A great summer side dish: Cold zucchini salad and Surviving the Chagim!

I realize that I have not given you any really good, cold, summer side dishes, so here is my new favorite:  Cold Zucchini Salad! 

I had the pleasure of tasting and then learning how to prepare this dish at the hands of its ‘father’, the up and coming young chef: Shlomo Weinglass.  Shlomo is the chef at Morgens Café in Jerusalem.  We were fortunate enough to taste all of Shlomo’s yummy food when we recently spent a wonderful Shabbat at his parent’s home in Nokdim. Every dish was scrumptious and, well finger-licking, but as is many things in life, not always beneficial to a diet.  This cold salad, however, is both delicious and points-friendly!

Shlomo has kindly given me permission to include his recipe in my blog.

By the way, we also had a great meal at Morgens Café – a great milchicks restaurant in my favorite part of Jerusalem - Emek Refaim.  Wonderful!

Back to the salad: This a great summer salad and with Rosh Ha’Shana just around the corner (gulp!), this is an appealing salad to serve for Chag!  This cold salad is fast and easy to prepare – what more could you ask for?

Shlomo’s Cold Zucchini Salad

Ingredients:

·        Zucchini, sliced on the diagonal (for more information and explanations on how to cut vegetables, including the French names for each of these cutting techniques, see below *)

·        Onion

·        Fresh mushrooms

·        Balsamic vinegar/soy sauce

·        Lemon juice

·        2-3 cloves of garlic (or more)

·        Kosher salt

·        Parsley

·        Pepper

·        Olive oil (for taste only)

·        Grilling pan with grooves

·        PAM

What to do:

·        I use the greenest, longest and most firm zucchinis I can find.  Four large zucchinis made enough salad for about six two-tablespoon portions.

·        Slice the zucchini on a diagonal.  Slices should be thin, but not paper thin.  Do not peel the zucchini – first of all because there is never a need to do this and secondly, the peel helps keep the vegetable “together” during cooking.

·        During the cooking process, you cannot leave this dish unattended, it needs to be watched at all times!  I recommend you prepare this dish either before you cook other dishes or once you have finished cooking all your other dishes.  You can definitely prepare this dish a day in advance, it will only improve the taste!

·        Cut all the zucchini before you begin to cook.

·        Put your grilling pan with the grooves on the stove and turn the burner on high.  I use my middle, largest burner, so I get a good even heat throughout the pan.  Spritz with PAM.  I recommend you use the olive oil flavored PAM for this dish.

·        Once the pan is HOT, add a single layer of zucchini.  The zucchini should not overlap – each piece should be exposed to the groves of the pan. You should hear the sizzle!

·        Once the vegetable starts to turn a bit translucent/golden around the edges, turn over one piece to see if that side is browned by the groove marks.  If it is, turn over the entire batch. 

As the pan gets hotter, cooking time with quicken.  But be careful – you do not want to overcook these slices!  You can turn the slices over a third time if you need to.

If the pan gets too dry the slices will burn, so spritz the pan every so often.

A slice is considered done when it is golden brown, browned by the grooves and a bit translucent. Never soggy or overdone.

·        Once all the slices are done, remove them to a large metal bowl. 

·        Next begin to prepare all the rest of the ingredients to add to the bowl.

·        Thinly slice onions and mushrooms and add to the bowl. One medium to large onion and a half to three-quarters of a container of fresh mushrooms should be sufficient for this dish.  You can increase or decrease these amounts depending on how much you love/loathe onions and mushrooms.  Actually if you loathe mushrooms, this is not a dish for you, sorry dear!

·        Peel two to three cloves of garlic and either chop finely or put through a garlic press. I love garlic, so I add about five or six fat cloves.  I also like to see the garlic pieces in my salad.  Add the garlic to the bowl.

·        Finely chop parsley and add to the bowl.

·        Add about a cap and a half (about a tablespoon and a half) of lemon juice.  Yes, I used bottled lemon juice, but it was a great brand!

·        Add about a tablespoon and a half of balsamic vinegar.  I also added about half a tablespoon of soy sauce.

·        Add in freshly ground pepper.  I omitted the salt, since I added soy sauce to the dish. 

·        Add about a tablespoon of olive oil.  Again, I omitted the olive oil and added a spritz or two of PAM olive oil.

·        Mix well, but gently.  Transfer to a plastic container with a lid and put in the fridge. 

·        Shake this dish in the plastic container before serving.  This dish tastes great right away and will taste even better the next day!

Portion size:

Two tablespoons is one serving.

How to store:

Always store in a closed plastic container in the fridge. 

Be’Tay a’Von!

* How to cut vegetables: Follow these links to learn how to cut vegetables:

 http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Formal-Vegetable-Cuts

http://www.lhj.com/recipes/easy/cut-vegetables/

Surviving the Chagim!

Well, they are finally here, almost here: the CHAGIM.  Big as life and lasting F-O-R-E-V-E-R!  I do not have to tell you that this year, Rosh Ha’Shana is THREE DAYS LONG!

 

As far as I am concerned it is four days long: lasting from Erev Chag on Wednesday all the way through to Motzei Shabbat.  Then we have Yom Kippur on a Shabbat – which is psychologically insane for me – it’s something about fasting on Shabbat that does me in.  Then Succot – oh, I don’t even want to think about that.  So let’s just start with one chag at a time.

How can we survive Rosh Ha’Shana?  Eating tuna sandwiches and carrot sticks for four days comes to mind.  But let’s get real. We have six meals to survive.  You can plan to eat just a “little” of each of the goodies during each of those meals.  If that works for you – more power to you.  I prefer to work on the “one on-one off” method – that is I will eat one traditional meal and enjoy it (almost to the fullest) and then at the next meal I will eat better, more points-friendly choices and in the correct proportions. 

I have to say that in the past, during Rosh Ha’Shana in our house, honey was considered a beverage.  I kid you not.  So this year, alongside the traditional favorites: gefilte fish, honey with apple, challah with honey, honey with honey, heavy meats and kugels; I will also make skinless chicken and light salads. One good old fashioned-heavy meal then one lighter meal.  And somehow we will get through this chag – just in time for the next one!

Shana Tova and Chag Sameach!