Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

♪ ♪ - This week on Milk Street, we travel to Northern Israel to visit an old friend of mine, Reem Kassis.

She's the author of The Palestinian Table, and we make a baked kafta with potatoes and tomatoes.

Then we end up in Tel Aviv at Shlomo and Doron, where we encounter a whole new take on hummus.

Finally, we explore flatbread that's based on the Moroccan frena.

It's a light, puffy focaccia and it's absolutely delicious.

So please stay tuned as we explore both the new and the old flavors of Israel.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

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♪ ♪ - The Sea of Galilee is a true biblical still-life, the Golan Heights coming into focus across the water.

Much like the landscape, Palestinian food is enduring and hearty, yet it's often able to deliver a real culinary surprise without warning.

Heading towards lunch with Reem Kassis, author of The Palestinian Table, the land is punctuated by crops of corn, mangoes, and figs.

We're heading to Karmiel, where Reem's extended family is waiting to serve us a feast-- dishes that would tell the story of the Palestinian table.

- Hello.

- Lovely outfit... How are you?

- Good, how are you?

- Good.

- Come on in.

- So, Reem, thank you for having us here.

- Thanks for coming, it's an honor to have you here.

- It's gorgeous, and we're in the Galilee.

- Yeah, so we're in Rameh, which is my father's hometown.

And my parents are here.

We come here on the weekends even though we normally live in Jerusalem.

- What are we cooking today?

- So we're cooking things we call sawani, which literally means trays, because you put all the ingredients in a tray and bake it in the oven.

So these are easy meals.

And a kafta tray bake.

Kafta just means the ground meat patties.

Here, we tend to use lamb or goat much more so than beef.

They're spiced traditionally with onion and parsley, and then you can add any other thing that you want to it.

So you have potatoes, as well, you line them together, you put a tomato sauce, and bake it in the oven.

- Okay.

- Very simple, very good.

We ground the lamb at home, we added all those to it, shaped it into patties, and baked it in the oven.

- So the potatoes are pre-cooked.

- Yes, also.

The reason is, you want to get them a bit browned and crisp before you add the sauce.

You can prepare all this ahead of time.

And just when your guests come in, or five minutes before they do, you add the sauce, you put it in the oven, and within 15 to 20 minutes, dinner's on the table.

So, I've been doing three potato, one tomato.

And then go meat.

- Is that the name of your next cookbook?

- Meat, potato... Three Potato, One Tomato.

Sounds more like a German book than a Palestinian one, but yes.

Okay.

- This is always the hard part of any...

It's like putting apples on a tart.

- And I'm always wondering, like, is it going to fit it exactly?

Am I gonna be missing one or the other?

But I think, I think we're gonna be okay.

And then we'll garnish it with some green chilies.

This is purely optional.

- So is this something you just made up, or is this based on something... - No, no, this is a very traditional dish.

Everybody makes it.

Obviously, every family has their own way of doing it.

It's called kafta bandura, which means kafta in tomato sauce.

- A lot of your cooking is designed for entertaining or for a number of people.

Because while I've spent some time in your house, people come, sit down, they have coffee, they have... - You offer them something to eat.

- Pastry.

- Yes.

- So a lot of this is really being able to cook for a crowd or for anybody who comes over.

- Yeah.

So it's not for entertaining per se.

It's just, we make dishes that are more family-style.

So it's never one piece of something that is exactly to fit the family.

You always have extra so that if someone walks in, because traditionally, you know, you lived in towns and people walked in and out-- it wasn't arranged, and you always wanted to make sure you had something to offer... - So if you did the Palestinian cooking for two cookbook, that just wouldn't sell very well.

- (laughing): No.

- Nobody would buy that book.

- I mean, it's hard-- a lot of our dishes are hard to make for two.

How are you gonna make makloubeh for two?

- So now tomato sauce goes on it or...?

- Yes.

And now I'm just going to put it in the oven for about 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

You just want to get the sauce bubbling, because everything is cooked.

You just want to warm it through and get the tomato a little bit richer and deeper in flavor.

- You can sit down and enjoy your guests.

- Yes.

- And your wine.

♪ ♪ - There's multiple ways to have it.

I'm gonna give you a bit of each with some pita bread.

And that's how I love to eat it.

Some people serve it with rice.

Why don't you start and tell me what you think?

We use bread almost the same way you would use a spoon.

- Mm.

You know, sometimes kafta can be a little tough.

- Right.

- This is very tender.

Delicious.

Thank you.

- (speaks local language) ♪ ♪ - So we went to visit a good friend of mine, Reem Kassis.

Now, the expected part was a lot of the dishes you'd normally see in a Palestinian table-- big casseroles upended onto large silver platters, you could serve 20 people, lots of people around the table, great hospitality.

But Reem also had a surprise for us, which is something called, I call a tray bake, she would call a kafta bil sanieh, which is lamb patties with potatoes, tomatoes, and maybe some chilies or peppers in a tomato sauce and cooked in a pan.

Comes together really quickly.

And it's something you might expect really anywhere in the world, is getting dinner on the table quickly.

So this idea of, on one hand, a lot of tradition, and then other hand, traditional, but something that's very easy to do.

So we did our version of it here.

So we started, like she did, with potatoes, a pound of Yukon golds, in our case.

We sliced them, oiled them, and put them on a sheet pan in an oven for ten to 13 minutes.

A hot oven, like 450.

The meat she used, of course, is lamb.

Lamb is very popular throughout the Middle East.

Here in America, I know it's about a pound a year of consumption.

So you really need to eat more lamb.

But they do something really interesting.

They start with a pound-- we're gonna use beef.

They grate an onion, a medium onion, which is really a nice way of flavoring the meat.

A little bit of parsley, half a cup.

And now the spices.

Now, what's so interesting in Palestinian cooking, and also around the world, warm spices are paired with savory foods.

So we have allspice and cinnamon, salt and pepper, and we'll just use our hands to make the kafta.

So I'm not gonna work this too much.

I want to keep it fairly loose.

And I think we're pretty good.

So now we'll make the individual kafta.

And we use an ice cream scoop.

I find that's the easiest way to do it.

Just fill it.

And we're gonna make 18 to 20 or so of these.

And now you want to flatten them out.

So you can do this with your hands if you like or you can just use a glass like that.

So the kafta are ready.

They're about a quarter-inch thick.

And the next step is to make a tomato sauce in the bottom of the baking dish.

And as in Italy, they use canned tomatoes.

This is a 14-and-a-half-ounce can of crushed tomatoes.

We'll just put that in the bottom of the baking dish.

Two cloves of garlic, which have been minced.

A little olive oil goes in.

And then salt and pepper.

Half-teaspoon of salt, quarter-teaspoon of pepper, and that's how simple it is.

We'll just mix it up at the bottom of the pan.

Don't forget that as this bakes, the juices from the kafta with all the spices will go into the sauce and flavor it.

So now we have the sauce.

Now we're gonna shingle.

So, we start with a potato, then a tomato, because it rhymes.

Then we'll use a kafta.

And then we have green peppers.

You could also use, like, Anaheim chilies or some fairly mild chili, if you like.

And then we'll just repeat.

♪ ♪ Now we're going to drizzle with a little bit of olive oil on top.

As in Italian cooking, a little olive oil does not hurt.

By the way, some of the best olive oil in the world is from the Middle East.

And then we'll finish with a little bit of black pepper, as well.

So we're almost done.

This goes into a 450 oven for about 30 minutes or so.

The potatoes are pre-cooked, obviously the kafta are not, but in that time, everything's gonna get cooked and all those juices will come down into the sauce to make a great sauce, as well.

♪ ♪ So our baked kafta is cool now.

It's out of the oven for about ten minutes.

And we'll make a little plate here.

