Lubia bi Zait (Middle Eastern Green Beans)

      Green beans, sauteed onions and juicy tomatoes make beautiful music as solitary notes of garlic and lemon juice ply us to the table. Yes, it's all healthy and hearty, but it's the crunchy squares of fried pita bread nestled in tangy labneh garnishing the top that sets my fork to tapping. 

      Lubia (green beans) bi Zait (in oil) is something of a green bean stew indigenous to the Levant (Lebanon, Jordan, Syria). Soumaya, our Lebanese friend, called this a common family dish and would also add browned ground beef to make a meal of it. (Labneh is a thickened yogurt product similar in thickness to sour cream but much more tart. Plain Greek yogurt will do the trick!)

Lubia bil Zeit

1 pound fresh green beans, trimmed of stems
3 large ripe tomatoes diced or 1 large can of crushed tomatoes
2 medium onions, slivered
4 cloves of garlic crushed
4 tbs olive oil
2 tbs lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
3 loaves pita bread, cut in 1 inch squares
1/4 cup oil for frying

-Heat oil in a large saucepan, add onions and fry till soft and golden.  Add garlic and beans. Keep frying on low heat for 15 minutes, or till the beans start to soften. Add the tomatoes, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low heat for 45 minutes. 

-Meanwhile, heat 1/4 cup oil in another skillet.  Add pita bread squares and fry turning frequently until they are browned and golden.  Set aside.

-Serve beans warm or at room temperature, topped with thickened yogurt (Greek style) and garnished with pita croutons.  Serves 6 - 8.

Veitshochheim Summer Salad (a Trio of German Salads)

Veitshochheim Summer Salad:

      A meal fit for a king, lounging about his summer residence, I dare you to say the name 3 times quickly with a mouth full of cabbage.  The name of this dish comes by way of a memory of a beautiful summer day and a boat ride down the Main River to the summer residence of the wealthy ruling Prince-Bishops of the 18th century, near Wurzburg in Northern Bavaria. 

     Salads in our German days, were simple and light composed of fresh leaf lettuce, grated carrots and mild, smoky pimento dressed sparingly with vinegar and oil.  Kartoffelsalat, (potato salad) most often served with wurst (sausage) of various hues and sizes, was dressed with vinegar, mustard seed and speck (bacon). I personally appreciated more than just a speck of bacon in my serving!

     The following version uses bratwurst instead of the bacon, as a tribute to the street food served in the market square of Wurzburg - Bratwurst mit brochen. I grilled the bratwurst and then roughly chopped it.  Serve bratwurst with caution - you can put an eye out with one of those things as I learned when turning around into one at the Christkindlmarkt in Nurnberg. 

      The preparation of the four different salads certainly binds you to the kitchen for prep but once chopped and seasoned, you have a meal and little else need be done. The result is a German Salad Supper, a complete meal though meat lovers among you may appreciate some grilled bratwurst on the side, served with mustard in warm crusty rolls (brotchen). The tomato salad speaks with a vinegar twang tempered by the sweet nature of the balsamic vinegar. The cucumbers have a tart bite spiked with dill and the potato salad and cabbage slaw, as you would expect are of the vinegar persuasion but which make a surprisingly respectable showing. (Notice-no mayo here which is sacrilege in my kitchen but typical of southern Germany).  Besides creating a platter of popping colors and textures that shout summer and all things fresh, the salads combine on the palate to complement each other with bold fresh flavors and undercurrents of sweet and tangy accents.

   

Cabbage Slaw (Krautsalat):

1 cabbage, cored and shredded

3-4 green onions, thinly sliced

1/2 red pepper, diced

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup vinegar

1 1/2 tsp. celery seed

3/4 cup canola oil

1 1/2 tsp. salt

-Place cabbage, red pepper and green onion in 

large bowl.  

-In small saucepan, combine sugar and vinegar. 

Bring to a boil and stir until sugar dissolves.  Add

celery seed, salt and oil and heat for 2 minutes.

-Let dressing cool for 5 - 10 minutes.  Pour over

cabbage and toss.  Season with coarsly ground

pepper.

-Serves 8 - 10

Potato Salad (Kartoffelsalat):

4 medium potatoes

1 onion, peeled and quartered

1 bratwurst, grilled and roughly chopped

       (or 4 slices bacon, fried crisp and crumbled)

1 tab. sugar

3/4 cup vinegar

1/2 cup chopped green onions

1 tab. mustard seed

1/4 cup oil

salt and pepper to taste

2 tab. chopped parsley

-Boil unpeeled potatoes in large pot of salted 

boiling water, with quartered onion, until potatoes

are tender when pierced with a fork.  Remove 

from heat and set aside until cool enough to handle. 

Peel potatoes and cut into 3/4 inch chunks.  Place 

in large bowl.

-Add green onions and bratwurst to potatoes.

