Melissa's favourite ingredient is zatar and she gave me a lifetime supply for my birthday. (Here's wikipedia on zatar: "Za'atar (Arabic: زعتر, also romanized zaatar, za'tar, zatar, zatr, zattr, zahatar, zaktar or satar) is a generic name for a family of related Middle Eastern herbs from the genera Origanum (Oregano), Calamintha (Basil thyme), Thymus vulgaris (Thyme) and Satureja (Savory). It is also the name for a condiment made from the dried herb(s), mixed together with sesame seeds, dried sumac, and often salt, as well as other spices.")
We mainly use it as a dipping spice with French bread and oil. But there are probably other variations as well. Does one cook with zatar, I wonder?
This summer Joel and I discovered another delicious mixture for dipping: dukkah. (And here's a web definition of dukkah: "Dukkah is an Egyptian spice mixture. It is often served with pita breadthat has been basted with olive oil. The bread is then dipped in the mixture. It has a variety of uses. You can use it on meats, rice, veggies - the possibilities are endless with dukkah!")
And here's where the bonus blog favourite comes in. Several of you mentioned favourite blogs and one of these blogs has a recipe for dukkah. See:www.heidilescanec.com
We bought it at the Farmer's market (I had no idea it was something I could make but now that the Farmer's market is closed I may try). We ate it non-stop for a few months and then settled down to a more normal pace. I was reading a Michael Pollan article in the NYT magazine recently in which he mentioned that dukkah is also great on fried eggs. I would never have thought of this and have not yet tried it. I can't say that it's an obvious combination but I will try it if we get organized enough to make a winter batch of dukkah. For now maybe I should just try zatar on eggs.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment