Ground Beef

This recipe is for Gloria, Emilio, and Emily Estefan (or, as I call them, the Este-FUN Family). So, how Cuban did I get in 30 Minutes? XXOO, RR

Fajitas are fun, but a lot of work at the table. This recipe switches up a cornbread crust for the flour tortilla and ground beef for the usual sliced steak. Reinvent a fun food, tonight, with Fajita Beef Pie!

Have one of each! Serve with spicy refried beans.

When I met Lionel Barrieu, practically the only Jew living in Auch, a small town in the sparsely inhabited department of Gers, in the southwest of France, I thought he was an ordinary Jewish policeman. But as his story unfolded, his saga became more complicated. Lionel, who also goes by his Hebrew name, Ariel, is the grandson of a Roman Catholic Paris-born police inspector. When the Germans took over Paris in 1940, the other policemen encouraged his grandfather to help round up the Jews living in the capital. As Lionel tells the story, his grandfather smelled a rat and, not wanting to be part of this witch hunt, went underground. Lionel, in his early forties, followed in his grandfather’s footsteps, going to the police academy while also studying theology, Greek, and Latin at the University of Strasbourg. “When I discovered the biblical texts in Hebrew and French,” he told me in his office, “I realized the two Bibles were different. The Hebrew was richer and more spiritual.” After moving to Auch, he converted to Judaism with the help of the rabbi in Toulouse, about one and a half hours away, even getting circumcised at the age of thirty-nine. Today Lionel leads a Jewish life with his wife, also a police officer, who does not follow his religious practices. “I go to buy kosher meat at a little store in Toulouse,” he told me. “I feel as if I can now respect the animal.” For the Jewish Sabbath every week, which he observes, Lionel makes challah. He used to bake it on Friday, during his lunch hour, but too many police emergencies disturbed his bread-making. Now, to be extra careful, he makes it on Thursday evening, after work. One of the dishes that he missed most after taking on the obligation of keeping kosher was his meat lasagna. To satisfy his craving, he created this version, using soy milk instead of cow’s milk in the béchamel sauce. It is hearty and rich, and can fool almost anyone.

For Women, cookbook are often memories of their mothers. Daisy Taïeb, the mother of two daughters, wrote Les Fêtes Juives à Tunis Racontées à Mes Filles (Jewish Holidays in Tunis as Told to My Daughters). “My daughters wanted to learn the religious customs in Tunis, like the fète des filles, a festival where the girls go to the synagogue all in white,” she told me. “Soon, with rapid Frenchification and assimilation, you will be able to learn about these traditions only in museums.” One day when I was in Nice, I watched Madame Taïeb cook her famous meatballs stuffed into vegetables. She was making them for Friday night dinner, to serve with couscous. Though I had expected a quiet, grandmotherly woman, I found her to be a trim, stylish lady who had taken the Dale Carnegie course on public speaking. She is the president of the French version of the Jewish Federation in Nice, and the representative of B’nai B’rith on the Côte d’Azur. These days, Madame Taïeb, who has lived alone since her husband’s death, invites people in for Sabbath dinner. “In Tunisia, you have the same foods as in Nice— fish, vegetables, spices— so it is not difficult to make the recipes,” she told me. “But you have to use your hands to judge, not your eyes, when making meatballs.” For Madame Taïeb, couscous with meatballs stuffed into peppers, artichoke bottoms, and eggplants, one of my favorite dishes, is symbolic of family, remembrance, and Friday night dinners.

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!

A great variety of vegetable fillings exist. Vegetables with a meat filling are meant to be eaten hot, those with a meatless filling are usually cooked in oil and eaten cold. In Turkey these are called yalangi dolma or “false dolma,” because of the lack of meat. The following are the fillings most widely used. Quantities are enough to stuff about 2 pounds of vegetables, but this varies according to the size of the vegetables and the amount of pulp scooped out.

This Armenian specialty makes a hearty main dish. It has a pure and fresh quality and is an entirely different experience from eating an Italian or Asian pasta dish.

This version with tamarind is from Aleppo. Serve hot or cold, as a first course or part of a buffet meal.

This is sometimes made with lettuce leaves.

This is to be served hot.

A Persian filling of meat and rice with yellow split peas is cooked in a sweet-and-sour sauce and served hot with plain rice.

These eggplants—the Turkish name means “slashed belly”—represent a main dish to be served hot with a rice or bulgur pilaf. The Syrian and Lebanese version is with the meat filling on page 306.

This Syrian and Lebanese dish, for which the city of Damascus is famous, is complex and requires time, but it is not difficult and it has dramatic appeal, with different layers of texture and flavor. There are those who prefer deep-frying the stuffed eggplants and the bread, and those who stew the eggplants in tomato sauce and toast the bread instead of frying. I have tried both ways and found them both delicious. A little sour-pomegranate concentrate gives a brown color and sweet-and-sour flavor to the tomato sauce.