One of the advantages of living in Israel, food wise, is the quality of the breads. The standard bread used here is not like the standard white bread sold in almost every supermarket or Bodega in America – it is fresh. It is not uncommon to find in the supermarkets here packaged sliced bread – the kind you use to make your run of the mill PB and J sandwiches – that feel warm and has condensation inside the bag. Yes, without all the chemicals in it the bread goes stale (and moldy) rather quickly, but it’s a good tradeoff – yummy, fresh, crisp crust – soft center bread for a bread that can stay “fresh” for three months.

I usually take the train to work each day and walk from the Tel Aviv central station. I love this walk as it takes me passed three bakeries and allows me to get my morning fill of the aroma of freshly baked breads. Keep in mind that I work a block and a half from the station - yes, three bakeries in a block and half – this is not uncommon. In fact, most supermarkets in the city that I live in have their own bakeries inside, where they bake fresh bread, bourekas, croissants and other pastries around the clock. It is another aspect of the freshness factor that I keep mentioning about the food in Israel.

In New York, I think I mentioned this before, there was this one bakery in Chelsea market that provided the entire market with the most wonderful aroma. The smell of ciabbata’s, foccachia’s, rye and marble-rye (a mix of pumpernickel and rye) would fill the air – and it was a treat going there – even if I was not in the market for the bread on those days. Israel has spoiled me a bit, because it is no longer a treat, rather it is the norm – the inescapable smell of roasting wheat and yeast.

For me, there is nothing like it – and there are times, like this instant, when I don’t simply want to go to a bakery and buy bread – I want to make it myself . There is something so gratifying about the idea of feeling the silkiness of flour and smelling raw yeast and getting your hands sticky kneading and then making your house smell like Chelsea market or my walk to work or practically any supermarket in Israel, or the shuk.

This recipe was something that I made on occasion in my restaurant – when I was bored and wanted to try new things. I got the basic idea from a guy who worked a t Zabar’s in Manhattan (he gave me a recipe that yielded 50 pieces – and I did the best I could to narrow it down to a normal quantity. Trust me on this – with a nice bowl of a thick soup, perhaps a tomato or hearty lentil – this Ciabatta bread is unbelievable. And like most breads in Israel – you need to eat it relatively quickly or it will lose its magic – fresh bread is the best – try this and you will agree.

The recipe is a little intricate, it involves several steps including making a starter dough - I will expand on starter dough in the future when I get into Sourdoughs - but take my word for it, a little effort here will go along way towards 1) making an awesome tasting bread and 2) getting you used to the kitchen and familiar with more detailed processes.

Ingredients for bread starter (do this step the night before you want to make the bread - it is a necessary and important step)

1/2 teaspoon yeast

2 cup warm water

4 cups flour

1/2 cup whole wheat (semolina if possible)flour

1 1/2 cups water

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let it sit for around 10 minutes. Now, after the mixture looks foamy and smells yeasty, measure 2 teaspoons of the yeast water and add it to the second quantity of fresh 1 1/2 cups of water. This second batch of water is what you will use - discard any yeasty water remaining from the first cup in which the yeast was dissolved. The purpose of this step is only to measure out a tiny amount of yeast for the starter dough so that you will have a slow and controlled fermentation which will take at least twelve hours to develop.

Knead the flour and 1 1/2 cups of ingredients together and set aside for no less than eight and no more than 24 hours - I like 12 hours, it always works well for me.

Dough:

4 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoon yeast

4 teaspoons salt

2 1/2 cups warm water

Your starter dough from the day before

Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Stir in the water and the starter dough and turn out onto a clean surface. Knead for 5 minutes - you should have a soft and sticky dough. Do not add more flour doing so will cause the dough to be tough and heavy. I usually oil my hands with olive oil when handling the dough so as not to have it stick to my hands and to make the dough manageable.

Oil a large bowl and turn the dough around in it a few times to coat, then cover with plastic wrap. Place in a warm, dark place (like a closet) and allow it to rise for roughly 2 1/2-3 hours (you know it is ready when it has doubled in size).

Once the dough has doubled, turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and divide into two equal pieces. YOU will notice many air-pockets and “bubbles” keep mind to handle the dough lightly to avoid deflating these bubbles - its what makes the bread so good.

Fold each piece loosely into thirds - kind of like you are folding a letter to fit an envelope - but don’t press down too hard, do this lightly.

Place the seam side down onto a clean, heavily floured piece of parchment paper or a clean board. Let it sit for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (about 232 degrees Celsius). If you have a baking stone, a.k.a. pizza stone, use it - make sure if you are using one to place it in the middle rack of the oven.

When oven is ready slip dough onto stone, seam-side up and bake until browned, about 35-45 minutes (check often during the last minutes of baking but try not to open oven for very long). If you do not have a stone, place on a parchment paper coated cookie sheet and slide into the middle rack.

Once the bread is cool enough to touch, enjoy. You can use this for so many things - but I love dipping this into extra virgin olive oil and eating it - I also like adding some balsamic vinegar to the oil - and perhaps some garlic. My oldest daughter makes sandwiches from it - at midnight, I make pizza sometimes from it.

Whatever you want to do with it - I promise you, the bread will taste wonderful because you made it yourself, and it is as fresh as can be. And the best part about this whole ordeal, your house will smell divine, and for me, this is so worth the work.

