Flour

Serve with steamed broccoli or cauliflower.

We originally developed this recipe with homemade ramp kimchi. Then we tried it with the Red Cabbage Kimchi. You could substitute any other pickle of your choice. To make these spicy, crunchy snacks, first we puree the kimchi with tapioca flour to form a dough. We chose tapioca because it has a very bland flavor, allowing the taste of the added ingredients and seasonings to stand front and center. We rolled the dough into thin sheets and steamed it for fifteen minutes to gelatinize the starch. We then dehydrated the steamed dough in a low (180°F/80°C) oven, flipping it over every so often until the sheets of dough were dry and brittle. Using this method we needed the dough to dry out to a level of 4 percent moisture for optimum puffing to occur. Since we were unable to effectively evaluate the exact percentage of moisture, we decided that completely dry was the best way to maximize our results. Then we broke the dehydrated dough into pieces and fried them in 400°F (205°C) oil. The kimchi cracklings puffed beautifully, tripling in size and creating gorgeous, crispy pieces that resembled traditional cracklings or fried pork rinds. A quick sprinkling of salt and we were happily crunching away.

This is the classic pudding of our childhood. Chocolate pudding is the ultimate comfort food, and this version is decadent without being overpowering. Use your favorite good-quality chocolate here because it will make your pudding that much better. A dollop of unsweetened whipped cream or lightly sweetened heavy cream poured over the top takes this to yet another level, although Aki has been known to eat it straight out of the container with a spoon. Jell-O pudding has nothing on us.

Pudding is one of Aki’s favorite desserts. Classic American puddings are made with either flour or cornstarch. We substitute tapioca flour in our stirred custards because it gels at a lower temperature and still provides the right texture in the finished dessert. This pudding was inspired by classic butterscotch pudding, which gets its flavor from brown sugar and a hint of vanilla. Burnt sugar is a slight misnomer because although the dark caramel we make here does have a slightly bitter edge, it is not the unpleasantly acrid taste of fully burnt sugar. We recommend that, if possible, you let the pudding rest for several hours or overnight before eating it. This gives the intense caramel flavor time to soften and mellow.

We love the indulgence of individual soufflés straight out of the oven. These are the perfect winter dessert; the spicy gingerbread flavors permeate every delicate bite. You can top them with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and enjoy the play of hot and cold, spicy and sweet. Or you can pour on a little hard sauce or crème anglaise or even eat them plain. If you love gingerbread, you will be very happy with these light, airy soufflés.

People often ask me what kind of latkes were eaten before potatoes came to the Old World from the New. This onion pancake gives us a taste of that past. Buckwheat, called farine aux Sarrazins or blé noir in French, is used for this recipe. Although rendered goose fat was traditionally the oil used in Alsace and elsewhere in Europe, oils made from safflower, walnuts, and other nuts and seeds were also used, probably pressed by the farmers who brought them to markets where they were sold. The recipe, although attributed as Alsatian in one cookbook, is clearly from eastern Europe, as the word “gretchenes” means buckwheat in Polish.

Jocelyne Akoun (see page 28) also served me meatballs with tomato sauce for Friday night dinner, a typical Sephardic dish for the eve of the Sabbath. I had found centuries-old recipes for these almondeguilles or albondigas, but without tomato sauce. For me, the post–Columbian Exchange marriage of tomatoes and meatballs greatly enhances the flavor of this dish!

Kalonymus Ben Kalonymus, a Provençal Jewish philosopher, writer, and translator who wrote in the early part of the fourteenth century, satirized the Jewish community of Arles for dreaming, while at synagogue, about the honey, milk, and flour that they would use to make their ladder breads for Shavuot. Although fougasse was and is usually made with oil, at this Jewish holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah and the abundance of dairy products at the time of the barley harvest, the Jews used milk. The fougasse was baked in the shape of a so- called ladder, with holes, and candied cherries or candied orange peel hung or embedded in the dough. Ladders to heaven are a common metaphor for holiday breads in Judaism. The fougasse, kneaded and shaped by hand at home for the Sabbath and holidays, was then carried on a board to the baker, sometimes Jewish and sometimes Christian, depending on the size of the Jewish community in the town.

This Tunisian holiday chicken soup that Yael calls consommé nikitouche is filled with little dumplings that have become so popular in France because of the growing Tunisian population. Nikitouches, similar in size to Israeli couscous, are today prepackaged. When presenting this recipe for her blog, Yael wrote, “It is winter; you are feeling feverish. Nothing replaces the nikitouche soup of our grandmothers.” Here it is. Just remember that you must start the recipe two nights ahead.