You know, actually, if you were at a Palestinian table, you would never get a plate like this.

You'd get a much bigger plate with a lot more food.

You know, even like a dish like this, which is very simple, a simple supper, it's for a lot of people.

So it's always about hospitality.

So, Reem, thank you so much.

Thanks for your hospitality, and thanks for this recipe: baked kafta with potatoes and tomatoes.

♪ ♪ - So, welcome.

- Tel Aviv.

♪ ♪ - We're gonna see a bit of the, of course, the market stall, and the seasonal fruit and vegetable, and all other ingredients, but also lots of street foods.

- Good.

- I mean, people do go today to the markets to actually grab something to eat, to drink, and not only to buy their home ingredients.

♪ ♪ This is lachuch, which is very fluffy.

- Hm.

- And on top, the za'atar and sesame.

- Oh, man.

- Wonderful.

♪ ♪ This is Ha-Carmel Market, which is the main market of Tel Aviv, but of all the central of Israel.

♪ ♪ - Mm.

♪ ♪ - There are lots of places: Mediterranean, Turkish cuisine, Greek cuisine, Israeli, Arab-- you name it.

- Yeah, I'm hungry.

We haven't eaten in half an hour.

- At least.

Let's go.

- Let's go.

♪ ♪ - And here you have a kind of pumpkin purée.

- Pumpkin with olive oil and cumin.

- That's good.

♪ ♪ - It's called mafroom.

- Mm, that's good.

- That is good.

(laughing) - L'chayim.

- L'chayim.

♪ ♪ - We're going to Hummus Shlomo and Doron to meet Elad.

He's the new generation.

A new way of, a new philosophy, actually, a new way of eating the hummus.

He's going to tell you about it.

- Okay.

- Okay?

Please.

Elad!

♪ ♪ - All right, so welcome to Shlomo and Doron.

Shlomo and Doron is a hummus place existed for 82 years.

I'm the fourth generation here.

For two generations, what was served here is only a bowl of fava bean stew with tahini, with a hard-boiled egg, with a little bit of lemon, a bit of spices and parsley.

This was the dish that was served here for two generations until my father came into the business, and he was the first one to make hummus here.

And what I'm doing is trying to make it a little bit more funky.

♪ ♪ Here we got the Mexican.

It's hummus with a mash of frijoles, which is Mexican black beans and fava beans, chopped jalapeño pepper, pico de gallo, and on top, we have also nachos flakes, which gives the crunchiness.

- Does anyone ever say, "You can't do hummus Mexican-style"?

- For two years, people were laughing at my face when I said we have special dishes with hummus.

- I think it's great.

- Yeah.

Because, because you're not, you're not here and you're not part of the tradition.

If you were part of the tradition, it would look very, very strange to you.

But the taste talks, and if it's good, it's good.

You will tell me.

(chuckling) Try it.

Dip in.

Don't be, don't be afraid.

It's underneath all the ingredients.

Of course, yeah.

- Mm...

I love the fact you took something traditional and pulled in a New World take on it.

It's really great.

The Mexico, the Balkan, the shakshuka, falafel-- it's really good.

- Thank you so much.

- Toda.

- We're honored to have you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

♪ ♪ - A lot of people in the food world think recipes are works of art.

You know, you hang them on the wall, they're never changing.

Well, it turns out the exact opposite is true.

If you learn a little bit about the history of food, recipes change all the time because of immigration, lots of other reasons.

And this is a recipe that takes a classic and makes it really exciting.

So, we're gonna start of course with chickpeas, three cans of chickpeas.

We've cooked them for about 20 minutes in two cups of reserved liquid from the cans, three cups of water, some baking soda, and a little salt.

And they're done when they're nice and soft.

So we're gonna make a Mexican hummus, or a Mexican-style hummus.

And of course we need black beans.

So we have a can of black beans, a 14-and-a-half-ounce can.

We're gonna put in two tablespoons reserved liquid from that can.

