the nut mixture.
6. In a small saucepan, cook the sugar with the honey to 240°F on a candy thermometer.Immediately pour this mixture into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients and stir quickly to moisten. The mixture gets stiff very quickly and will become difficult to stir. Press the mixture evenly into the prepared pan. If the mixture gets too sticky, try wetting your fingers.
7. Lower the oven to 300°F and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until it bubbles around the edges. It shouldn’t brown.
8. When completely cooled, invert the panforte onto a serving plate or cutting board. Dust it generously with confectioners’ sugar.
3
S UMAC , C İTRUS, AND F ENNEL S EED
Tangy and bright, the flavors of sumac and citrus are interchangeable. Fennel seed, which is both savory and sweet, is a great companion and warms up citrus flavors. This spice group works best with fish, shellfish, and in salads. However, citrus notes and warm fennel flavor go well with almost anything.
S UMAC
Sumac is the edible round berry from a tree related to the mango. There are many species of sumac, and some of them are poisonous, so I do not recommend foraging for your own unless you are sure of the species.
Sumac berries grow in cone-shaped clusters and turn from dark pink to crimson as they ripen. The berries are about the size of a peppercorn, have a thin outer skin, and the flesh surrounds an extremely hard seed. Sumac is usually sold coarsely ground and slightly moist. Its aroma is fruity, and its flavor is tangy and somewhat salty, as sumac processors use salt to preserve it. Powdered sumac adds a beautiful purple color and a bright, lemony flavor to a dish. In fact, you can season food with sumac as you would lemon or vinegar. In the past, Arabic cooks used sumac when lemons were out of season or not available.
Sumac is excellent sprinkled on grilled fish, on chicken before roasting, on avocados, or in salads with cucumbers and tomatoes. I love it tossed with sliced raw onion and eaten with grilled meat. It’s also excellent when mixed with other flavors like lime or orange and fennel (see Fish Spice, page 75). You can find sumac at www.tulumba.com, an online Turkish megastore.
C İTRUS
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
6. In a small saucepan, cook the sugar with the honey to 240°F on a candy thermometer.Immediately pour this mixture into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients and stir quickly to moisten. The mixture gets stiff very quickly and will become difficult to stir. Press the mixture evenly into the prepared pan. If the mixture gets too sticky, try wetting your fingers.
7. Lower the oven to 300°F and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until it bubbles around the edges. It shouldn’t brown.
8. When completely cooled, invert the panforte onto a serving plate or cutting board. Dust it generously with confectioners’ sugar.
3
S UMAC , C İTRUS, AND F ENNEL S EED
Tangy and bright, the flavors of sumac and citrus are interchangeable. Fennel seed, which is both savory and sweet, is a great companion and warms up citrus flavors. This spice group works best with fish, shellfish, and in salads. However, citrus notes and warm fennel flavor go well with almost anything.
S UMAC
Sumac is the edible round berry from a tree related to the mango. There are many species of sumac, and some of them are poisonous, so I do not recommend foraging for your own unless you are sure of the species.
Sumac berries grow in cone-shaped clusters and turn from dark pink to crimson as they ripen. The berries are about the size of a peppercorn, have a thin outer skin, and the flesh surrounds an extremely hard seed. Sumac is usually sold coarsely ground and slightly moist. Its aroma is fruity, and its flavor is tangy and somewhat salty, as sumac processors use salt to preserve it. Powdered sumac adds a beautiful purple color and a bright, lemony flavor to a dish. In fact, you can season food with sumac as you would lemon or vinegar. In the past, Arabic cooks used sumac when lemons were out of season or not available.
Sumac is excellent sprinkled on grilled fish, on chicken before roasting, on avocados, or in salads with cucumbers and tomatoes. I love it tossed with sliced raw onion and eaten with grilled meat. It’s also excellent when mixed with other flavors like lime or orange and fennel (see Fish Spice, page 75). You can find sumac at www.tulumba.com, an online Turkish megastore.
C İTRUS
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
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