This was a Jerusalem feast!
Kofta b'siniyah; fresh vegetable salad; and basmati and wild rice with chickpeas, currants and herbs - all recipes were from "Jerusalem" cookbook. We have made several dishes like
Shakshuka;
cod cakes in tomato sauce; barley risotto with marinated feta;
chermoula eggplant with couscous and yogurt; roasted butternut squash and red onion with tahini and za'atar,
lamb shawarma,
lemony leek meatballs,
chocolate babka, etc., adapting recipes from the book and we liked all very much. These three dishes weren't exceptions. They were so good!
Washing parsley and picking leaves and chopping them to make 30 g finely chopped parsley was the most time-consuming task to make Kofta b'siniyah. That reminded me of when I made the cod cakes. A lot of fresh herb chopping may be one of the secrets of delicious Jerusalem cooking. For the tahini sauce, I used roasted garlic instead of fresh garlic because fresh garlic often tastes too harsh for me.
Ok, more chopping for fresh vegetable salad was done. I skipped all spices (cardamon, allspice, and cumin) and garlic for the salad to keep it very simple, dressing just olive oil, lemon juice and sherry vinegar.
This aromatic mixed rice dish was very interesting - tossing basmati rice and wild rice with curried chick peas, fried onion slices, fresh herbs and currants. I loved it! This was a kind of dish I won't get tired with. I cooked basmati rice with a rice cooker to streamline the recipe a bit. To make three dishes at once, it was not a bad idea at all. There are still more recipes in the book we have't tried yet and we will enjoy a new discover. Meanwhile, I would like to cook these three dishes once again! They were so good! Did I already say so?
