Remember the old days when we took almost all of our chefly inspiration from new cuisines and regional or ethnic foods? We'd study the dishes of other countries and keep an eye out for the next 'cuisine' that would make it's mark on the popular food scene. That was before ingredients and techniques pulled ahead of cuisines as inspiration. Now, we'll spend more time 'talking to' a carrot or falling in love with a technique to the point that we base an entire dish around it. When all of these past and present inspirations come together, we will have evolved to the next level.
I was, unfortunately, never before exposed to Israeli foods before I moved to South Florida. I was familiar with American Jewish or Kosher style and even NY deli, but those concepts and flavors did nothing to move my chef soul (especially being raised Catholic on the bayous). In fact, I can't think of any cuisine in the world I dread eating more than these styles. Israeli food, however, is quite young and envelopes so many fresh, simple, and exciting ideas from other areas such as middle eastern and north african. In fact, we had a visiting chef from Israel over a year ago who first opened my eyes. His style was very fresh and utilized lots of parsley, lemon, olive oil, chickpeas and didn't only balance his flavors, but balanced them very high in the air on a tight rope... with no net. As we partnered other friendships with people like Shalom Haifa's Nathan and his Moroccan ex-wife (who does all of the cooking... she adds her Midas touch to every menu item), I can only fall in love with the cuisine even more.
Chakchouka (pronounced something like, shack-shooka) is a braised down mixture of onion, peppers and chiles, tomato, parsley and coriander, olive oil, and spices. It's typically served with egg. I wanted to create a 'hash' version of it so I incorporated diced potatoes as well... stewing the mixture down just until the potato was done. An egg baked on top sealed the deal... or can be one of those damn 'bam' moments.
This is basically soul food to me. The elemental pairing in mind for it is lamb. I currently hate the lamb dish on our dinner menu, and I'm thinking of 'converting' it. Besides, the owner of the building is from Israel and this might score brownie points at the same time. I'm also thinking about merguez as a deciding flavor for the lamb... but to actually make it into a sausage or use it as a flavoring? Eggs, sausage, and hash does sound pretty good even on a dinner menu. I've only done it in a small custard dish. How can I give it more finesse, keep it practical, and in sync with the rest of the menu? For some reason, I feel the need to take presentation inspiration from Michael Mina's style on this one. Now if I could only find the right dish to serve it in.
