Spice (33 page)
Authors: Ana Sortun
FAVORITE CHILIES
A
LEPPO
, U
RFA, AND
P
APRIKA
My visits to Turkey and Spain opened up whole worlds of flavor to me, contained in the flesh of Aleppo, Urfa, and paprika chili peppers. Before my travels, I used widely available chilies, such as the jalapeño and habañero, which are just plain hot. But Mediterranean cuisine is not hot-spicy like Thai or Mexican food; the chilies used there do not overwhelm the taste of food, but rather heighten it. In my travels in this region, I discovered the varied and individually unique flavors of exotic chilies: bitter, leathery, earthy, chocolate, smoky, and sweet. I wandered the markets and ate in the restaurants, adding new chilies to my palette and slowly learning how to use them—just like other herbs and spices—to layer, tone, or brighten dishes.
Chilies contain natural oils, just as nuts do. Make sure the chilies you use are shiny. Shininess indicates that a chili has been dried properly and will be fresh and flavorful.
Like toasting nuts, toasting chilies releases their natural oils and perfume. You can lightly toast a whole dried chili by holding it with a pair of tongs a few inches over a gas flame for about a minute, until it steams and becomes more pliable, but being careful not to set it on fire. Store toasted peppers in an airtight container or in the freezer.
A
LEPPO
C
HILIES
Once you begin using these beautiful, coarsely ground chili flakes from northern Syria, you’ll toss out your bottle of dried red pepper flakes meant for sprinkling on slices of cheese pizza. You can substitute Aleppo chilies to greatly enhance any recipe calling for dried red pepper flakes.
Aleppo chilies are used more for flavor than for heat; their flavor is deliciously deep with a cuminlike earthiness and a hint of sweetness. Chilies are celebrated in Aleppo—a city with a varied and plentiful gastronomy—but the food there is not typically spicy.
Aleppo chilies are especially oily and when fresh should look bright red and almost wet. You can substitute Aleppo chili pepper in recipes calling for paprika, but use slightly less Aleppo pepper, because it is hotter. And remember that paprika does have a unique flavor that may be important to certain dishes such as goulash. It’s also fun to substitute Aleppo chilies for black pepper. It can be dangerous, though, if you love black pepper and use lots, so season with a cautious hand.
I sprinkle Aleppo chilies on green salads, feta cheese, tuna salad, cheese pizza, quesadillas, soup, and potato salad. I recommend storing the chilies in your freezer, since freezing them keeps their oils from drying out. I always have a small bag of Aleppo chilies in my freezer as well as a little shakerful on my table.
Aleppo chilies are available at www.kalustyans.com. Maras chilies, which are nearly identical but come from Turkey, are available at www.formaggiokitchen.com.
U
RFA
C
HILIES
My friend Ihsan Gurdhal introduced me to Urfa chilies. Ihsan is from Istanbul and owns one of my favorite stores in town: Formaggio Kitchen, in Cambridge, Massachusetts (see Ihsan’s Doggy Eggs on page 218). To me, Formaggio Kitchen is like a toy store; I poke through fresh produce and wander the aisles when I need fun, new ingredients, and inspiration. Ihsan and his wife Valerie travel in search of great cheeses, olive oils, dried pastas, condiments, olives, and charcuterie. They are famous for their cheese-ripening room in the basement of Formaggio. I always leave Formaggio with lots more than I came for.
Ihsan is my local Turkish expert. He regales me with wonderful stories about his grandmother and her culinary experiences in the Ottoman palace she grew up in. One day I was in Formaggio when Ihsan had just received a shipment of Urfa chilies from Turkey. He told me to take them to try. From that day on, I was hooked.
Urfa chilies are dark red or purple-black and come from southeastern Turkey, near Syria, from the town of Urfa or Sanli Urfa, and they are very exciting to work with. In fact, they may be my favorite chili pepper. They are simultaneously bitter like coffee or chocolate and sweet like molasses, and they lend a wonderful, deep, smoky aroma to sauces. Like the Aleppo chili, the Urfa chili’s heat is moderate but meaningful. And like the Aleppo, the Urfa has a high oil content and when fresh should look shiny and not at all dull. Urfa peppers are ground even more coarsely than Aleppo chilies. They freeze well and will keep in an airtight container for months.
When picked, Urfa peppers are dark purple in color, which deepens as they dry in the sun. After the chilies lay in the sun all day, the farmers wrap them up and leave them to sweat overnight. The chilies are then unwrapped and returned to the sun the next day. Over the course of a week, this process concentrates the chilies’ color to near-black, and they develop their rich, earthy flavor and smoky aroma.
I sprinkle Urfa chili pepper on ceviche, Fried Haloumi Cheese (page 10), tomato sauces, scrambled eggs, eggplant, hot chocolate, and even on caramel popcorn (see Rosemary’s Spicy Caramel Popcorn, page 170). They are also the perfect substitution for recipes calling for our native Ancho chilies.
Urfa chilies are available at www.kalustyans.com and at www.formaggiokitchen.com.
P
APRIKA
Paprika chilies are unlike Urfa and Aleppo in that they are sweeter and warmer and have more caramel and bell-pepper flavors. Paprika complements many foods without dominating them and lends a rich color to dishes.
