Algerian Cuisine Cuisine Algerienne by Farid ZADI

Show Us Your Cookbooks- Hosted by YumSugar

Is My Blog Burning Event hosted by YumSugar 

To celebrate summer reading, we’d like everyone to post a picture of themselves with their favorite cookbook.To be included in the roundup, all you have to do is post a pic of you holding your favorite book.

- Name you want me to use- Farid Zadi

- Where you’re from- Lyon, France, parents from Setif, Algeria, currently living in Los Angeles

- What book you chose- The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage by Rachel Laudan

- One short sentence on why you chose that book- I chose the book because it helped me look at food   cultures and food history through a new lens or rather multiple lenses. Rachel Laudan is a thought-provoking food historian and she's rigorous with research.
 

Cookware Review- Terracotta Tagine with Conical Lid

This terracotta tagine is made in Portugal and available at specialty stores like Sur La Table for $19.95. The vessel is glazed throughout and must be soaked in water for 12-24 hours prior to initial use. It's safe for the stove top and oven up to 400 F. I use it in the oven with the lid off.

I use it for my foodcasts and Algerian cooking classes. The base is large enough and deep enough to hold braised tagines, as well tagines that are more stew like.

There is a small steam vent that can be plugged with a little bit of aluminum foil for better moisture retention. With the steam vent left open on this model I often have to add more water during long slow cooking because there is quite a bit of moisture loss.

Whether the steam vent is left open or shut the conical lid on this model gets hot. The conical lids on Algerian made tagines stay cool enough to touch.

Terracotta is porous which means that if the lid gets too hot with the steam vent left open steam produced from cooking will evaporate. If the lid stays cool than the steam will recondense as it hits the sides of the lid. As I've already noted plugging the steam vent on this model will help reduce moisture loss.

Cookware Review- Couscoussier (Couscoussière)

This is the first in a series of reviews I'm writing about cookware for Algerian cooking. I'll review couscoussiers and tagine cooking vessels from different manufacturers.

A couscoussier is basically a pot with a steamer insert. This is the model I use at home and for cooking classes. It's sold at specialty stores and available online at Fantes . There is no maker's mark on the pot only a stamp stating that it's made in Italy. There are lots of North African and European manufacturers of couscoussiers, this one isn't necessarily "the best" one. But it is sturdy, has a heavy bottom, looks sleek and it works. I've used it in professional kitchens where pots and pans get banged about quite a bit and there isn't a single ding in it. This is important to me because I also use it for cooking classes/demos and I want a polished looking couscoussier for this context. This model keeps up appearances very well. I take it to the school I teach once every six weeks to demonstrate the correct method for steaming couscous.

I don't like recommending cookware or kitchen tools that have limited uses. But I think a couscoussier is worth investing in because it is basically a pot with a steamer insert that can be used for so many applications not just in Algerian cooking, but many other cuisines.

Yes, you can use a pot with a steamer insert for steaming couscous. I have too, but there is something elegant and deliciously feminine about the curves of a couscoussier that a straight sided pot with a steamer insert doesn't possess.

Grow your own- Algerian White Bean Salad

A friend gave me some tomatoes from her garden so I decided to make a white bean salad. Andrea's Recipes is hosting this one off food blog event.

The rules are very simple: just make a dish that uses at least one item from your very own garden andpost about it. I’m leaving the choices wide open because different latitudes will have different produce available. (Just so you know, I am insanely jealous of anyone who has avocado trees in the yard!) And yes, herbs definitely qualify! If you don’t have a garden, you can use something that was gifted to you, but the giver must have grown the item herself/himself.

There are many versions of bean salad in Algerian cooking. Some are very simply dressed with citrus juice, olive oil, and spices. Chermoula also makes a nice dressing for a bean salad. This version is garnished with fresh raw vegetables. I used fennel bulb, carrots, tomatoes and chopped cilantro. I lightly pickled chopped onion in sweet white vinegar for about an hour. This dish is really a non-recipe. I used Rancho Gordo flageolet beans that I cooked the night before and tossed in my vegetables, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Loubia bil Lahm Tagine, Algerian White Bean and Beef Tagine Cooked in Clay Tagine Vessel

This is another intermediate clay tagine recipe.

I used my terracotta tagine purchase from Sur La Table for this tagine. If anyone in the States, France or the U.K. knows of a tagine distributor of Algerian made cooking vessels please let me know.

This is a piquant, peppery tagine with a touch of smokiness from the ancho pepper and sweetness from the carrots and tomato paste. In Algeria we use a smoked paprika similar to pimentón, smoked paprika this a  a great dish to add a little pinch of it too. I would say that broadly speaking this tagine is Oranaise.

First photo- ingredients for my dersa spice paste and aromatics. Half a medium onion grated, 3 small carrots finely chopped, two bay leaves, half an ancho pepper, 1/2 teaspoon of sumac, 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper, 1 teaspon merguez spice blend, and 2 cloves of finely minced garlic.

Lahm is Arabic for meat which almost always means lamb, but doesn't exclude beef either. I'm used beef short rib for this tagine because I like the cut for slow cooking. I chopped the carrots into small dice because I want them to cook down into the sauce as a thickener and to add a little sweetness.

Second photo- Aromatics, spices and 3 tablespoons of olive oil after they've cooked over low heat in the tagine for 10 minutes.

