an extra tablespoon of raw sugar to the dough to make up for the less mild flavor of the whole wheat flour, and added a tiny bit extra of water–about two tablespoons worth–to make up for the fact that the whole wheat flour is drier. Those were the only changes I made to my usual dough recipe and when the pie was in the oven, it smelled amazingly good. /it smelled like I had made the crust out of nuts or something, so intense was the deep brown aroma that wafted through the house.

How did it taste?

I really liked the flavor–it was sweet and nutty, with a strong wheat flavor–like bulgar wheat, in fact. It complimented the sour cherries rather well–their tart, sweet flavor and velvety texture went well with the rustic crust.

My one complaint was that the crust wasn’t very flaky, probably because of the gluten content in the flour. Next time, I will go half and half with the white whole wheat and all purpose flour and see if I can strike a balance between whole grain goodness and flavor and the flakiness that all purpose flour provides.

But, even so, I can see using this all whole wheat crust for something other than a fruit pie. Like a quiche, one with potatoes, kale, mushrooms and a mixture of strong cheeses like extra sharp cheddar and aged gouda. I also think this crust would be great for a Jamaican meat patty–imagine a turnover baked from this nut-like pastry dough filled with meat seasoned with allspice, Scotch bonnet peppers, scallions, garlic and thyme.

Or what about a samosa pie? Bake the curried potato and pea filling for samosas into a pie. Or mattar paneer. Oooh. Mattar paneer pie.

Geez, I am drooling just thinking about it.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the low-sugar all whole wheat cherry pie I made yesterday. If any of you try it out, let me know what you think. I mean, I know that pie isn’t an intrinsically healthy food, but it is kind of nice to eat it and not feel too awfully guilty over it.

Sour Cherry Pie With Whole Wheat Crust
Ingredients:

Put into the oven for thirty minutes. After thirty minutes, turn the oven down to 375 degrees F. and turn the pie 180 degrees. If the edges of the crust are browning too much, cover them with strips of foil to protect them. Bake for 35 more minutes or until crust is deep golden brown and the cherries are bubbly and the juices are thickened.