Spice (7 page)

4 cups canned diced tomatoes, drained (28 ounces)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons chopped garlic (about 2 cloves)

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon butter

4 long, thin, green sweet or hot peppers or 2 green bell peppers

4 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon ground Aleppo chilies or medium-hot paprika

3 pounds skirt steak, trimmed of fat and any silver skin, and cut into 6-to 8-inch-long pieces

1 tablespoon canola oil for searing

2 large pita breads, cut in half

1 cup plain yogurt, preferably Greek

1.
Preheat the oven to 375°F.

2.
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, simmer the tomato chunks with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, the garlic, salt, and pepper for about 20 minutes, until the tomatoes break down and become soft and saucy.

3.
Meanwhile, in a small skillet, melt one stick of butter on low heat and simmer for about 12 minutes until the butter turns nut brown and smells like hazelnuts. The solids will begin to separate and then fall to the bottom. Butter turns from brown to black very quickly, so watch closely. Immediately remove the butter from the heat and strain through a fine sieve into a dry container. Set aside to cool. The butter is very hot, so be careful not to spill any water in it as it cools; otherwise, the butter will spit and bubble, the way hot oil does.

4.
Stir half of the caramelized butter into the tomato sauce and purée it in a blender until smooth. Reseason it with salt and pepper and set it aside.

5.
In a medium mixing bowl, put the peppers in the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil and season them with salt and pepper. Place the peppers on a baking sheet and roast them in the oven until they are soft and collapsed, 8 to 10 minutes. Set them aside but keep them warm.

6.
In a small mixing bowl, combine the cumin with the oregano and Aleppo chilies and sprinkle the skirt steaks evenly on both sides with the spice mixture.

7.
Grill the steaks over charcoal (see Grilling Tips, page 100), or sear them as follows. In a large, heavy skillet or cast-iron pan over medium-high heat, mix ½ tablespoon of the canola oil and ½ tablespoon of the remaining butter. When the butter turns brown, add the steaks and sear them on the first side, allowing them to brown for about 5 minutes. Lower the heat if the pan becomes too smoky or if the spices begin to burn. Turn the steaks over and brown the other side. Cook for another 5 minutes if you want them more well done. Put them on a platter to rest and wipe the pan out. Brown the remaining steaks with the remaining ½ tablespoon of butter and oil.

8.
Arrange the pita halves on 4 plates. Remove the steaks from the pan and rest them on the pita. As the meat rests, the juices will soak into the bread. Top with tomato sauce, yogurt, and the peppers and serve with the extra caramelized butter to drizzle over all.

COFFEE

Arabic coffee is ground as fine as powdered sugar and flavored with cardamom. It’s brewed slowly and carefully on a stovetop in a small, long-handled copper or stainless steel urn. The cardamom is either ground and brewed with the coffee, or the cardamom pod is smashed and you will find it floating in the coffee, where you sip around it.

Turkish coffee is ground ultrafine like Arabic coffee and prepared on the stovetop, but the Turks do not use cardamom to flavor their brew. I have seen many different preparations of Turkish coffee. Some people add lots of sugar. Some add very little sugar. Some let the coffee rise only once while swirling the pot from time to time. When I saw the coffee boiled on hot sand at Kokkari, a Greek restaurant in San Francisco, it turned out thick as custard sauce. The ultimate goal, however, is to achieve the
crema
(foam).

The Turkish coffee recipe included in this book (page 32) was taught to me by Mark Mooridian of MEM Tea, who is Armenian and sells beautiful wild herbal teas from his home country. Mark blends our Turkish coffee and grinds it fresh every week. One commercially available blend I recommend is called Kurukahveci Mehmet Effendi, and you can find it at www.tulumba.com.

You drink Arabic or Turkish coffee until you reach the silt at the bottom of the cup, and then you turn the cup over onto its saucer and leave it to rest for a minute. The silt forms patterns that predict your future. The ritual is to sit around and tell stories, predicting the future by reading the patterns of the grounds.

I once spent almost 2 weeks with a woman named Ayfer Unsal who lives in Gaziantep in southeast Turkey. Ayfer is a journalist and food writer who now lives in Istanbul and is one of the most charismatic people I have ever met. She had organized a gastronomic tour for me that kept me busy every minute from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Gaziantep, or Antep, is 1 hour from the Syrian border and is famous for its kebobs and pistachios, and considered to be the gastronomic capital of Turkey.

When I first arrived, Ayfer had organized a potluck luncheon in a park, and twenty of her female friends were there to greet me. They all brought a family dish to demonstrate that the best food in Gaziantep is cooked by women at home. We feasted on salads of purslane with tangy pomegranate molasses; seven different kinds of
köfte
; lamb, beef, and nutty pilafs. At the end of this unforgettable lunch, we drank Turkish coffee. Ayfer told me that when I finished my coffee, I should turn the cup upside down and let it rest on its saucer for about five minutes. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Ayfer make her way around to tell each lady a story about her future.

Ever since my special lunch with Ayfer, I’ve enjoyed the ritual of drinking Turkish coffee. The reading of the patterns of the grounds inside the cup can last as long as the meal and is a time for bonding, playfulness, hopefulness, and serious life conversations.

Ayfer Unsal’s Guide to Reading Fortunes in Your Coffee Grounds

Rectangle:
You will receive some goods.

Triangle:
You will receive either a present or money.

Circle:
You will have good fortune. You could get married or receive a job promotion.

Cube:
You will have a happy family.

Bow:
Some happy event is very near.

Star:
You will take a short trip or you will make a good investment.

Rising sun:
Your dreams will come true.

American football:
You must sacrifice to win somebody’s heart.

Woman’s purse:
You will receive money in the near future. Be frugal.

Palm tree:
You will have a fantastic holiday and meet new people.

Key:
You will move into a new home. You will win somebody’s heart.

Leaf:
You will hear from an old friend or make a new one.

Eye:
Somebody is jealous of you.

Butterfly:
Be careful of a new friend.

Ear:
Don’t believe everybody. Be careful!

A bunch of little dots:
You are spending too much money. Please be careful.

Arabic Coffee Pot de Crème

Pot de crème
is French for pudding. At Oleana, we leave some coffee grounds in this creamy custard to strengthen the coffee flavor. The grounds are so fine they don’t ruin the smooth texture. They settle to the bottom of each crème to form a thin layer of grounds as they bake, so you can read a fortune in your pudding, too!

You can infuse the cream with the crushed espresso and cardamom a day ahead of time, storing it in a tightly sealed container.

This dessert is delicious served with Turkish Coffee (page 32).

S
ERVES
8

1 cup espresso beans

2 tablespoons whole green cardamom

2 cups heavy cream

1½ cups whole milk

6 egg yolks

¾ cup sugar

2 tablespoons brewed espresso, cooled

1½ tablespoons very finely ground espresso