We're gonna put in two tablespoons of lime juice.

Then we have a chipotle chili from the cans with two teaspoons of the reserved adobo sauce.

It has a little bit of vinegar in it.

And of course, a tablespoon of cumin.

And a little bit of salt and pepper.

And then we'll process.

Throw in a quarter-cup of fresh cilantro.

♪ ♪ Finally, it's time to finish up the hummus itself.

So we have the cooked chickpeas and we're gonna start to purée them.

Now, as I do that, if they look too thick and they're not puréeing properly, I can add some of the reserved cooking liquid to loosen it up a little bit.

Yeah, that looks pretty good.

So now we're gonna add a half-cup of tahini.

(processor whirring) And finally, we're gonna add a quarter-cup of lime juice.

(whirring) So now we have the hummus done.

Put it in our bowl.

♪ ♪ And now we're gonna take the black beans, and that's the next layer.

♪ ♪ Next up, we're gonna put tortilla chips on it.

♪ ♪ Now a little pico de gallo.

So we have some plum tomatoes that have been chopped up, half a red onion that's been diced, a little bit of lime juice, again, of course.

Jalapeño.

And salt.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And finally, cilantro.

So we took something old, or classic hummus, and added black beans and a pico de gallo to make something new.

And, thanks to Elad Shore from Shlomo and Doron in Tel Aviv, a great classic made new.

♪ ♪ - So sometimes when we travel for Milk Street, we head out looking for something really specific.

And sometimes we find something we weren't even looking for, like these yeasted flatbreads with za'atar oil, which we found in Israel.

It's a really interesting bread we had never seen before.

The interior is almost like an Italian ciabatta bread, really light and airy, but the outside is more like a flatbread, so it has a soft and tender crust.

So, to get that really unique texture, the dough needs to go through a series of rises.

Now, that's gonna take a little bit of time.

But don't worry, it's mostly hands-off time.

Making the dough and shaping the flatbreads is really quite easy.

I've got four cups of bread flour in the mixer with the dough hook attached already.

And I'm gonna add a tablespoon of sugar and two teaspoons of instant yeast.

And I'm just going to mix this together just to get that stuff distributed.

Okay, so now I'm gonna add a cup and a half of cool, room temperature water and two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

And I'm gonna do that while the mixer is running and I'm gonna let that go for about five minutes just until a dough starts to form.

It should pull away from the sides.

I'm gonna cover this with plastic wrap and let this sit for about 20 minutes just so all of that flour can absorb all of the water.

Then I'll come back, add the salt, and then knead it for about six minutes or so, just until it's smooth and elastic.

I'm going to transfer it to a bowl, but I want to line this bowl with a little bit of olive oil.

So we don't want the dough to stick as it rises.

♪ ♪ All right, so I just flip it over to make sure both sides are coated in oil, because we don't want it to dry out.

So I'm gonna cover this with plastic and let it rise at room temperature for an hour, and then 24 to 48 hours in the refrigerator.

That's going to slow down the yeast and allow more flavor to develop.

♪ ♪ So you can see that the dough is nice and bubbly.

It's also developed a lot of really great flavor by sitting in the fridge for 24 hours.

So we can now divide the dough.

I'm gonna flour the board.

And I'm gonna break it up into four equal pieces, about eight ounces apiece.

We're gonna shape these into little balls, almost like a pizza ball or a dinner roll, even.

Kind of tuck the bottoms under.

And you just want to go around the exterior here, just kind of tucking as you go.

And then roll it around with the palm of your hand.

And then I'm going to transfer them to a sheet tray that's lined with parchment that I also misted with cooking spray.

So I'm gonna mist them one more time with cooking spray.

And then I'm going to cover these with plastic wrap and then put it back in the refrigerator for about three hours.

That's gonna rest the dough and allow that gluten to kind of relax to get that really great texture that we're going for.

So now we can make our za'atar oil.

