Serve this sauteed zucchini, turmeric, and yogurt dip as an appetizer with toasted pita or flatbread or as a sauce with kebabs.
Yogurt in pasta sauce may be unexpected but it imparts a nice creaminess — and a bit of a tang — missing in more heavy, traditional dairy-based sauces. In Morocco, fresh peas were abundant. As I like to load up with a lot of green vegetables whenever possible, adding zucchini and spinach to this dish felt exactly right. Serving with extra Parmesan cheese is a must.
This is a simple recipe: a few tablespoons of pre-made yogurt gives the necessary base while the milk makes up the bulk of the yogurt. I have listed whole milk as the starting point but you may use nonfat, low-fat, (unsweetened) soy milk, etc., and the formula remains the same.
For a baba ghanoush recipe that would fulfill its potential as a dip full of redolent, smoky eggplant flavor and brightened with garlic and lemon juice, we grilled the eggplants directly over a hot fire until they were wrinkled and soft. To avoid watery texture and bitterness in our baba ghanoush recipe, we drained the flesh of excess fluid before combining it with flavor-enhancing ingredients.
Smoked salmon recipes, with their smoky, rich taste and silky, supple texture benefit from some contrasting flavors. Our "Smoked Salmon Platter" sauce recipe uses a base of homemade mayonnaise and incorporates many of the garnishes that are commonly served on a smoked salmon platter, such as hard-cooked egg, capers, and dill.
In this week’s video I demonstrate a short cut method for caramelizing garlic. This is a handy tip for someone who doesn’t want to wait for an entire bulb to slowly roast in the oven, the traditional way of getting garlic that is golden through and through. This method only caramelizes the cloves around the edges. But the center does mellow and sweeten and you can use this this for any recipe that calls for caramelized or roasted garlic, like the one for potato, sage and lemon zest focaccia in my column this week.
This sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
This sauce/side dish — a simple combination of fennel, tomatoes and olives — is magical. Not because it’s the best thing you ever ate, but because it’s transportive: you eat it and you’re in the Mediterranean. This is even true with winter tomatoes (though of course it’s better with those of summer, and see my suggestion below), because the dominant flavors are fennel and olives.
I made this meal a couple months before you can find fresh tangerines in the produce section, so I tried the alternative, oranges. 3 medium oranges made way too much relish, so if you are going to substitute the tangerines with oranges, use 2. I ended up having to double all the ingredients for the relish because there were so many oranges.
Serve this red pepper spread with sliced halloumi cheese, grilled or toasted in a hot oven.