BatayAvon!

It’s been a while since my last entry and I make no apologies – life has been busy which is a good thing. I will try to stick to a regular schedule with these posts – but the holiday season is peak season so please forgive the inconsistency.

Anyway, I did a party a few weeks back and I was asked to make hors d’oeuvres to be passed around by waitresses. The hitch here was this, the party was for an anti-vegetarian, a total carnivore with severe psychoallergic reactions to anything that came out of the ground or off a tree. So the task was to balance out a heavy meat meal with nothing but meat. I came up with a pretty decent menu, if I might say so myself, and it worked out well – so I am told (a chef never believes that the job was done well – feedback is crucial to self esteem in this line of work).

I made Italian meatballs and served them on a slice of baguette and toped it with a fresh tomato sauce and a sprig of Basil.

Mini chicken Kiev’s which are small chicken cutlets rolled with a chive rub, breaded and fried and served with a maple, chive and Dijon dip.

Beef and Chicken Negamaki which is boneless rib or chicken cutlet rolled around a scallion, ginger and miso mixture, cooked gently, cut like sushi and served with a Miso teriyaki sauce.

I also had chafing dishes with beef bourgenion, Sautéed onions and noodles and Potato Latkes (it was Chanukah time – and they were old-school, hand grated with the right amount of onion, salt pepper and egg).

Even the salad was meaty in nature with a nice creamy balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

Two things of interest that contrast the cultural differences between life in New York and Israel came about during this specific job, and I thought I would share them here. For the first time since I moved here and started catering, I used teenagers from the community as waitresses as my regulars were elsewhere. The thing is, people genuinely thought it was such a nice touch, to see a truly familiar face serving you – almost novel in concept here. In New York, this is how kids made money, working for local caterers on Shabbat and for special parties – so you always knew who the waiters were.

The food was great and still, I got more compliments on the choice of staff, this was a surprise to me. What also surprised me was how iffy people were in the beginning when they realized it was literally ALL meat. In New York, it is a dream come true to go to an affair and not have to bother with taking the stuffing out of the mushrooms or stuffed peppers or searching for the beef in the stew. Here, people really care more about what they put into their body – it was well received, but it came with a shock.

Anyway, the recipe for today centers on the Negamaki – which is a favorite of mine. The idea behind it came from a local Japanese place called Narita in Forest Hills, NY. Since then, I have seen it so many places, but they did it the best. After trial and error, and after begging the owners of Narita for their secret – I got it and it is so simple, and it works so well for Shabbat too as the cooking method allows for it to stay moist. It works well with chicken too and once you get the process, the applications are innumerable.

Here is what you need:

1 pound of rib steak sliced super thin (a trick here is to freeze the full piece of meat about ¾ of the way and then slice – it allows for a more accurate and thin slice)

10 scallion sprigs, cleaned and sliced across the length – so you get two from one

2 tbsp fresh chopped ginger – do not use powder, the stuff is nasty

4 tbsp chopped garlic

5 tbsp yellow miso paste – you can get this (with kasharut) in most health food stores or really good kosher only stores like Supersol (in Israel, any Mega type store should have it – by Modiin, go to Shum-Pilpel V’Shemen Zayit in Shilat – they have everything you never thought you could find in Israel)

¾ cup soy sauce

4 tbsp honey or sugar

1 small onion, fine diced

Saran wrap (cling wrap) and Aluminum foil

Here is how you do it.

Take a soup pot and boil water.

Take 2 tbsp garlic, 2 tbsp miso, ½ of the diced onion and 1 ounce of the soy sauce and mix until it is a nicely mixed paste.

Now, take the beef and lay it flat on a piece of cling wrap that is double the size of the beef. Spread some of the paste mix inside and then take a few sprigs of scallion and place it neatly on top in towards the near end.

Roll up the beef and then roll the saran wrap over it making sure it is air tight (pinch the ends in to make sure it does not unravel) – now place the cling wrapped beef in a piece of foil. Set aside and repeat until all the meat is gone.

In the pot of boiling water, start putting the foil packages in – lower the flame and let simmer for 12-14 minutes. Take the foil packs out and let cool a little.

Unwrap the foil packs and slice the negamaki like sushi. Put in a baking tray arranging the pieces neatly.

Now mix the rest of the ingredients, the ginger and garlic, miso, honey and soy sauce, all together and gently spoon a little on top of each negamaki piece. Put under the broiler part of the oven for 8-10 minutes, take out and serve.

For Shabbat – after the boil, leave the foil to cool and place in the refrigerator until the next day. Heat up the packages on top of a warming plate or in the oven (do not let it touch the bttom of the oven or plate – it needs to be on top of something else. The longer you cook it like this, the more tender it will get. When you are ready to serve, take out, cut like sushi, arrange on a plate nicely and drizzle the sauce on top.

I love this dish, have done it with an Italian theme – using chicken and spinach and a spicy tomato sauce - used it with Fish, tilapia and sautéed portabella mushrooms with a dill sauce – use your imagination – do not worry about dying from the plastic, as long as it does not melt on top of the food is wont kill you – make sure your cling wrap has no crazy chemicals – Saran Wrap is perfect and so is Glad wrap.

BatayAvon!