Thursday, August 27, 2015

Israeli Street Tacos

Fusion... usually code for "Nothing looks good so lets throw it all together and hope for the best"... Not this time folks! See I love Israeli food, and I love Mexican food. What's better than combining them?!

This may take some effort but I assure you it's well worth it....

Ingredients:

Olive Oil
a few springs of Thyme
1 Garlic Bulb
Green onions
1 lemon
salt/pepper
Parsley (flat leaf preferably but any will be fine)
Mint
Dill
Cilantro
ground Beef (try to go decent quality and around an 85/15 fat content)
1 cup chicken stock
1 sweet onion
a scant cup of bread crumbs (I just toasted some left over garlic bread and broke it down in a spice grinder)
cumin
capers
1 egg
Baharat (don't worry, recipe for that follows)
- 1 tsp black peppercorn
- 1 tsp coriander seed (I like a touch extra in mine)
- 1 small cinnamon stick, smashed into smaller pieces
- 4-5 whole cloves
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 2 tsp cumin seeds (again, I like more cumin, it's my favorite spice)
- 4 cardamom pods
- 1/2 nutmeg, grated

Naan bread
Greek yogurt
fresh diced tomato
Extra cilantro and mint



Instructions:

In a dry pan on mid heat put in all the baharat spices. Heat until you start to smell the aromatics release. It'll smell heavenly. Like a savory Christmas smell.

Put them in a spice grinder and let her rip!

In a bowl put ground beef, egg, baharat mix, bread crumbs, shredded or finely diced sweet onion, capers (chop them up if any bigger than a small corn kernel), cumin, and garlic cloves (finely diced up).

I like to use an Ulu for herbs. It's a traditional Alaskan knife used with a bowl or alone. They're extremely sharp and quite lovely. If you don't have that, put your herbs in a small cup and use kitchen scissors to give it a good mix and chop.

Add about 3/4 of your herbs along with salt and pepper to taste to your meat mixture and mix up well. Ball it up yo! About quarter sized balls are good. I put mine in a hotter than hell cast iron pan with a touch of oil and brown the outside, then add 1/2 - 1 cup of chicken stock, and put in an oven at 300 for about 20 minutes or until they're cooked and most of the liquid cooks out.

Grab some naan and toast or bake it to warm. I like the small naan breads myself. I'd tell you I make it from scratch but I have yet to find a good recipe that doesn't turn out terrible for me.

Mix some of your Greek yogurt with your remaining herbs, a touch of salt, and lemon juice.

Spread the yogurt mixture on your naan, smash up some meatballs on there, add your tomatoes, and sprinkle on some cilantro, green onions, and mint.

We like to add a bit of edamame for some green in there. That one is up to you.

So good... really... sooooo good!