Kofte

Serve with pita, spicy olive oil, roasted tomatoes and homemade chips.

Ingredients

Ground beef

Flat-leaf parsley

Salt

Pepper

Grated red onion

Garlic

Instructions

This is pretty simple. Mix ingredients in a bowl. Season as if you are preparing hamburgers, and then add a couple tablespoons of parsley, red onion, and maybe a tablespoon of chopped garlic.

Lightly shape meat around a skewer until it forms what looks like a hot dog. Don't press meat too hard or it will get tough. Now just grill over high heat until done to your likeness.

Orecchiette

This type of hand-made pasta is denser than gnocchi, and not made from potato. The indentation made in each piece, as with gnocchi, ensures even cooking and makes them look like little ears.

Ingredients

1 C semolina flour

2 C unbleached flour

1/4 t salt

3/4 C lukewarm water

Instructions

Combine the semolina, unbleached flour and salt, and mound it a bowl and pour in 3 - 4 Tbls. water. Mix until the flour has absorbed as much water as possible without becoming hard or dry - not at all sticky. Knead vigorously until the dough is smooth and elastic. This may take 20 minutes. Form the dough into a ball and cover.

To make the 'little ears', pull off a handful of the dough (keep the rest of the dough covered). On a lightly floured board, roll the dough into a rope about 3/4 inch in diameter. Cut the rope into slices no more than 1/8 inch thick to form small circles of dough. Now put one of these circles into the cupped palm of your hand and, with the thumb of the other hand, press and turn the circle at the same time to form a dent in the center that will spread the dough a little on each side. It should look like a small ear, with slightly thicker ear lobes. Repeat with all of the remaining dough, placing the orecchiette on a lightly floured cloth as they are made.

The orecchiette are cooked in the same manner as fresh flour and egg pasta, although they take longer. Watch them carefully and taste frequently for doneness.

Ka'yek

There's more to middle eastern bread than pita.

Ingredients

1 pkg yeast

3/4 cup warm water

3/4 cup warm milk

1 T sugar

1/2 T salt + 1 T olive oil

3 1/4 cup flour

egg

Instructions

Dissolve yeast in warm large bowl. Stir in milk, sugar, salt, oil and 3 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. Turn dough onto generously floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover; let rise in warm place until double, about 50 minutes. Punch dough down to release the gas, gather again and let it rest for the second time till doubled. Let the dough rest for a couple of hours or even more... divide to 8 equal parts.

You have several options for shaping the dough. You can either shape the dough into large rings or smaller loaves (resembling hamburger buns). To form a ring roll each piece of dough into a long snake several inches wide and press the ends together firmly to create a circle or oval loaf with a whole in the center.

Beat egg and 2 teaspoons water with fork. Brush each ring with egg mixture and sprinkle generously with sesame seeds. Place loaves, sesame seed side up, on parchment paper. Cover loosely; let rise until double, about 30 - 1 hour. Cover with plastic to keep them moist.

Heat oven to 450F . When the oven is ready, lower the heat to 400F . Bake the Ka'yek for 20 to 25 mimutes or until golden brown and puffed.