It was in Paris in the 1960s that I first tasted buckwheat blini. My friend Nanou took me to a tiny, chic Russian restaurant near the Champs- Élysées. Russians, many of them Jews, came to France at the end of the nineteenth century, not long before the Russian Revolution, and congregated in restaurants like this one. We ordered the elegantly presented blini, and ate them daintily with smoked salmon and crème fraîche. Twenty years after Nanou died, her son Édouard got married. The wedding party took place at Maxim’s, where we drank lots of champagne and danced until the wee hours of the morning. I was touched to taste blini with smoked salmon and crème fraîche, the same appetizer that Édouard’s mother and I had enjoyed so many years ago. For me, it was as though she were present at the wedding. This recipe was adapted from Lynn Visson’s The Russian Heritage Cookbook.

A chapati is like a tortilla. Unlike a corn tortilla, it is made out of wheat flour. Unlike a wheat tortilla, it is made out of whole-wheat flour known as ata or chapati flour. You may use a tortilla press or a chapati press (they are almost the same) instead of rolling each one out with a rolling pin. Small thin chapatis (about 5 inches in diameter) are considered much more elegant than large thick ones, though you will find all sizes in the cities and villages of India. Those who eat chapatis daily eat them with everything at lunch and dinner. You break off a piece and enfold a piece of meat or vegetable in it. If you want to spice up the morsel a bit more, you brush it against a chutney or pickle. You could also roll up some food inside a whole chapati, to make a kind of “wrap,” though you would not do this at the table, only with leftovers to make a snack.

The dough for the paratha is similar to that of a poori but is rolled out very differently to give it multiple layers. It is cooked on a cast-iron griddle rather like a pancake, with butter, ghee, or oil to keep it lubricated. This particular paratha, among the simplest to make, is triangular in shape. Parathas are a very popular breakfast food when they are eaten with yogurt and pickles. They may also be served at mealtimes with meats and vegetables.

A poori requires almost the same dough as the chapati, except there is a little oil in it. It is rolled out almost the same way too, but then, instead of being cooked on a hot, griddle-like surface, it is deep-fried quickly in hot oil, making it puff up like a balloon. (When the same bread is made with white flour, as it is in Bengal, it is called a loochi.) Pooris may be eaten with all curries and vegetables. At breakfast, pooris are often served with potato dishes—such as Potato and Pea Curry or Potatoes with Cumin and Mustard Seeds—and hot pickles and chutneys. They are eaten very much like chapatis—you break off a piece and roll some vegetable in it, then brush it against a pickle or chutney. We always took them on picnics with us, all stacked up inside a tin. On picnics and train journeys, they were eaten with ground-meat dishes and pickles, all at room temperature.

Here is one of the great offerings from Kerala, a state on the southwest coast of India, where it is known as uppama. The semolina that is required here is a coarse-grained variety that is sold as sooji or rava in the Indian stores or as 10-minute Cream of Wheat in the supermarkets. (It is not the very fine version used to make pasta.) This pilaf-like dish may be eaten as a snack with tea, for breakfast with milky coffee and an accompanying coconut chutney (see Sri Lankan Cooked Coconut Chutney), or as part of a meal as the exquisite starch.

Eating a karhi is really a way of eating heated yogurt. Because yogurt would curdle into unappetizing blobs if it were to be just heated up, it is stabilized with a flour first. In India, where there are many vegetarians who know that a bean, a grain, and a milk product can make for a balanced meal, it is chickpea flour that is used. Known variously as garbanzo flour, gram flour, chickpea flour, farine de pois chiches, and besan, it is very nutritious as well as full of a nutty flavor. Karhis are cooked over much of India with many interesting regional variations. This yogurt sauce, spicily seasoned and quite scrumptious, is either poured over rice or put into individual bowls and eaten with whole-grain flatbreads. Meats and vegetables are often served on the side.

Eggplants come in so many sizes and shapes. You may use 4 of the purple “baby” Italian eggplants (aim for 1 1/4 pounds), 4 Japanese eggplants, or 8 of the very small Indian ones. All are quartered partially—the top, sepal end always stays attached so the eggplants retain their shape—and then stuffed with a spice mixture before being cooked. For the mixture to hold, a little starch needs to be added. In India, this is the very nutritious chickpea flour. You may use cornmeal or masa harina instead if you have them at hand. All will need to be slightly roasted first. This is easily done in a small cast-iron frying pan. This very gratifying dish may be served as a main course, along with a green vegetable, some dal (such as Black Beans), rice, and a yogurt relish. It would also go well with hearty chicken and lamb curries.

Here is a very easy-to-prepare egg curry. As the entire curry sauce is made in the blender, I call it a blender curry. If you like, 2–3 medium-sized boiled and diced (a 3/4-inch dice is best) potatoes may be added to the sauce at the same time as the eggs. Serve with rice or any of the three breads in this book. You may also have the curry with French or Italian bread.