Third photo- 3 ounces of tomato paste fried with the aromatics and spices for 3 minutes. Cooking tomato paste this way is a North African cooking technique. It heightens the sweetness of tomato paste and intensifies it's flavor.

Add 2 pounds of beef short rib (bone in) to the tagine and thoroughly coat with the blend of tomato paste, spices and aromatics and add 2 cups of water as shown in the fourth photo simmer for 1 hour and then add the beans.

Blog Party #25- Minty Goodness

Algerian Mint and Lemon Marinated Kebabs with Salsa Tomatish
Video podcast here

Algerian Lemonade with Mint and Lemon Zest Sugar

Recipe for lemonade made with home made lemon syrup

The Happy Sorceress of Dispensing Happiness is the host of blog party # 25- Minty Goodness. The theme ingredient is mint and the requirement to participate is make two recipes with mint: one beverage and one appetizer.

Mediterranean Creole™ #6 Foodcast in English- Merguez Spiced Keema Kebabs and Mint and Lemon Marinated Chicken Kebabs with Salsa Tomatish (Tomato Salsa)

I reserved about 3/4 of a pound of merguez spiced keema (ground meat) from foodcast #4 to demonstrate how to form a keema kebab. I used 2-2 1/2 pounds of boneless chicken thigh and leg meat with the skin on. You can use boneless chicken breast, but I prefer the flavor of leg meat for this application. Do not distribute video, do not post video to youtube, google, etc... All materials are the property of Farid Zadi C/2007

Mediterranean Creole™ #5 Foodcast in English- Fideos (Fidwash, Fidawash) with Merguez Spiced Meatballs (Kefta)

Adam Balic's post about the history of fideos

However, in the case of this particular group of pasta, there is a particular pasta type called as “Fidawsh/Fidaush” mentioned in an anonymous thirteenth century Hispano-Muslim cookbook (translated by Charles Perry). In this text there a discussion on the basic shapes of pasta, followed by a description on how to cook them. Curiously the medieval cooking method still closely resembles that specialized cooking technique that is used today. For the interesting thing about this pasta dish is that it is actually cooked in it's sauce, rather then being dressed with a seperately prepared sauce.

The tomato broth I refer to in the video is lighter than a tomato sauce, so I call it a broth. Use vine ripened tomatoes for this simple preparation, you'll notice a lovely fresh tomato fragrance as the sauce cooks. I use 2 pounds of ground beef with a fat content of about 27% (I get it ground by a butcher). Do not be afraid of fat! A lot of  it cooks off during the browning process, but the flavor and moisture remain. My merguez spice blend recipe.

This episode is broken up into 3 clips as the file size for a single video clip was much too large for my computer to handle. We used a different kitchen this time, the lighting and sound quality are much better. We only had fairly minor ambient noise and chose not to use our external microphone. The camera person also had a lot more space to move around to shoot at different angles. Overall I think Sunday's shooting resulted in a much more dynamic show than our first one. Do not distribute video, do not post video to youtube, google, etc... All materials are the property of Farid Zadi C/2007

Algerian Lamb Tagine (tajine, tajeen, tadjine) with White Beans Cooked in Tagine Vessel

This is an intermediate level recipe. I don't recommend it as the first tagine recipe to try. I used a clay tagine I bought at Sur La Table for $20-$25, it's made in Portugal and must be soaked in water before initial use. It can be used on the stove top and the oven.

This is an earthy, spicy lamb tagine recipe which I would describe as more Annaba in (eastern Algeria, near Tunisia) in flavor profile. Quite a contrast from the milder, sweet lamb tagine I gave to the LA Times for the "Tagine Dreams" article about me. That recipe is more in the style of Tlemcen (western Algeria, near Morocco).

Those of you who've cooked my other tagine recipes will immediately notice that this one has a stronger aroma of spices than most of my dishes. The flavor and aroma will mellow considerably with long slow cooking.

Use lamb shanks for a more "glamorous" presentation. Beef short ribs also work well with this recipe.

The first photo is of the spices I used before I ground them in my spice grinder. The spices are nutmeg, cinnamon, turmeric (this has to be grated on a rasp), allspice, peppercorns, fennel, cumin, coriander, saffron, caraway, zaatar (wild thyme) and nigella seeds. You can use other versions of my ras el hanout if you have that in your pantry.

The second photo is of the ingredients for my dersa spice paste. 1 teaspoon of ras el hanout, grated turmeric, Aleppo pepper, coarse salt, 2 cloves of garlic finely minced, a small finely minced shallot and a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

The third photo is of the dersa ingredients combined. Spread the dersa paste so that it evenly coats the bottom of the tagine. Lay 8 pieces of lamb neck on top of the dersa, place tagine on stove and turn heat onto low. Slowly raise the heat to medium low. Turn the lamb pieces after 5-7 minutes, the color will be yellow from the turmeric and saffron as shown in the photo.

August 12, 2007 Algerian Foodcast Filming Recipes

I haven't completed my shopping yet, but so far the items for tomorrow's menu are, so things could change. The tentative list.

1. Chorba (soup) with semolina dumplings. (I received an email request for a semolina dumpling recipe)
2. Fidwash (Fideos) with merguez spiced kofta (meatballs) cooked in a light tomato broth. 
3. Lamb or chicken brochettes with mint pesto (a minty version of chermoula)
4. Lemonade with mint or maybe grenadine