Welcome to the mezze! (for the document with the shortcut matrix attached, click here)
Mezze is the Lebanese concept of the first course – a series of colorful and tasty dishes that are so good I seldom went back for the “main” course. The dishes are traditionally not put on individual plates, but rather passed back and forth and eaten with pieces of pita. The dishes back and forth and communal feeling are half the fun of the meal! Today, since there are so many dishes, I will go over the basic plan with the group as a whole, and then we can divide the tasks among us and get to work!

Hummus
Hummus is the Arabic word for the garbanzo bean. This dish’s name signifies how basic it is to the culture – it is the method of preparing garbanzo beans. There are many variations available to the inventive cook (some listed in my book) but today we’ll be doing this basic dish, with only a handful of ingredients:

chick peas    tahini        olive oil        lemon juice        salt

The key is to blend the chick peas with as little water as you can get away with and come out with a firm paste. Empty the paste from the blender and add in the other ingredients, a little at a time. When it gets enough cream and astringency from the tahini, switch to olive oil for more lubrication. Add lemon juice at the end to tie things together. Always add some olive oil to the top at the end. Paprika looks nice as well…

Babaganoush
This salad is based on a roasted eggplant (mutabbel). You can roast the eggplants in the coals of a fire, over the barbecue, or in your oven. I think it’s best in the coals, but decided we shouldn’t build a fire amidst all the beautiful foliage here. Fork the eggplants a few times to let out steam and prevent explosion. Roast them at 400 in the oven. Once the eggplants are liquidated inside, you can cut them in half and scrape out the pulp. Wait a few minutes to prevent small burns. Then mix with:

finely chopped onion    a little diced tomato    olive oil        lemon juice    chopped parsley
mashed roasted garlic    salt

Look at it like a piece of art. You want mostly pulp, with bright accents of red, white, and green. Add a little tahini as well to fatten it up. It’s the tahini that fends off any desire for a main course.

Tabbouleh
A quick and easy salad that owes its filling sustenance to the grain. Bulgar wheat is a sort of cracked wheat common in the Mediterranean climes. Along with garbanzo beans, it’s one of the main ingredients in falafel. Tabbouleh has two parts, perfectly timed:

Pour 2 cups of boiling water over 1 cup of bulgar. Cover and let it sit while you cut together:

cucumber (peeled and cored)    tomato            twice as much parsley as mint
a bit of olive oil and lemon juice            salt

Check the bulgar. It should be soft and fluffy by the time you finish chopping. If it is soft and there is still water left, you can drain it. Let it cool a bit and then stir everything together. As alwaysa, a hit of olive oil at the end never hurts.

Mahamra
Hamra means “red” in Arabic. Mahamra, then, is “that awesome red thing over there”. Which is pretty right on, and lucky for us, easy to make if you can find red bell peppers. Cut the red peppers in half, take out the veins and seeds (like last week) and broil them in the oven until the skins turn black. Let them sit in a paper bag to cool and then peel the skins off. Blend with:

a few walnuts, a little tomato, some roasted garlic, some chile peppers if you’re daring, olive oil

You can think of it as a “red-pepper” pesto. If you want to add some extra sweetness, soak some dates in water the night before and add them as well. I love the natural combination of sweetness, spice, and acidity in the pepper, and sometimes will make this without walnuts or anything else.

Tahini
The tahini served in Lebanese restaurants is just a little more than normal tahini (ground up sesame seeds). It is thinned with lemon juice to achieve a creamy consistency and light freshness. Use it to dip pita or vegetables.

some tahini            some lemon juice        some salt

Pita
These ubiquitous little breads are actually really easy to make. Make a simple wheat bread dough, as you would any other day, and roll the once-risen dough into a long staff. Break off pieces to form golf balls of bread. Flatten the golf balls with your hand (into discs) and roll into circles ¼ inch thick. Places the circles on a baking sheet (greased or cornmealed) and let them rise and relax a few minutes before baking. Bake on the highest setting your oven has, on a pizza stone if possible. Let them cook for 10 minutes, flip them, and remove a few minutes later. They should puff up! Eat them as soon as possible. I would recommend making the dough, rolling them out and placing them on trays,  making all the other food, and baking them last, so the first tray is out as you sit down to eat.

Labneh
Labneh is a simple and delicious cheese often eaten for breakfast with pita and olive oil. It’s very simple to make and takes only the most valuable commodities you have: time and attention. Take a quart of milk from the local dairy and heat it almost to a boil. The milk will begin to foam and want to rise. Be aware and do not let it boil over. Once then milk has foamed you can cut the heat and even move it to the bowl you want to have the yogurt in. As the milk cools you can clean the boiling pot and the rest of the kitchen. If you don’t stir frequently while the milk is heating, there will be a thin crust of milk protein stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Once the yogurt is cool enough to touch comfortably, but still slightly warm (between 90 and 120 degrees) add a couple of teaspoons of yogurt culture. Ideally this should be last week’s yogurt. In the beginning you’ll have to get some from the neighbor or (god forbid!) the store. The yogurt culture should be at room temperature. You can have it next to the stove as the milk is heating. Now, after you’ve stirred in the culture, we need to keep the milk-becoming-yogurt at the same temperature for the next 4-8 hours. I use the closet where we have the water heater, but any warm place will work. You can build a rack above the woodstove. Or the oven with the pilot light on. Or a bath of warm water. Whatever works, but it will take some attention and maybe even swaddling as we head further into fall.

Once you have yogurt, you’re halfway there. And you’ve only done 10-15 minutes of work. Most of the actually kudos go to the microorganisms. A common theme. Now you can rig a contraption to strain out the whey from the yogurt (taste it first! with blackberries and honey!). I use a clean t-shirt as a cheesecloth, tie up the yogurt, and hang it from a hook over the sink, or from a stick over a bucket. After a few hours, most of the liquid will have drained out and you will have a creamy fresh yogurt cheese. If you heat the milk in the morning, you could have yogurt by the evening and labneh for tomorrow’s breakfast…

Serve with chopped herbs, olives, olive oil, or anything else you like…

SEPTEMBER 23RD, 2008