Levantine Lasagne

After three inches of snow and a bitter wind, a roaring hot fire and the trials of the week shed. I couldn't
resist just putting the radio on and getting in the kitchen.


I call this a Levantine Lasagne, I just love the word "Levant" , I love its romance and evocation of Arabian dhows,
spice markets, swarthy traders and sultans. It is where Africa, meets Europe and Asia; The melting pot of Greeks, Arabs, English, French and Venetian traders, Ottomans and North Africans. (The days before passports and the illusions of racial purity and discrete nation states )
Scan any Levantine recipe and a pound to a penny you'll find ground lamb. And that is the backbone of this dish.
I recently saw a little palestinian cookbook authored by the elderly father of well know poet. It was full of hand-drawn illustrations and anecdotes. Nearly every single recipe featured ground lamb.


What you'll need is 
1 large sweet red onion
1 lb of ground lamb
4- 5 medium ripe tomatoes
1 large fat aubergine
1 cup of couscous
1/2 cup of freshly grated parmesan


The Spices


Cinnamon
Allspice
Smoked Paprika
1 Ancho Chilly ( another type will do but the Ancho has a deep smokey mellow flavour and is ideal)
Few sprigs Thyme and Marjoram ( fresh if you have them)


Slice the tomatoes into fat half inch slices and make a layer of them with a splash of Olive oil into the bottom of a pyrex or other baking dish.


Slice the aubergine in half in inch thick slices, salt and let sit for 10 mins.


Cook the couscous ( boil a pan of 3 cups of chicken stock- as soon as it comes to a boil turn it off and add a cup of couscous and cover-  let it sit till the couscous absorbs the liquid)


Finely chop the onion and begin to fry with olive oil till golden and soft.
Mix the spices and herbs with the lamb and add to the onions, fry till the lamb is browned and remove from the stove.
Fry the aubergine slices till nicely brown and soft. (I use extra virgin olive oil for most things but frying an aubergine consumes vast amounts of oil so use whatever your preference or judgement dictates.)


The tomatoes are the bottom layer, next the lamb, then the aubergines, grated Parmesan and finally Couscous.
Cover the dish with foil or wax paper and place in the oven for 20 mins. 375 - 400.


Serves four or two very hungry and greedy people.

Harch Green Chile and the Autumnal Omelet

Anyone who lives in New Mexico knows about Hatch Green Chile. If they don't its because they

arrived yesterday night on the last train from somewhere else.

The Hatch crop comes in early September, and here and there dotted along the roadside you see the roasters. The only thing I'd ever seen that was comparable was when we used to go to Spitalfields market in London ( one of the few organic markets at that time) and there was this guy selling coffee. He wasn't just selling it though, he was roasting it in this giant rotating drum of a roaster. The smell was intense, the guy was wired, it was a show of raw caffeine power. His coffee was all muscles and sophistication all at once. Anyhow back to Chile.

The beautiful hot, aromatic, pungent chilly with its blackened skins are like gold.

You drive them home, bag em up and freeze pounds of the stuff to see you through the winter.

There are a few things that people crave when they leave here and top of that list is Hatch Green Chile. My friend Rose clocked up a few miles in New York desperate to satisfy a craving.

On my kitchen window sill, the last of our stupendous tomato crop, is gently ripening away, oblivious to the season change and the crisp cold nights. When i was a shiatsu practitioner and dabbling with macrobiotics, nightshades were frowned upon. I know the whole Belladona association, but really ! has any of these people eaten a really sweet, sun ripened tomato or aubergine.

I know it almost seems patronising to post an omelet recipe, but trust me, this is no pedestrian

flat yellow apology of an egg dish.

This is a 20 minute meal. The autumnal Taos omelet.

3- 4 nice plump Hatch Chile's skins removed

1 really fat ripe tomato or a couple of medium sized ones.

Couple of slices of ham or a chicken sausage ( whatever you prefer)

4 eggs

some whole milk

Fresh goat cheese.

Olive oil, salt and pepper.

Dice the tomato and the chile together with a clove of garlic and fry with olive oil.

a few minutes on medium heat and then set aside.

Beat the eggs in a bowl , season with w salt and pepper

add a generous dollop of whole milk,

Drop the eggs into a hot pan with some more fresh olive oil.

( whisking them continually as you do)

soon as the eggs are in, spread the rest of your ingredients around the omelet

liberally drop goat cheese all over.