Paprika chilies vary in color from red to dark red to brown, depending on the type of plant, the climate, and the amount of red pigment in the pepper skin. They also vary in strength of heat and flavor styles—from bittersweet to smoky, semisweet to delicate, sweet to hot—and it can become complicated to choose. The heat of the chili depends on how much capsaicin (a compound found in the pepper’s connecting tissues, placenta, and seeds) is left before processing. The mildest and sweetest paprika is made only with the flesh of the pepper; all traces of seed, stem, and connecting tissues are removed. The result is a silky paprika with no bitterness or aftertaste. Paprika chilies are always harvested ripe and resemble miniature sweet bell peppers. They are ground finer than Aleppo and Urfa chilies, but can be stored in the same way.
Spaniards use both sweet paprika and smoked paprika, but even sweet paprika is somewhat smoky. Spanish paprika is smokier and usually not as finely ground as Hungarian paprika, which has a delicate, sweet, and silky texture. It famously lends its flavor to goulash, the Hungarian veal or beef stew made with paprika and sour cream. The peppers grow all over the world, but paprika harvesting is a big industry with strict regulations in Spain, Hungary, and Israel.
I like to use a good paprika to lend rich color to chicken marinades and beef stews. It’s fun to play with Spanish smoked paprika to make pan-fried or broiled steaks taste like they were grilled over charcoal and sweet red pepper sauces taste pleasantly woody and smoky.
For Hungarian-style paprika, try the különleges at www.penzeys.com. For Spanish-style paprika, try the sun-dried paprika in bittersweet or hot or the el ray smoked paprika (very smoky) at www.thespanishtable.com.
RECIPES WITH THREE FAVORITE CHILIES: ALEPPO, URFA, AND PAPRIKA
S
MOKY
E
GGPLANT
P
URÉE WİTH
P
İNE
N
UTS AND
U
RFA
P
EPPER
C
HİCKEN AND
W
ALNUT
P
ÂTÉ WİTH
S
MOKY
P
APRİKA
W
HİPPED
F
ETA WİTH
S
WEET AND
H
OT
P
EPPERS
S
TEAMED
M
USSELS WİTH
L
EEKS AND
S
MOKY
P
APRİKA
H
ARİSSA
: N
ORTH
A
FRİCAN
C
HİLİ
P
ASTE
M
UHAMMARA
: R
ED
P
EPPER AND
W
ALNUT
P
URÉE
S
ALT
C
OD
F
RİTTERS WİTH
R
ED
W
İNE AND
S
WEET
P
EPPERS
V
EAL
T
AGİNE WİTH
M
OROCCAN
S
PİCES AND
A
LMOND
C
OUSCOUS
L
AMB
S
TEAK WİTH
T
URKİSH
S
PİCES AND
M
OUSSAKA
Smoky Eggplant Purée with Pine Nuts and Urfa Pepper
This eggplant preparation is heavenly: I love the combination of creamy, smoky, peppery, and nutty flavors. It’s similar to the traditional Ottoman-style dish served in Turkey called “sultan’s delight”–featuring creamy, smoky eggplant but minus the pine nuts—which is served with bits of stewed lamb.
Turkey contains many cuisines; Ottoman cuisine is the elaborate, refined cooking of Istanbul and the palaces. During the Ottoman Empire, the sultans hired extraordinary chefs, each specializing in one particular dish. Ottoman chefs concocted imaginative and sometimes bizarre-sounding recipes, including kebobs, minuscule ravioli, the priest fainted (stuffed eggplant), ladies’ thighs (battered and fried meatballs with rice), and young girl’s dream (2 scoops of chocolate ice cream with a banana sticking out of the middle). The feasts were served up on hand-hammered silver dishes, still used in the palaces today.
I was inspired to create this recipe after having tasted a similar dish in Cupia, a restaurant in the suburbs of Athens. The chefs at Cupia charred their eggplants over a wood fire and wrapped them in foil to steam until they collapsed. Then they removed the foil tableside, scraping the creamy white eggplant flesh into a bowl and mashing it with thick, garlicky mayonnaise and toasted pine nuts. The finished product, served with fresh pita right out of the wood-fired oven, was to die for.
My version is a cross between sultan’s delight and the outstanding dish I sampled in Greece. I use yogurt instead of heavy mayonnaise, and I boil the eggplant to make preparation easier. I also use a little smoked salt to impart a wood-smoke flavor to the eggplant. You can find smoked salt at www.salttraders.com.
Smoky eggplant puree is a perfect side dish to the Grilled Skirt Steak on page 26 and is wonderful as a mezze with bread or greens. It’s also great served with Braised Beef Short Ribs (page 66) and Spoon Lamb (page 22).
Always choose fresh, healthy eggplants that are firm and shiny. The light purple-skinned variety, or “neon” eggplant, works very well in this recipe, as the flesh is white and creamy, but they are hard to find. Chinese eggplant, which are long and thin and have a light purple color like the neon variety, are delicious too, but they yield less meat and so take more work to prepare. Regular dark-skinned “black bell” eggplants are also fine for this recipe.
M
AKES ABOUT
2½
CUPS TO SERVE
4
TO
6