What's your Family secret?

Secrets.

Every family has them.

This is ours.

Well, up until now.

All recipes have a way of traveling the globe, evolving in each and every stop along the way. I guess the beauty of a GREAT recipe is just how well it has travelled and how those ‘stops’ along the way have shaped it.

58 years ago my Turkish grandmother was handed a recipe from a Polish neighbor who lived across the road from her. Her name was Manya and her family used to own a catering company back in Poland, where she would serve these specialty cakes. My grandmother was lucky to be taught how to perfect this recipe; A sweet yeast dough filled with a moist honeyed poppy seed paste, then rolled to form a glorious cake recipe.

A staple in our house ever since.

Purim is coming up, a Jewish holiday where eating poppy seed filled pastries is a tradition(at least in my books) and giving out 'mishloach manot' (gifts to friends and neighbors) is customary, it’s the perfect time to be sharing with you this special family recipe.

Enjoy it. Make it yours. Pass it on.

 

Manya’s poppy seed roll

 

Ingredients for 4 loaf

cake pans, 26 cm:

 

300ml milk

5 eggs

¾ cup sugar

300g soft butter

50g fresh yeast

1 kg flour

pinch salt

 

Filling-

2 cups milk

1.5 cups sugar

½ cup honey

500g freshly ground poppy seed

60g butter

Lemon zest from 2 lemons

½ cup golden raisins

4 tbsps. Crushed cookies/bread crumbs

 

Prepare the dough a day in advance.

Using the dough hook on your stand mixer; mix the milk, eggs, sugar, yeast and flour on low speed for 3 minutes, until the dough comes together. Add the soft butter and salt and continue to mix for 2 minutes until incorporated. Increase to high speed and let the mixer work for an additional 8 minutes.

Place in a lightly floured bowl, and cover the dough with a plastic bag and a kitchen towel over night in the fridge.

For the filling- boil the milk, sugar and honey, add the poppy seed and continue to stir on low heat for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir inside the butter, lemon zest, raisins and crumbs.

Let cool completely.

On a floured surface, remove the dough from the bowl and divide to 4 pieces.
Roll out each piece, to a 0.5cm thickness circle. Spread 5 tbsps. of the filling and roll. Place in a loaf pan lined with parchment paper.
Brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle poppy seed for garnish. Let rise for 30 minutes in a warm place.

Bake for 60 minutes in a 170c pre heated oven.

 

So what is your family secret?

Hanukkah Party 2014

We love Hanukkah.
Any holiday that suggest you eat doughnuts, is a holiday we like. For us Hanukkah is an informal holiday, one where no sit down dinners are necessary just an excuse to gather family and friends while eating latkes, doughnuts and lighting the menorah. This year we were lucky enough to host our closest friends and family in our new home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

We were completely honored to have our party featured in Food and Wine magazine website accompanied by some of our favorite Hanukkah recipes that we shared with the readers; Chicken 'Levivot' with Harissa Sauce, Giant Jerusalem Artichoke Latkes, Sfenj (Moroccan Doughnuts), Ekmek Kadayif (Cream-Filled Doughnuts with Pistachios)

All the beautiful pictures taken in this post are by photographer Christine Han.

 

XO

Ron and Leetal

PS. As a token of our appreciation we would like to offer you FREE SHIPPING on our holiday special;
our collaborations with ceramic artist Shino Takeda. Valid until the end of the day (Tuesday, 11:59 EST )

 

Harissa is the new sriracha

We have been lucky to be chosen by Food & Wine magazine as part of their Best American Artisans series. That is a big big..HUGE honor for us!
Liza of food. curated spent the day with us to get a glimpse as to how and why we make our Harissa. Click on the picture below and it will take you straight to our Harissa page where you can watch what she captured so beautifuly.

(if you are not familiar with her work yet, make sure you check her out- her videos are addictive) 

    screenshot from Food &Wine website

All things couscous...

Make sure you keep on eye out for our new couscous page coming up next week, we are so excited to share it with you. Finally, all your questions about couscous will be answered. Until then, here are 3 things you don't know about couscous from yours truly as written in Food & Wine expert guide.

Upcoming classes alert!

We have few classes scheduled at Havens Kitchen and at Whole Foods Bowery culinary center.
We will be teaching The Art of Couscous Making and a special class 'All About Harissa'.
This class, a first of its kind, is dedicated solely in showing you the best and varied ways to use Harissa.
Once you learn how to use this magical ingredient to get that special oomph in your cooking
it will really be your secret weapon :)

We want to share with you a fun recipe!

The morrocan name for it is ‘kwari bilbeid’ but we just call it by the simple name of ‘Surprise Meatballs’. Truth be told, when hearing about this dish for the first time I wasn’t really sure about the addition of an egg in my meatballs. But when something works, you just don’t ask any questions!
a perfect comfort dish for winter days. Enjoy!

’Surprise' Meatballs

For 15 meatballs balls:

15 quail eggs
500g ground beef
1 slice of white bread
1 egg
1 tsp. cumin
½ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper
2 tsp. NYSHUK Harissa

For Tomato sauce:

4 garlic cloves, minced
6 tbsp. oil
3 tbsp NYSHUK Harissa
8 large tomatoes, grated
Salt(tt)

1. Tomato sauce- sauté garlic with oil in a frying pan for 2-3 minutes, making sure you closely watch the garlic so it doesn’t burn. Add the Harissa while continuing to cook and mix  for another minute. Add the tomatoes and season with salt. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes.

2. Boil a pot of water and cook the quail eggs for 4 minutes. Peel them and set aside.

3. Meatballs- soak the white bread in water, squeeze the liquid out and grate. In a bowl knead well the meat, bread, egg, spices and Harissa. Gently roll meat mixture into 16 equal-sized balls. Place 1 quail egg in the center of each meat portion and gently shape into balls. Place in the tomato sauce and cook for 15 minutes until meatballs are fully cooked.

4. If you feel like going the extra mile, I like to serve it with thinly sliced fried garlic, a nice crunchy element. (it's just as tasty without). Serve over rice, couscous or just with a nice piece of fresh bread.

Happy Friday!

XO

Ron & Leetal