Margo's Feast

After a seemingly never-ending winter in Chicago and two great hot and sunny months in central and south-eastern Europe I’m back for a second year of cooking and food shopping in Chi-town, among other things. Hopefully the new season will be better than the first, though unfortunately the props are still the same – an almost non-existent kitchen in the hallway and even less counter space. But I smuggled deep round baking trays for holiday pita and banitsa (Bulgarian stuffed filo dough pie) and some Balkan sage and thyme, so there are improvements in the kitchen after all.

I spent half of July and all of August on the Bulgarian sea coast, starting the day with thick slices of tomatoes on buttered toast, continuing with tomatoes and feta salad for lunch, and ending it with more tomatoes and roasted long peppers or eggplants in tomato sauce, or stuffed zucchini with tomatoes, or nibbling cherry tomatoes straight from the vine, or… you get the picture.

The sun ripened tomatoes from my aunt’s garden are the second reason I go back to Bulgaria every summer – the first being my family and friends. The fact that my parents live ten minutes from the sandy beaches of Varna – the best city in the country – is also a big plus.

I’ve never found better tasting tomatoes – heavy, meaty, sweet. Bulgarians are crazy about their tomatoes, and most of them will grow their own in every available plot. August will be dominated by tomato topics such as the prices on the market, a disease threatening the crop or the extinct local varieties.

The pungent sweet fruits will even overshadow yet another cabinet crisis or new corruption scandal and everybody’s weekends will be spent not on the golden beaches, but plucking or watering the mighty tomatoes. Growing, eating and canning tomatoes is our national sport. And though I’ve been living abroad for many years now, I’m more than happy to participate in those late summer games. By September I have tomato juice flowing in my veins instead of blood, and my kids do too – after all, they are half Bulgarian.

Back in Chicago, I got to enjoy the latest crop from my mother-in-law’s back yard. That started my quest on farmers’ markets. I found reasonable tomatoes – not as sweet and aromatic as my aunt’s, but the best so far on this side of the pond – at Lincoln Square’s Tuesday market (on the parking lot by the Western Brown Line El stop). The price, $1 per pound, was also reasonable, and I went home with several varieties – Roma, regular red ones and very tasty yellow globes.

At home I made a colorful salad, adding pear-shaped yellow cherry tomatoes from my mother-in-law’s yard (they grow like crazy till late October). Though basic, it’s a beauty, and could lift your spirits for the whole day. On the market I also got sweet long peppers, so I had to use them too. This salad really depends on the flavor of the tomatoes, so make sure to use really good ones.

Never ever keep tomatoes in the fridge. They have to be eaten at room temperature or you are going to miss a lot of their aroma and sweetness. Choose specimens that are heavy for their size and rather hard, and please do use your nose – they should smell of sun and grass not fish and cardboard. I usually don’t peel them and don’t deseed.

Colorful tomato salad

• 2 red tomatoes
• 2 yellow tomatoes
• 1 handful of cherry or grape tomatoes
• 1 handful of yellow cherry tomatoes or any other crazy looking ones, if you can get some, otherwise more regular ones
• ½ medium red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 long sweet pepper ( I used a banana pepper)
• a few sprigs of garden mint or cilantro (coriander) or basil – chopped
• balsamic or red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil
• salt

Slice the tomatoes as you like – I like country-style chunks, bite size. Slice the pepper into rings. Place all the vegetables in a salad bowl, sprinkle with salt, a little vinegar and a nice splash of olive oil. Mix carefully not to smash the tomatoes too much and sprinkle with the fresh herbs of your choice.

Serve immediately with crusty bread or sourdough baguette to soak up the juices. I, being Bulgarian, will usually add crumbled feta cheese, but the salad is perfect even without it. Eat in the garden or on the porch if you have one, with a cold fruity white wine, to keep the summer for a little bit longer.

___

This one is the ultimate crowd-pleaser no matter whether you are serving it for dinner, during a grill party or from a plastic container at a picnic. I love potatoes in almost any form and several takes on potato salad are on my regular to-do list. The one here is my family’s favorite and I learned to make a lot of it as domestic disturbances often start over the leftovers.

It’s hard to go wrong with this salad, but still there are few rules to be followed to get the best from even this simple combination of ingredients. Rule number one – always choose the smallest potatoes and make sure they are of a uniform size. It’ll cut the cooking time and will let them cook evenly. Rule number two – always cook them with the skin on. This helps preserve the vitamins which are right beneath the skin, and prevents the potatoes from soaking up too much water during cooking and getting mushy. Rule number three – be generous when salting the boiling water – there’s very little to be done to save an under-salted boiled potato. The water should taste like the sea to get it right. And rule number four – use real mayonnaise! With a salad of only a few ingredients, every one of them matters for the final result. So forget for a moment about the upcoming bikini season and go for the real thing – egg yolks, fat and all.

I sometimes add crispy Granny Smith apples for an extra crunch and play with fresh herbs like flat Italian parsley, dill or cilantro (coriander) to add some color.

There is no picture of the salad, because it was devoured too quickly during last Sunday’s end-of-the-academic-year grill party my husband threw for his fellow architecture grad students. It never met with the chicken and hamburgers it was supposed to accompany – I should have kept it in the kitchen until the last moment.

Potato salad

• 4 pounds (2 kg) Russet red potatoes, small to medium, but uniform in size
• 1 big red onion, peeled, cut crosswise and thinly sliced
• 1 cup real mayonnaise
• ¼ cup Dijon mustard
• juice from ½ lemon
• salt, freshly ground black pepper
• 1 bunch flat Italian parsley or dill (optional)

Bring half a large pot of water to a boil. Add enough salt for it to taste like sea water, add the potatoes, skins on, and cook for 10-15 minutes or until a fork goes easily in when pierced. Drain and let cool enough to be able to hold when peeling. The salad will be tastier if made when the potatoes are still warm.

