Saffron

Picking the mussels from their shells before you toss the pasta together with the sauce means less work for your guests, but feel free to skip that step. If you do skip it, put the pasta on to boil just before you start the sauce. Both will be done at about the same time.

This brown-rice version of the national dish of Spain may raise some eyebrows in Barcelona, but at less than half the calories of the original, this combination of fragrant saffron, garlic, chorizo, and shrimp is a beautiful thing.

The saffron does all the work for you in this dish—you’ll freak out when you take your first bite and actually taste how easy this was to make. Since you now have saffron on hand, next time you’re making regular old rice, add a pinch of saffron and your rice will taste extraordinary.

This meal is a lazy-man’s version of paella. (But we lazy, big-mouthed, big-appetite girls can dispatch this dinner pretty easily, too!)

This risotto recipe from Natan Holchaker, a retired dentist and food hobbyist in Bordeaux, includes smoked goose breast. If you cannot find a kosher version, substitute smoked turkey breast.

Chez Paul, located near the port of Marseille, stands at a crossroads with three other fish restaurants. But the license from the Beth Din of Marseille, hanging on the wall, certifying that the restaurant is kosher, sets this one apart. When I visited Chez Paul, Fathi Hmam, the Tunisian Muslim chef, was busy prepping bouillabaisse for the evening’s dinner. Technically, his bouillabaisse stew is a bourride, because it only has fish with fins and scales—those that swim near the magnificent rocky shore of this ancient port city of France. But he does not use lotte (monkfish), also a nonkosher fish, central to fish bourrides in Marseille. Bourride is one of the oldest dishes in France, said to have been brought by the Phoenicians in the sixth century B.C.E. Of course, the tomatoes and potatoes arrived much later. It is also said that a few Jews came with the Phoenicians on this voyage. Is that why, perhaps, there is no shellfish in the bourride? The success of this simple dish depends on knowing at what moment the fish is perfectly cooked. And, of course, don’t forget the rouille (see page 63), which North African Jews and Muslims alike make their own by adding a Tunisian touch: harissa.

Artichokes, one of my favorite vegetable, are edible thistles that were prized by the ancient Romans as food of the nobility. They have been a springtime food in the Mediterranean for thousands of years and particularly loved by Jews. Usually the French serve artichokes as a cold salad appetizer with a vinaigrette. Although I have seen this recipe in many Jewish cookbooks from North Africa, I hadn’t tasted it until Paula Wolfert cooked it for me on my PBS show, Jewish Cooking in America. It was a merveille, as my French friends would say. In the years since, I have eaten many different versions of this salad. Céline Bénitah, who lives in Annecy but came from Berkane, on the Algerian border of Morocco, said that all North African Jews who grew up in this orange- growing region have their own versions of this recipe. Hers includes saffron. Of course, this salad tastes best when fresh artichokes are used, but frozen artichoke hearts or bottoms work as well.

I have always thought that the best part of fish soup is the rouille, a peppery, garlicky sauce that is slathered on toasted rounds of baguette and floated on the surface of the soup. I also like to stir some rouille into the broth. Similar to the Provençal aioli, a garlic-flavored mayonnaise, rouille is flavored with hot pepper and saffron, which give it its signature rust color. (Rouille literally means “rust” in French.) Today I have noticed that North African Jews often spice up their rouille even more, by adding a little harissa (see page 33) to it. Traditionally, a mortar and pestle are used to pound the garlic, pepper, and egg yolk, gradually incorporating the oil to make a mayonnaise. Today it is easy to put everything in a food processor and slowly add the oil, drop by drop. Leftover sauce is good on sandwiches or as a dip.

In the Charming Town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, whose Jewish population of four hundred comes mostly from Morocco, I tasted a delicious fish soup. This particular recipe is one that painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who lived in the town, would have relished.

This pudding is cooked just like the preceding one but with a few additions.

This recipe may be easily doubled. I just love it with Tomato Pullao.

Dumpukht is a style of cooking that was made very popular in India in the Moghul courts starting around the sixteenth century. Meat or rice dishes were semiprepared or, in the case of meats, they were thoroughly marinated, and then put in a pot with a lid that was sealed shut with dough. The pot was placed on lightly smoldering embers. Some embers were also placed on the top of the lid, thus forming a kind of slow-cooking oven. When the dough seal was cracked and the lid removed, the aroma of the spices left the guests oohing and aahing. This cooking style is still very popular in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This is a royal-style dish, rich with almonds and saffron, which are native to Kashmir, and yet it is quite light. The recipe may easily be doubled. For a festive meal, also serve Eggplants in a North-South Sesame/Peanut Sauce, and a rice dish.

A friend described the flavors of a pudding she tasted in an Iranian restaurant, and I applied them to the classic crème caramel. It is magnificent.

This intriguing rice pudding made with water—not milk—called zerde in Turkey and sholezard in Iran, has a delicate flavor and pretty, jellylike appearance.

Sour little red berries called barberries (zereshk in Persian) and yogurt give this chicken-and-rice dish an exciting flavor and texture. The woman who wrote out this recipe for me more than thirty years ago added a comment that it was the most famous and traditional of Iranian dishes.

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.

Tagine barkok, made with or without honey, is one of the most popular fruit tagines of North Africa. It is eaten with bread. Restaurants in Paris accompany it with couscous and bowls of boiled chickpeas and boiled raisins (see page 377).

In Morocco they say that this dish, like many others, was brought back from Andalusia by the Moors after the Reconquista.