This cookbook by Marlena Spieler has excellent Jewish recipes along with learning about Jewish cooking from different cultures.
Wats, I learnt, are long-simmered Ethiopian stews; often made for Shabbat.
Given the Ethiopian origin, they are typically served with injera, the Ethiopian flat bread (which is beyond the production abilities of somerville kitchen).
An easy recipe, worth trying given how full of flavours it is.
The base is: 6 - 8 chopped onions, 6 chopped garlic cloves and 2 tsp chopped ginger, cooked in 6 Tbsp oil.
Add 1 cup water and a 400g chopped tomatoes can. Boil and let reduce for 10 minutes.
Now add a chicken cut into 8 pieces along with a hybrid of spices:
6 cardamom pods 0.5 tsp turmeric pinch of salt, cinnamon, ground cloves, grated nutmeg and cayenne pepper.
Simmer for one hour - delicious.
But wait, the most interesting aspect of this wat is the boiled eggs.
Add 4 hard boiled eggs into the sauce at the end, just to warm up.
I fell in love with Chicken Fricassee in St. Louis 2 years ago (Read Fancy Midwest Dinner).
During that year, I started a Fricassee cooking craze (Read Chicken Fricassee Volume 1 and Volume 2).
Disappointed by my craze, I consulted old America in Jean Anderson's Recipes from America's Restored Villages.
Recipe from Historic Fallsington Manor in Pennsylvania was promising; I gave it a shot.
Sauce rich with chicken broth, lemon, nutmeg, thyme and marjoram seemed to have all I needed for an almost perfect Fricassee. Lots of mushrooms and egg sauce and I was ready for a taste test.
A step closer to my Fricassee love affair in St. Louis, but still a long way to go. I think I will just give up and wait for a generous American cook to offer to cook me an authentic Chicken Fricassee.
To make the last day of the holidays count, a food adventure was in order. A Vancouver's Chinatown establishment that many talk about was definitely an adventure.
Line ups of every race and age in the city, but efficient service moves everyone along fast.
Over a dozen of options buffet (two items with your choice of chow mein, rice or noodles for under $8), but many of those dishes include animals or parts of that are difficult to identify.
How adventurous do I want to be? I almost pointed to a couple of weird items and went for it.
But I opted for a bit more familiar grounds of tofu in hot meat sauce and sweet and sour fish - delicious, specially for the price.
The plate could have fed a family, but I ate it all and off for a long walk to burn it off.
The first Wacky Thursday of the year is a tour of all the wacky stuff you'd find hiding throughout somerville kitchen.
Starting in my closet, one finds an ancient hand woven, colourful (understatement) winter house slippers that I cannot live without despite the holes.
Moving out to le jardin (in my house slippers - no wonder they have holes in them), one plucks a radish right in the middle of winter (plucked on January 2, 2013).
On the way back to the kitchen, the kitchen patio turns into an extension of the fridge during winter with hanging baskets for fruit and vegetables and all the pop, juice, oils and vinegars that don't fit indoors.
The fridge, instead of accommodating what's on the patio, is home to more classy items such as the topping of cats' goodbye party cake (read Celebration of Life). This will stay as a reminder of the bestest cats one could ever dream of having.
And since we are talking about cats, this is what you would find on my iPhone (click arrow to play video - 28 seconds of pure entertainment from catses).
Closing the fridge and the iPhone to open my bread basket (which is always filled with wacky stuff - read What's in my Bread Basket), the highlight today is licorice; lots of it (trying the out of sight, out of mind, but not working well).
More wacky is a can of sardines you'd find in my pantry - where did this come from, what would I use it for and when remains a mystery.
Finally, the freezer seems to be the hoarder of the most normal stuff - meats, frozen beans, peas and chick peas, breads, pies and leftovers. But wait, here's a piece of mom's Kebbeh from April that I am holding on to as long as I can given how delicious it is (read Kebbeh Factory).
A combination of a gift from my dear lovely neighbour of home made 11 spices chicken masala and a recipe for braised chicken Indian style in Bon Appetit made for a special new year's day meal idea.
Chicken is cooked with onions, garlic (do Indians use much garlic I wonder?) and ginger along with the masala.
The chicken is then moved to a pot with chicken broth (do Indians cook their chicken in broth I wonder?) and chickpeas.
After braising for a couple of hours, the recipe called for adding spinach and 0.25 cup yogurt. Given lack of spinach around, chard was used instead.
The spicing was excellent (thank you dear lovely neighbour). The consistency not as good as my typical Indian curry creations. The chard did not feel very Indian.
Add to that strong garlic flavour, the meal was less of a special production than I dreamed it to be. Hoping for better productions in rest of the year.
