Spice (17 page)

Authors: Ana Sortun

All citrus fruits are used in Mediterranean cooking. Citrus is the flavor of the sun. It’s in season in winter, just before Christmas.

In cooking school in Paris, I was taught to use lemon only to enhance the flavor of food. I learned that you should never be able to taste the lemon, unless you’re making a lemon pie or lemon sauce. But this is not the Mediterranean way. Greeks buy lemons by the bushel, not by the piece. Lots of lemon, as well as garlic, makes Greek food taste Greek. North Africans brine lemons to preserve them and then use them with grilled meats, in salads, and with vegetables. Sliced oranges are sprinkled with spices like cinnamon and paprika and combined with olives and cilantro. Sicilians use sour oranges in preserves and marmalades. Kumquats are baby oval oranges that are tart and sour but edible the whole way through; they are wonderful sliced thinly and eaten with salads or meats. There are many special varieties of tangerines and clementines; in southern France, they hollow out their clementines, fill them with sorbet, and sell them as fruit glacés. Spaniards and Sicilians use tart, black-red blood oranges in salads and gelatos. I have a fondness for these fruits, because my husband Chris proposed to me in a Sicilian blood-orange tree grove.

In most citrus fruits, the zest is sweet and contains natural oil, the pith is bitter, and the juice inside is tart.

Zesting Citrus

There are a few different ways to zest a lemon, orange, lime, or grapefruit. Some zesting tools have a handle and a blade with five or six small holes in them that strip the zest off the fruit. Other zesting tools are just small graters that shred the zest as it comes off. You can also use the finest gauge on a handheld box grater, or a vegetable peeler, being careful not to cut too deep into the pith. If you do take away a lot of pith during this process, you can remove it by placing a paring knife at a vertical angle between the pith and the rind and planing it off. Then you can chop, julienne, or mince the strips of zest.

Sectioning Citrus

Paul Ete, one of the chefs at La Varenne, explained sectioning an orange as follows. He described peeling an orange “a vif”—or skinning alive—and then trimming the top and bottom of the fruit by ¼ inch so that the fruit rests on a board without rocking and provides a cutting edge. Paul explained that an orange is like the world: you want to carefully follow its shape, starting at the North Pole and working down through the equator to the South Pole, removing the pith and the zest and leaving only the naked citrus. The fruit should maintain its original shape when finished, with no big dips or straight edges. Finally, using a small paring knife, you should cut in between each section inward at a slight angle to remove a perfect section without any membrane or pith attached. You should do this over a small bowl (to collect the juice) and follow all the way around the fruit, squeezing any excess juice over the cut sections.

Toasting Citrus Zest

One of my favorite flavors is toasted citrus zest, which adds a layer of caramel flavor to many of the dishes at Oleana. I even add a healthy pinch (or ¼ teaspoon) of toasted citrus zest to homemade mayonnaise with garlic and simple tomato sauces.

To make this delicious flavor addition, I peel the zest from a lime or orange and place it on a baking sheet in a gas oven overnight with just the pilot burning. I put a wooden spoon in the oven door to hold it ajar about an inch, creating a soft heat and allowing the air to flow. If you don’t have a gas oven, you can dry the zest in 2 days in a cool, dry place and then toast it in a 200°F oven for a minute before grinding it in a blender to make a powder.

F
ENNEL
S
EED

Fennel can be eaten in many forms. The seed has a fresh, anise aroma and a flavor that evolves—becoming warm, sweet, and slightly minty—and is best known for flavoring sweet Italian sausage. Pale green fennel seeds are cultivated from the sweet fennel plant in the fall, after it has flowered. Green fennel seeds are fresh, so the greener, the better.

The fronds (leaves) of the fennel plant look like wispy ferns and taste slightly sweet. They are good for flavoring light broths and soups and steamed fish and are also delicate enough to eat in salads.

Fennel bulbs are delicious sliced and eaten with coarse salt, plenty of black pepper, and extra-virgin olive oil.

Wild fennel is a different plant altogether and grows like a weed in warmer climates in Italy and California. It does not have a substantial edible bulb like sweet fennel does, and is harvested for its lively white flowers, which can be sprinkled on salads, ceviches, or broiled fish. Wild fennel has the flavor and aroma of fennel seed but with more intensity.

Fennel pollen is harvested from wild fennel flowers before they go to seed. The pollen is a golden-green dust that is rich and sweet, like honey. Fennel pollen is delicious sprinkled over raw Nantucket bay scallops which are eaten just like candy.

Sometimes fennel seed is confused with anise seed, which is from a different plant entirely. Anise seed has a much stronger flavor and is used to make licorice candies, pernod, pastis, ouzo, raki, and aquardiente.

I like to mix fennel with other spices, such as paprika, cumin, saffron, and cinnamon (see Moroccan Ras el Hannout, page 16) to flavor braised meats or Moroccan stews, to add to simple tomato-based pasta sauces for a layer of minty sweetness, and to sprinkle the whole seeds on pizza (Scallop Pizza, page 92), or onto homemade crackers (Crick-Cracks, page 176). Fennel is also a very important spice in making pickles (Nookie’s Pickles, page 280).

RECIPES WITH SUMAC, CITRUS, AND FENNEL SEED

F
ISH
S
PICE

H
ALIBUT
C
AKES WITH
O
LIVE
O
IL
–L
EMON
S
AUCE

R
OASTED
B
EETS WITH
T
OASTED
O
RANGE
A
IOLI AND
P
INE
N
UTS

E
NDIVE AND
A
PPLE
S
ALAD WITH
G
RAPES
, S
UMAC, AND
P
ECAN
L
ABNE

S
ARIKOPITES
: G
REEK
P
ASTRIES WITH
T
UNA
, F
ENNEL, AND
K
ASSERI
C
HEESE

S
ERRANO
H
AM WITH
B
LOOD
-O
RANGE AND
F
ENNEL
S
ALAD

C
HICKEN
E
GG
-L
EMON
S
OUP WITH
G
RANO AND
S
UMAC

S
HRIMP
B
RIK WITH
P
ISTACHIO AND
G
RAPEFRUIT
C
HARMOULA

S
CALLOP
P
IZZA WITH
L
EEKS AND
F
ENNEL
S
EED

C
HICKEN
L
AMEJUN WITH
R
OASTED
P
EACHES
, P
ISTACHIO, AND
S
UMAC

B
EEF
S
HISH
K
EBOBS WITH
S
UMAC
O
NIONS AND
P
ARSLEY
B
UTTER

Fish Spice

There are many variations on spice blends. Knowing how to mix spices is somewhat more complicated than blending herbs: some spices require a heavy hand while others need only a pinch. Coriander, cumin, and dukkah (page 6) and za’atar (page 230) blends can be used very liberally. Saffron, cardamom, allspice, white pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and clove should be used more sparingly. Moreover, some blends work better with meats and others with fish. Stronger spices complement meat while acidic spices and dried herbs taste better with fish. Generally, all of the spice blends included in this book can be used with vegetables.

The citrus quality of this particular spice blend, which derives from either dried lime or orange and sumac, makes it perfect for fish. Toasting the zest gives it a caramel flavor. Sprinkle this fish spice on bluefish, squid, scallops, or shrimp after cooking.

M
AKES A LİTTLE MORE THAN
½
CUP