Za'atar is a Levantine spice blend.

So it usually has sesame seeds, sumac, thyme, oregano, or marjoram.

So to start, I'm going to put some extra virgin olive oil in here.

And then our za'atar.

And a little bit of heat from red pepper flakes.

So I'm gonna heat this up.

We're just sort of blooming these spices to really bring out their flavor.

It smells so great.

I'm going to take it off the heat and then add in a little bit of salt.

And we'll transfer it into a bowl, because we're gonna set this aside and let it cool.

♪ ♪ So the dough has been in the fridge for three hours.

I just took it out.

Now is a good time to remember to preheat your oven.

So we're using a baking steel, or you could use a baking stone, to bake these flatbreads.

So you want to put that in the oven on the middle rack and heat the oven to 500 degrees.

You want to make sure you do that an hour before you bake them.

Flour this a little bit.

And now we can flatten them into flatbreads.

And you want to do that by using your fingertips.

We wanna dimple this a little bit because we don't want it to puff up too much when we rise it.

And you want these to be about the size of a pita and about a half an inch thick.

So we'll mist it one more time with cooking spray.

So I'm going to re-cover these with plastic and let them rise one last time for an hour at room temperature.

And then we can finally bake these, and more importantly, eat them.

(chuckling) Look at them.

They're nice and puffy.

Now, we're going to use a pizza peel to get these into the oven.

And whenever you use a pizza peel, whether you're making pizza or flatbreads, you really want to coat it with semolina flour.

That will help it slide off and will keep it from sticking.

So you want to be really gentle when you pick these up and place them on the pizza peel.

We've really built up a lot of air inside here and it'd be a real shame to knock all that air out right before we're gonna bake them.

So I'm just gonna place it right at the edge of the pizza peel so it can go in really easily.

And we'll place these so that they're not touching each other.

Give it a little shake and make sure it's not gonna stick, and we can pop them in the oven.

♪ ♪ So I'm having a hard time containing myself from breaking into these right now.

They smell so good.

I baked them for about eight minutes.

You just want them puffed and golden brown.

So now it's time to brush them with the za'atar oil.

And this does a great job of kind of softening up the crust.

The smell in here is driving me nuts.

It's the fresh-baked bread with the spiced oil.

They're at the same time a flatbread as they are almost a boule.

So I managed to keep myself from tearing into these when they were piping-hot.

But luckily, they're still warm.

I mean, look at the inside of that, it's so light and fluffy.

The outside is really nice and soft.

It's not crunchy, like an artisan bread might be.

So these are yeasted flatbreads with za'atar oil.

We found them at Magdalena restaurant in Israel.

And if you'd like this recipe, or any of our recipes from this season of Milk Street, you can go to our website, MilkStreetTV.com.

- All episodes and recipes from this season of Milk Street Television are available for free at our website, MilkStreetTV.com.

Please access our content, including our step-by-step recipe videos, from your smartphone, your tablet, or your computer.

- The new Milk Street Cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show, from Vietnamese braised lemongrass chicken and spaghetti with lemon pesto to hummus with chipotle black beans and chocolate torta.

The Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for just $27, 40% less than the cover price, and receive a Milk Street tote with your order at no additional charge.

Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- That meal.

You sautéed, you seared, and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed, engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A. for over 50 years.

All-Clad-- for all your kitchen adventures.

- Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to be the first to welcome you to Tel Aviv... - Welcome to Oaxaca's airport.

- Welcome to Beirut.

♪ ♪ (man speaking Hebrew) - (speaking world language) - Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris.

- We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

♪ ♪ - Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

♪ ♪ - So this is the Eduardo García blender.

- This is the no electricity.

♪ ♪ - Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

♪ ♪ I notice when you cook sometimes, you add a little bit of something, and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

♪ ♪ - Can start building bridges, and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

♪ ♪ - This is a generational thing.

It's, it's something that you inherit.

♪ ♪ - Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for?

What did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Salute.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