Shallot

Visiting the marketplace of Carpentras, near Avignon, we almost missed the synagogue, the oldest still-functioning one in France, dating back to 1367 and renovated in the eighteenth century. The façade, like that of all synagogues in France, was nondescript, whereas inside it was a jewel box of eighteenth-century Greek Corinthian columns, and all around, the interior was decorated in rose, green, blue, and yellow. As in the synagogue in nearby Cavaillon, the rabbi’s pulpit was perched upstairs, above the congregants. “In 1358, the provincial town of Carpentras was known as La Petite Jérusalem,” Jennie Lévy told us during a tour. “A yellow cloth on their coats and on the women’s bonnets indicated that they were Jewish.” Today about eighty Jewish families live in Carpentras and the surrounding area, most of them emigrants from Morocco. Madame Lévy, who came from Safi, Morocco, in 1964, showed me the basement, which has a mikveh (ritual bath), fed by a natural spring, and an oven used for baking Sabbath bread, as well as another for matzo. As I listened to Madame Lévy’s eloquent history of this French synagogue, I was aware again of how Sephardic Jews are rekindling Jewish life in France. Since it was on Friday when we visited, Madame Lévy was anxious to go home to prepare her Sabbath dinner of vegetable soup, meatballs, and sautéed red peppers and haricots verts, the thin French green beans that are so absolutely delicious.

This classic french potato salad is very simple. A non-Jewish version might include lardons (a type of bacon) and shallots, but instead I use a tart mayonnaise. For a North African touch, you can add sliced hard-boiled eggs and cured black olives. I often add julienned basil with the parsley, or other compatible herbs.

The first time I tasted a simple French lettuce salad of greens tossed in a mustardy vinaigrette, I marveled at how uncomplicated and delicious it was. Presented after the main course, as is traditional in Europe, the lettuce dish cleanses the palate. In France, with its varied climate and wonderful produce, salad greens are in season all year long and have been eaten forever, both cooked and raw. Serve as is, or with chopped fresh basil, cilantro, dill, tarragon, or chives sprinkled on top. Tiny slices of radish are a nice addition and, according to the Talmud, help digest lettuce.

This yogurt relish comes from the Tamil communities of Sri Lanka and is called Curd Sambol. It may be served with most South Asian meals. It may also be eaten at lunch as a salad.

This simple sauce is perfect for spooning over fried fish, fried chicken, grilled meats, and any kind of kebab.

My North Indian family called this salaad, or salad, but similar salads with varying seasonings are known in some parts of India as cachumbar. These salads generally contain onions (our Indian red onions), cucumbers, and tomatoes but, according to the seasons, we in Delhi could find radishes or kohlrabi in them as well. In some parts of India, barely sprouted mung beans and peanuts could be added. This fresh salad was always at our table at every meal in some form, with the simplest of dressings added at the last minute. There was never any oil in this dressing. Instead, there was fresh lime juice, salt, pepper, chili powder, and ground roasted cumin seeds. We just put a generous dollop on our plates (or side plates) and ate it with everything.

Even though this is called a white curry, it is slightly yellowish in color from the small amount of turmeric in it. In Sri Lanka, it is made with ridge gourd, which looks like a ridged, long, slightly curving cucumber, pointy at the ends. It is sold in Indian, Southeast Asian, and Chinese markets. If you can find it, peel it with a peeler, concentrating mostly on the high ridges, and then cut it crosswise into 3/4-inch segments. It cooks in about 3 minutes. I have used zucchini instead because it is just as good and we can all get it easily. Serve with rice and perhaps Stir-Fried Chettinad Chicken.

This is easily my favorite okra recipe, though I must admit to loving plain, crisply fried okra as well. Okra is a vastly misunderstood vegetable. First of all, it should be young and crisp when it is harvested. Then, it should be cooked so its mucilaginous quality (that is, its slimy aspect) is somewhat reduced. Look for small, tender okra. They are the best. Pinkish-red onions in the north and shallots in the south are the onions of India. As shallots seem to be getting larger and larger, I suggest that you use about 3 of the larger ones here. When I was a child, all I wanted for lunch was this okra dish, some chapatis, My Everyday Moong Dal, and a yogurt relish. You may, of course, serve this with meat curries as well.

South Asians love their quail, which is generally brought home by hunters. I know that when the men in our family returned from their winter shoots, what I most looked forward to eating were not the larger creatures, the deer and the geese, but the smaller ones, the duck, partridge, and quail. Here is a quick, stir-fried (bhuna implies stirring and browning) version of a dish I had in Lahore, Pakistan. This recipe may be easily doubled. Use a very large frying pan if you do so. When eating quail—and you have to use your fingers—it is hard to think of any other food, even though rice, vegetables, other meats, and legumes are nearly always part of the meal.

In Bangladesh, the basic diet is fish and rice. It is not fish from the Bay of Bengal, the sea that rules their shores, that the people thrive on. In fact, they hardly touch that. What they love is the sweet-water fish that comes from their estuaries, rivers, lakes, and ponds. Since local Bangladeshi fish are unavailable to most of us, I have adapted this recipe to fillet of flounder. One of the common local seasonings is an aromatic lime leaf very similar to the kaffir lime leaf of Thailand. If you cannot get that, use fresh curry leaves, or, failing that, fresh basil leaves. Serve with plain rice, a dal, and a vegetable or salad.

Cooked in this way, in olive oil, the dish is normally served cold as a salad, but I also like it hot with rice or as a side dish with meat or chicken.

This is a dish you can prepare well in advance. In Turkey, they may add a little grape molasses called pekmez, which you can buy in Turkish stores, but, for me, the dish is sweet enough as it is with the onions, chestnuts, and sugar. Serve it hot with plain rice or rice with chickpeas (see Variation page 193).

This is a recipe that is similar to the chicken tagine on page 93, but the result is quite different. The sweetness of the pears goes surprisingly well with the lamb. Choose firm pears; if the fruit is too soft, they tend to collapse during the cooking. Comice and Bosc are good varieties. Use a boned shoulder of lamb or neck fillets, and trim only some—not all—of the fat.

A favorite joint for a family roast in Morocco is a shoulder of lamb, and honeyed onions are a specially delicious accompaniment. The lamb is cooked very slowly for a long time, until it is so tender that the meat can be pulled away from the bone with the fingers. In the past, the lamb was cooked on the spit in the family courtyard or taken to the public oven. A shoulder roast of young spring lamb is always fatty, but most of the fat melts away during the long cooking, keeping the meat moist and succulent. If an older lamb is too fatty, carefully remove some of the fat with a sharp knife before cooking. Use the smaller amount of honey to begin with, and add more, to taste.

I have used the ingredients of a chicken tagine as a relish to accompany duck (which is not a Moroccan bird) because the combination of fatty duck with sharp apricots is great.

This is one of the classics of Moroccan cooking and this version, with shallots or baby onions, is sensational. The art is to reduce the sauce at the end until it is rich and caramelized. It is important to taste it in order to get the right balance between sweet and savory.