Keep it cooking on a pretty high heat to nicely brown the omelet.

Soon as the omelet is reasonably firm , put the pan under a hot broiler and finish off

Should be nice and golden and puffy.

I like to slide it out of the pan onto a chopping board, fold it over in half and slice it up to present it. Any fresh salad and a round of toast to accompany and you cant go wrong.

until the next meal. xx

philosophy and a recipe

On the subject of food I'm with Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin, Raymond Blanc and generations of people who until the recent past, understood that food not only needed to be grown well but eaten well. That if you want food you go to a garden or a farm, if you want a piece of machinery you go to a factory. There is no such thing as a factory farm, its an oxymoron at best and an abomination at worst.

Pollan is interesting because he serves to remind us that food is not simply about health and nutrition, but about culture.

To reduce food to a nutritionists point of view, is to be guilty of the same reductionism that reduces everything to the sum of its parts and never sees the beauty and integrity; the consciousness of what is before us.

I really don't intend to write about the morally bereft ways of companies like monsanto, organo phosphates, terminator seeds, GMO's the poisoning and destruction of water tables, the stupidity of monoculture and the ills of globalization ( if you need that kind of eduction there are plenty of informed sources)I'm writing with all that as a given. Therewith I set my stall out.

Food is so much more than the chemistry lesson of fats, carbs, proteins bla yawn bla. Even as I write it i feel the energy drain from my solar plexus and a fog of indifference come over me. Food is joy, art , sustenance, pleasure , generosity, wealth and the cornerstone of culture. I once thought that God or Consciousness was that cornerstone, but the truth is that consciousness abides as an ever-present reality, food however is something we actively participate with, enjoy and co-operate around on a daily basis. Neem Karoli Baba understood this, he was always feeding people.

I'm staggeringly lucky to live in Northern New Mexico just outside Taos at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, looking out across to the peaks of Truchas and Penasco to the south, the great mesa to the west and far peaks of the Blancas to the North. Its a lively buzzing town with cosmopolitan mix of Pueblo Indians, Spanish settlers, Mexicans, Anglos, a vastly disproportionate number of fine artists of all kinds, and eccentrics from everywhere.

The land is not simply given to monoculture and ranching, but is richly planted with Orchards of cherry, apple and apricot. Kitchen gardens are fairly common and most people with even a little land will keep one. Chickens are also often kept and a few people like my friend Sabina keep an organic goat herd producing fabulous raw cheese, milk and kiefer.

I'm going to post recipes as I go, because cooking is one of my great pleasures. It is effortless and a daily joy. I try and keep my food pretty seasonal, but I'm not especially fastidious about this. Despite the fact that I like nothing better than pottering around the kitchen the whole day, I work a 9-5 and dont make a gazillion bucks. So I'm like most working people. Much of my cooking is a 30- 45 minute meal made fresh every evening.

Today was a bit of a proto-fluish day so I made a chicken curry. It wasn't my usual recipe, but i cant stop tasting it as it cooks mercifully the rice is now on

so I'm only 20 mins away from eating with impunity.

When you cook a chicken try and cook with bones and skin. ( That's what helps create the stock and the flavour) boneless, skinless chicken may sound easy, but its always a little weak.

Anyhow here goes, this is a variation on a butter chicken, somewhere between that and a korma.

1 chicken- cut off the legs, wings and breast and save the carcass for a stock or soup.

2 med onions finely chopped

3 med cloves of garlic - minced

1 inch of ginger- minced

4 thai / indian chillies sliced lengthwise )keep the seeds.

3 or 4 med tomatoes nice and ripe ( riper the better) diced small.

The spices:

2 tsp garam masala

1tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

( teaspoons are heaped not flat)

1/2 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp turmeric

handful of raw cashews ground

1/2 cup of heavy cream

1 cup of live tangy full fat yogurt

fry the onions, sautee till nice and soft

add the ginger/ garlic and chillies

after a couple of mins add the chicken pieces

fry for a few mins then add spices

fry the spices till you begin to smell them well

( dont burn though)

add the tomatoes fry all together for another couple of mins

Put everything into a slow cooker/ crock pot or on the stove top on a low heat

Add yogurt, cream and ground cashews.

Let cook for at least 4 hours in a slow cooker or for 1 and 1/2 hours on the stove.

Serve with white basmati rice or naan or whatever you like.

Share and eat slowly.