-In medium saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar,

mustard seed, salt and pepper to taste.  Bring to 

a boil.  Remove from heat and slowly pour in 

oil.  Continue to cook over heat another 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and let sit 5 minutes.

-Pour dressing over warm potatoes, toss and

season with salt and pepper.  Stir in parsley.

-Serves 6 - 8

German Cucumber Salad (Gurkensalat):

2 English cucumbers, peeled and thinly sliced

    (you may leave the peel on if you prefer)

1/2 cup sour cream

1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

1 1/2 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. fresh dill, finely chopped

salt and pepper to taste

-Place cucumber slices into medium bowl.  Chill while 

making dressing.

-In separate bowl, mix sour cream, lemon juice, sugar and dill.  

Season with salt and pepper.

-Pour dressing over cucumber and mix.  Serve immediately.

-Serves 4 - 6

Tomato Salad (Tomatensalat):

4 large tomatoes

1 bunch green onions

1/2 small yellow onion, finely chopped

2 tab. balsamic vinegar

2 tab. orange juice

5 tab. olive oil

1 tsp. sugar

salt and pepper to taste

-Wash tomatoes and cut into wedges.  Cut green onions

diagonally into 1 inch pieces.

 

-Mix chopped yellow onion, vinegar, orange juice and oil.  Season 

with salt, pepper and sugar.
 

-Place tomatoes and green onions into bowl and pour dressing 

over and toss.
 

-Serves 6

 

To Assemble German Salad Supper:
 

On a large open platter, mound potato salad in the center

(it is the star of the meal!) Place 3 large lettuce cups 

around the edges of the potato salad to act as containers 

for the other salads.  In one, mound the tomato salad, in 

another the cucumber salad and in the third, the cole slaw.  

Garnish with dill sprigs and strips of fresh red pepper.  

Chill for about 20 minutes before serving.

Tunisian Salad

Tunisian Salad

     My mother said Sabiha, our "bonne", watered down the dish-detergent, my mother-in-law said she stole her mumu, my husband said please don’t let her cook, but I did anyway, one night each week. The dishes were always interesting – cous-cous sewn up in sheep stomach for example, and often delicious – Tajin Malsouka (see the recipe on this blog) a more appetizing example.  

      Among the less exotic, entrail-entailed, was Tunisian Salad, which my mother in-law as well as husband grudgingly noted as one of Sabiha’s talents, and forgave her her thievery.  Most often, a dish prepared from emerald green peppers, meaty tomatoes, onion and garlic (never dried but purchased fresh on the stock with soft purplish skins), the addition of olives, tuna and boiled eggs, elevate this salad to a meal. French baquette is the utensil used to sop up the salad and to this day I must eat salad dressed with vinaigrette with crusty French bread. When the basic ingredients didn’t volunteer themselves in the kitchen, Sabiha scoured the flower garden for leaves that spoke to her of digestion.  Though hesitant and wondering if she had any axes to grind with me, I found that the UFV was delicious.  

      I have searched the gardens of my various homes in the years since, for the same leaf but I thought it must be a uniquely Tunisian citizen.  In my current home however, I discovered it one day growing happily and abundantly among my potted plants - purslane - considered a weed in the U.S. it is commonly used in other cuisines - including mine, now that I know where to find it!  It is mildly peppery and salty, a flavor akin to spinach and just what Tunisian Salad requires.

 

      In Tunis, I quickly learned the words for survival at the produce stand from my husband the linguist, chief among them “piquant”  for hot and "doux' for mild.  The boxes of emerald jewel peppers all looked the same to me, varying only in shape and the vegetable merchants, hoping the Americans would shop another day, kept their axes unground if they had any, by directing me to the milder varieties.  Sabiha taught me to roast veggies on the flame of the gas burner and peel the scorched skins to create Salata Mechouia,  first cousin to Salata Tunsia. The smokiness of the roasted vegetables velvetized with olive oil and lemon juice became my favorite but I was always happy to be in control of how much "piquant" pepper was used!

Salata Tunsia  (Tunisian Salad)  
4 large roma or plum tomatoes, chopped
2 large sweet green peppers, chopped
1 small hot green pepper, finely chopped
1/2 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 eggs, hard-boiled and quartered lengthwise
1 tab. tabil (see recipe http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/tabil-spice-mix)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tab. fresh lemon juice
1 can light chunk tuna or albacore, drained
10 - 15 mediteranean type olives
Romaine lettuce leaves

-In medium bowl, combine tomatoes, peppers, onion and garlic.  Sprinkle lightly with salt and allow to sit for 15 minutes.  Drain excess liquid from vegetables.  In a small bowl, mix tabil, olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper.  Pour over vegetables and toss.  Chill for 30 minutes.  On a serving platter, arrange romaine lettuce leaves.  Mound vegetable mixture on the leaves, then top with tuna chunks.  Arrange eggs and olives around edges.  Drizzle with additional olive oil and sprinkle with paprika or sumac.  Serve with a fresh, crusty baguette.  Serves 4 - 6.