Mutabbaq - Middle Eastern Cheese Pastry

Downtown Jerusalem has some decent hummus shops, but in my opinion, Jerusalem's best hummus is in the Arab shuk, which is just past the Jaffa Gate in the Old City. If you head down the main stairs of the shuk, hang a left and head toward the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, but then peel off to the right again, you'll pass a a couple shop owners who sit in their doorways and occasionally toss rice at children who walk by. Just keep going, and when you've gone down a few stairs, you'll come upon Lena's, which serves the best hummus in Jerusalem.

I found Lena's on a recommendation from a shop owner in the shuk. He told me to get hummus and labneh there, and then to continue even deeper in the shuk for most of a kilometer - past the scarves and the hukkahs and the fish, ick - until I came upon a fluorescent-lit storefront on the left, called Jafar Sweets.  There, he said, I would find dessert.

That was in 2006. I've been going to Jafar ever since, and I've never been disappointed with my spoils. Jafar's got baklava in every imaginable combination of nuts. But what they're really famous for is knafeh, a pastry of crunchy vermicelli sandwiching hot, syrupy cheese. Knafeh is made in massive round sheet pans and cut into big slabs for the hungry. It also happens to be my all-time favorite Middle Eastern dessert and will definitely be a post just as soon as I can find Kataifi, the crunchy shredded noodles.

For now, I'm settling to tell you about another fantastic Middle Eastern pastry from another pastry shop, this one founded in Jerusalem but now based in Amman. The shop is Zalatimo's, and the pastry is Mutabbaq. It's easy to make, requires no special ingredients, and tastes distinctly of the Middle East. Oh, and it's really really good.

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Yotam Ottolenghi is the one who clued me in to the fact that I can make Mutabbaq at home. He, and my friend Josh, who served it at a dinner party and had me jonesing to make it myself. It's a phyllo pastry -- think spanikopita -- but stuffed with goat cheese and ricotta, then drenched in scented syrup just as it comes out of the oven, as with baklava. But unlike baklava, it's not such a fuss to assemble. These days, I'd rather be fussing with a fancy summer cocktail. Speaking of which, stay tuned for one of those (I said fancy, not fussy) cocktails later this week.

Mutabbaq - Middle Eastern Cheese Pastry adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's Jerusalem

Makes one half-sheet pan, enough to serve 8 with leftovers likely

2/3 cup (10 1/2 tablespoons, or 130 grams) unsalted butter, melted 14 sheets phyllo pastry, from one packet 2 cups (500 grams) ricotta cheese 9 oz (250 grams) soft goat cheese 1/4 cup crushed unsalted pistachios, to garnish

Syrup 6 tablespoons (90 ml) water 1 1/3 cups (280 grams) sugar 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon orange flower water, optional

Make the syrup: Heat the oven to 450°. Brush a rimmed half-sheet baking pan (13x18 in) or two 9x13 pans with melted butter. If using the half-sheet pan, the phyllo sheets should fit your pan perfectly. If you're working with two quarter-sheet pans, you'll want to cut the phyllo down the middle.

Layer a sheet of phyllo into your pan, brush all over with melted butter, and top with another sheet. Continue layering sheets and butter until you have 7 sheets in the pan (or 7 sheets in each pan).

Put the ricotta and goat cheese in a bowl and mash together with a fork until the mixture is uniform. Spread over the top phyllo sheet, leaving 3/4 inch / 2 cm clear around the edge. Brush the surface of the cheese with butter and top with the remaining 7 sheets of phyllo, brushing each sheet with butter before layering the next sheet.

If you can, fold the edges of phyllo under the pastry to make a clean edge. (If not, don't worry about it.) Brush the top with more butter, and use a sharp long knife to cut the pastry into 3-inch squares, sending the knife almost to the bottom of the pan but not quite.

Bake for 25 minutes, until pastry is crisp and golden brown.

Meanwhile, make the syrup:Put the water and sugar in a small saucepan and mix well. Place over medium heat, bring to a boil, add the lemon juice and orange flower water if using, and simmer gently for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.

The minute you take the pastry out of the oven, pour the syrup over the hot pastry, making sure it soaks in evenly. Leave to cool for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with the crushed pistachios, and finish cutting into portions. Serve warm.

Chocolate-Crusted Banana Blondies

Back in April, the wonderful Melissa Clark tried to make brownies into a vehicle for her ready-to-go bananas. After 6 failed batches, she couldn't get the results to taste chocolaty enough. Sometimes, a brownie just wants to be a brownie.