In a small bowl place the onion, sprinkle it with salt and cover with cold water. Let stand 10 minutes, squish and drain – it will take some of the sharpness from the onion. In another bowl mix the mayo, mustard and lemon juice.

Peel the potatoes and cut into big chunks, or thick rounds if using small ones. Taste for salt and add some if needed, but remember that the dressing will be pretty salty from the mustard. Grind the black pepper, add the mayo, onion and optional parsley, and carefully mix the salad to avoid crushing the potatoes too much. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.

___

Easter is quite an event in my family and when it happens in April it becomes really complicated. As an Orthodox Christian, I usually celebrate Easter a week later than most. My “name day” falls on Palm Sunday and when you add my daughter’s name day, my birthday and my wedding anniversary, it gets really messy. All those holidays require a lot of planning, cooking and my favorite – baking. I usually go through several pounds of flour, huge amounts of butter and eggs – and I love it.

This year we had two full-blown Easters, including two rounds of egg coloring, a traditional Polish Easter breakfast, an American egg hunt and – a week later, as the Bulgarian tradition requires – roast leg of lamb, stuffed with rice and fresh herbs. I was in charge of the kozunak – the Bulgarian cousin of Jewish challah bread and French brioche. Though in Bulgaria you can buy it all year round, the Easter one is special and no celebration is complete without this sweet bread, heavy on the eggs and butter, and stuffed with dried fruits and nuts. The butter-vanilla-lemon zest aroma of the kozunak is one that defines this holiday for me, as are the blanched almonds that decorate its top and the eggs done up in psychedelic colors by my kids.

The recipe I have used for more than ten years now is from a cookbook first published in the thirties, which belonged to my grandmother. At first I was quite afraid, as the description and ingredients were very vague, but I was stubborn and wanted to feel that Easter aroma even if there were no almond trees blooming outside our Warsaw apartment. The first year the breads were flat and a little dry, but we ate them anyway. Besides, nobody knew the real thing except me and that was an advantage in my favor.

I was expecting to engage in serious combat with the dough, as I’d heard legends about how hard it is to knead and how long it has to be worked on. To my surprise it was actually easy, and as good a stress reliever as any bread dough. The recipe is for one kilo of flour and this may put some people off, but it’s worth making the whole amount. You can use different stuffings, make one plain and toast it for breakfast like brioche or freeze the extra dough for croissant-shaped rolls for weekend brunches to come.

Ingredients for the basic bread:

• 2.2 pounds (1kg) all-purpose unbleached flour + extra for adding when kneading the dough
• 30-40g (1-1.5 oz fresh yeast or 2 packages of instant yeast
• 6 large eggs
• 2 sticks butter (200gr) butter melted + extra for rolling surface
• 1 ¼ cups milk (250ml), warm
• 1 1/3 cup sugar (dark brown and white mixed)
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp rum or brandy
• 1 egg for egg wash + 1 tbsp of milk
• 1/2 cup blanched almonds
• sugar for sprinkling

Preparation:

Sift the flour in a big mixing bowl and make a well in the middle.

Crumble the fresh yeast, or pour in the dry, into a small bowl with 1/2 cup warm milk, add 1 tbsp sugar and enough flour to make a thin batter. Cover and leave in a warm place until it starts bubbling – about 10-15 minutes depending of the air conditions. Keep an eye on it, as it tends to explode!

Whisk the eggs with the sugar and add the rest of the warm milk, zest, vanilla and rum.

When the yeast is ready, add it to the flour, than the egg mixture and 1/2 tsp salt. Start making the dough adding the melted butter little by little or dipping your hands in it (that’s how I do it) and working the dough until all the butter is incorporated. When kneading the dough instead of pushing, pull and stretch it on the side of the bowl and then roll it into a ball and stretch again until it’s smooth, doesn’t stick to the walls of the bowl and little bubbles appear on the surface. Add some extra flour while kneading if the dough is too sticky. Form a ball, place it in a buttered bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and put in a warm, draft free place to rise – until double its size (around 1 hour). Or place it on a floured wooden board and cover with a big glass bowl like for the pizza dough.

Preheat the oven to 375°F (200°C).

The amount is enough for several loaves depending on the sheets and pans you are going to use. Pull three equal dough balls, roll them into logs on a buttered surface and make a braid, place on a baking sheet or cake pan lined with parchment. Leave it to rise again covered with a clean moistened towel. When it doubles in size, brush with the egg wash, push some almonds into the top and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden brown and a tester comes out clean – 20-30 minutes. Take out before it has cooled completely.

Kozunak can be stored in an airtight container, but is best eaten fast.

You can also make a roll with the dough. Roll 1/3 of the dough into a square around 1cm (half inch) thick. Mix one jar of jam of your liking (mine is fig) with handful of chopped walnuts and the same amount of raisins, dried cranberries or cherries, and spread over the dough, leaving 1cm free on the edges. Roll it and place into a cake form to rise. Brush with the egg wash, place almonds and sprinkle with sugar, then bake as before.

You can make little croissants, either plane or with sweet stuffing like for the roll. After shaping them, place on a baking sheet, leave to rise and do as before (skip the almonds). Or you can stuff them with a mix of ½ pound crumbled feta and one big egg for about ¼ of the dough. Those are the ones my kids fight for – often with me.

___