We had planned for a long time to make a Potluck Dinner with each one bringing their origins dish. The day has come and I immediately thought of making Hummus as Barak told me I have to show them a good hummus before I went to France. But the week was very long and hard and I couldn’t make myself go especially to the Marais to search for ingredients and I went to the regular large supermarket. I couldn’t find any Tehini paste. Going to the natural stuff store I even succeeded in translating Tehini to French (Sesame Puree) but he just ran out of and is the only nature store around. No supermarket will have it, he warned me. Due to the fact that the chickpeas I found were all pre-cooked in a can and the tehini had to be separately searched for I decided to find some other Israeli dish. Shakshuka was the answer. So simple, so Israeli and also vegetarian (one girl in the dinner is vegetarian). There are thousands of ways to make it but this is how I made my Shakshuka…
Slice thinly 1 onion 1 shallot (I had from school but you can use just onion), garlic to taste (6-7 cloves in my case) and 1 big red bell pepper (dice it)
After the onions with the garlic (save some of the garlic on the side to put raw last second) are sweat in olive oil for 5 minutes add the bell pepper and keep cooking (the whole cooking better be done in a shallow and large pan but I used this pot because I precooked the veg and finished the dish at Hayden's place in a pan). If I had remembered to buy some tomato paste I would put 1 spoon in this stage of the cooking.
In the meantime peal 4 ripe tomatoes (by bleaching for 10 sec and throwing to ice water)
Dice it while the onions and pepper are cooking
Add the tomatoes, salt, pinch of sugar, hot paprika, black grounded pepper, cumin. Cook for 7-10 min
I also made some "Pita" bread to go with, from dough I made in school, see here. It's not an actual pita of course, and I don't have an oven so I used a pan!!
Like tortilla but with a bread dough
Came to Hayden's house, reboiled the tomatoes on a pan and when boiling cracked open 4 eggs and sprinkled with flat parsley and the rest of the raw garlic. Some more salt over the eggs, cover pan. Served when the white is set and the yolk is liquid.
The beautiful table, all the dishes closed
The grand opening of the covers
Rice cooker makes perfect (!!!) rice!!
Chicken and cream cheese dip! Maureen - USA
Noodles with pork and tofu! China (who did this?)
Spicy soft tofu - Lily, China (Canada)
Mushrooms and sprouts dumplings - Jessica, China (USA)
Chicken and sweet potato curry - Hayden, Thailand
Caprese salad - Hayden, favorite cuisine is Italian actually
Fresh rolls - Hien, Vietnam (USA)
Cabbage and meat stew - Karen, Taiwan
Aji and cream shrimps - Marisabel, Peru
Veg shepherds pie - Olivia, UK
Spicy coriander and lotus salad - Hien, Vietnam
Observing the dishes before eating is allowed
Funny, but in a room filled with pastry students we eat figs and grapes for dessert 🙂
Luckily Hayden found a cake somewhere
Was fun feeling the spicy Asian tastes linger around my mouth after a long only French food diet.
Hayden Clarke Shane Ryan Enzensperger Velicia Wijaya Jessica Ying Chan Lily Yuan Marisabel Woodman
Very cool dinner – such a variety!!
My favorites were: Mushrooms and sprouts dumplings, Fresh rolls & Aji and cream shrimps (para mi no picante por favor)!
[…] I had some sauce leftover from the Chraime that I cooked for my Moroccan friends and I decided to turn it into a shakshuka […]