So she kept the chocolate for the bottom, and folded her mushy bananas into rum-scented blondies. Brilliant, I say.

Let's break it down: we've got a crumbly, crunchy chocolate cookie crust (ground chocolate cookies and butter - nothing bad there). Poured overtop is a batter that's the beautiful lovechild of blondies and brown-butter banana bread. Come again? Blondies, and brown-butter banana bread. You can imagine why I had no choice but to make these.

Here's the truth about something as intensely rich as these blondies: not everyone found them irresistible. D, in particular, thought they were too much of a good thing. Or too many different good things. Or something. I say, bupkis. They're a total winner in my book.

A person can only eat so much banana bread. Banana pancakes are a great alternative, but you know what? Sometimes you gotta treat yourself. That's what these are for.

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Chocolate-Crusted Banana BlondiesAdapted slightly from Melissa Clark at the New York Times

A glutton for excess, I swapped the walnuts out for chocolate chips. Yea, I did.

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (1 1/4 cups), plus more for greasing pan 3 cups of chocolate wafer cookie crumbs (from about 200 grams chocolate wafer cookies) 1/4 cup light brown sugar (about 55 grams) 1/2 teaspoon plus a pinch fine sea salt 2 ripe bananas, mashed 2 large eggs 2 1/2 cups dark brown sugar (about 455 grams) 2 tablespoons dark rum or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup all-purpose flour (about 130 grams) 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped (about 80 grams) Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with parchment, and grease with butter.

Melt 1 stick of butter in a saucepan over low heat or in microwave. Put the chocolate wafer cookies in the bowl of a food processor and process to make fine crumbs. Add the light brown sugar, melted butter and a pinch of salt. Process until the mixture is the consistency of damp sand. Dump the mixture into the pan and press it into an even layer. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes, or until the surface is firm. Remove the pan and set aside.

Reduce oven heat to 350 degrees.

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt 12 tablespoons butter, then let it cook until the foam subsides and butter turns a deep nut brown, about 5 minutes. Cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together bananas, eggs, dark brown sugar and rum. Whisk in brown butter. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour and fine salt. Fold into batter along with the toasted walnuts. Pour the mixture over the prepared crust and spread evenly. Sprinkle top with flaky salt if using.

Transfer pan to oven and bake until the top is firm and a toothpick inserted in the center emerges with a few crumbs attached (or clean) but not wet, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack; cut into 24 bars.

Quinoa and Asparagus Salad with Yogurt Dressing

Lurking behind the shiny exterior of this homepage is a Drafts folder, containing every post I've ever started. And friends, I could make an entire second blog out of the posts stuck in draft-purgatory. There's a parsnip cake I made for my mom's birthday back in 2011; a winter citrus salad that I keep meaning to tell you about while it's still...well, winter; a tremendous zucchini gratin that I will tell you about in just a few short weeks, when summer decides to make an appearance for good; and about 15 quinoa recipes, none of which I deemed delicious enough to share.

Thing is, I am no big fan of quinoa. Try as I might, I can't love the stuff. I wish I did: it's nutritious, cooks up really quickly, and at least purports to be versatile. I'm just not the biggest fan.

But last week, fresh on a tear to use up all the little bits of things in the bottom of jars in my kitchen, I came upon some quinoa, leftover from Passover and languishing at the back of my grain shelf. I've been trying to cook more economically, and I've been having success tucking bits of boring-seeming leftovers into new dishes. I improved my last batch of mujaddara by adding bits of salsa verde-braised green beans. What's a little quinoa?

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And here's the best part of it all: I actually enjoyed this salad a lot. It's bits of asparagus, golden raisins, and toasted pepitas for crunch. I'm especially fond of the dressing, which came together unexpectedly well, considering it was yet another attempt to use over bits of things in jars in the fridge. Win-win.

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Quinoa and Asparagus Salad with Yogurt Dressing Serves 6

Notes: I made this recipe to use what I had in the fridge, and there's no reason you shouldn't do the same. Feel free to swap out the quinoa for wheatberries, pearl barley, or bulgur. If you don't have (or don't like) asparagus (though I'm not sure we can be friends if it's the latter...), you might finely chop some raw greens, scallions, green beans, radish, or a mixture of these. Consider this less of a prescriptive recipe and more of a starting point. That said, this combination does work really well. -R

For the salad: 1 cup quinoa 1 bunch asparagus (about 10 spears), rinsed, ends trimmed, and sliced on the bias 1/2 cup golden raisins 1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

For the dressing: 1/2 cup yogurt 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided juice of half a lemon half a preserved lemon, diced (I like using the whole thing, but some folks use only the rind and discard the flesh) - or, if you don't have preserved lemon, check out this helpful post from the Food52 hotline 2 teaspoons honey salt and pepper to taste

Set a medium pot full of water over medium-high heat. When water reaches a boil, add quinoa, stir to combine, and cook for 15 minutes, until quinoa is cooked through but still keeps its shape. Strain and transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, heat a medium sauté pan over medium heat. Add pepitas, a pinch of salt, and the tiniest drop of oil; toss to combine, and cook until you hear one pepita pop. By then, pepitas should have started to turn golden. Remove from the heat and transfer pepitas to a bowl.

Place pan back on the heat, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and add the asparagus. Cook for about 3 minutes, just until asparagus glisten and start to turn golden in a couple spots. (If you like your asparagus fully soft, continue cooking for 4-5 minutes more.) Spoon asparagus into the bowl with the quinoa, and stir in raisins while asparagus and quinoa are still warm - it helps them plump up.

Make the dressing: Combine the yogurt, preserved lemon, honey, and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a jar. Shake to combine. Taste, and add salt and pepper to taste (you must add the s&p after adding the preserved lemon, since it is quite salty).

Drizzle most of the yogurt dressing onto the quinoa, stir to combine, and taste. Add more of the dressing if desired. Top with the toasted pepitas just before serving.

The Best Way to Caramelize Onions

One of my favorite food-related articles from 2012 came from Slate. It was called, "Why do recipe writers lie and lie and lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions?" and it spoke the truth: caramelizing onions is a matter of patience. Doing it properly takes at least 40 minutes, and the recipes that tell you you'll have soft, brown onions in five or ten minutes are straight-up lying.

So, do I have some sort of trick to shorten your wait? Not exactly. But let's be honest: we see caramelized onions in a recipe, and we let out a sigh. There goes any hope of getting dinner on the table quickly. And friends, that's a problem I can solve.

The trick? Caramelize onions in bulk. Onions keep for a really long time; onions in lots of oil keep even longer. These will keep in the fridge for easily a week (actually longer, but if you're nervous about storing them for so long, top them with a hefty drizzle of olive oil). If you make a big ole' batch on a lazy Sunday, you'll have enough caramelized onions to get you through a week's worth of frittatas, tarts and more tarts, Mujaddara, and more.

And anyway, I find that it's easier to caramelize onions in bulk. Pile 'em into a big pan, turn the heat very low, and cover. Then walk away. It's pretty much that easy, and with no stress about how long they take, the promise of silky, soft, golden onions isn't too much to hope for.

Let's do this thing.

Best Caramelized Onions

5 large yellow onions 5 tablespoons butter, olive oil, or a mix (I like 3 and 2) 1 teaspoon salt

Peel onions, halve them from pole to pole, and slice into thin half-rings.

Pile the onions into the largest shallow skillet you have. If your largest shallow skillet doesn't fit them, put them into a wide pot. Make sure whatever pot or pan you're using has a lid.

Turn the heat to medium and add the butter/oil and salt. When the onions start making those wonderful sizzling noises, give the onions a good stir, reduce the heat to low, and cover the pot/pan.

After 20 minutes, check the onions. They should have sweated down considerably to the point where they are very soft and possibly turning tan. Spend the next 20-30 minutes cooking the onions uncovered, with the top off, and stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and ensure even cooking.

After 50-60 minutes, the onions should be very soft and deep golden brown. Store in a sealed container topped with a hefty drizzle of olive oil. Onions will keep for over a week.

Troubleshooting: If the onions look too dry, add water by the tablespoon and stir to incorporate with the onions. You can also add a bit more olive oil or butter if the onions aren't glistening enough.

If you have one of those amazingly powerful stoves where "low" is still pretty high (lucky you), you'll want to keep a closer eye on the onions to avoid burning them. Adding water and constant stirring are pretty good insurance policies there.

Finally, depending on how firm your onions are when you start out, they can soften quickly or very, very slowly. If your onions feel particularly soft, in 20 minutes of covered cooking they'll probably have "melted" - meaning, they'll be super soft and almost have lost their shape. Firmer onions will keep their shape in 20 minutes, so if you're hoping for super melty onions, you may want to leave them covered on the heat for a bit longer.

Here's to big batches of delicious ingredients. More to come.