Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
B’stila, bstila, pastilla, bisteeya . . . aw, whatever
Karen and I tasted our first b’stila at a Moroccan restaurant in Palo Alto. Know what I remember from that meal?
- The bellydancer
- B’stila
- The funky way they pour coffee at Moroccan restaurants
- Stuffing dollar bills into the bellydancer’s skirt
- The bellydancer
As you can plainly see, the b’stila made a powerful impression. What an amazing blend of sensations: crispy fillo, savory chicken, sweet almonds, satiny egg. If I could have eaten it off the bellydancer’s belly, my life would have been complete.
It took me a few years to try this on my own. Is it difficult? Naw. Is it time-consuming? Oh hell yeah. Anything involving fillo is time-consuming. Is it worth it? I think so.
For tonight’s b’stila, bisteeya, pastilla, whatever, I adapted this recipe from The Traveler’s Lunchbox (thanks, May!) Melissa gives her sources, and my God, does that woman have one ass-whomping cookbook library. Makes my cookbook library want to run off into the broom closet, tail between it’s imaginary legs.
Here’s the result. Notes below the cut.
1. For the chicken, I used half of a roast chicken leftover from yesterday’s dinner. It’s my usual saltwater chicken recipe. When I make saltwater chicken, I always save the run-off juices. These separate out, giving me an intense chicken broth (1/3 cup) and a fatty layer, which is a flavorful mixture of butter, olive oil, and chicken fat.
2. I picked my half-chicken clean and diced it into 1 cm cubes, more or less. No simmering necessary; leftover saltwater chicken is moist and tender as is.
3. Nevertheless, I wanted my egg mixture to be as close to Melissa’s as possible, so I combined the broth with 2/3 cup of water and simmered it with the spices she lists. Next, I made the egg mixture as per her instructions, stirring constantly until I had a thick porridge. As this cooled, it gave up some additional water. I poured this off.
4. I added a teaspoon of salt to her almond mixture. Big mistake leaving out the salt, in my opinion. You will still have the sweet/savory contrast, and the almonds are that much yummier. Also, I cheated and used a food processor to deal with the almonds.
5. I used the run-off fat from the saltwater chicken (see #1 above) to brush the fillo layers. Maybe not such a good idea. Butter is traditional, but I was curious to see if the chicken fat/olive oil/butter combo would yield a more complex b’stila. Result: eh, maybe, but it took much longer to brown — twice as long as Michelle’s recipe suggests.
6. Accompaniments? I made a radicchio salad with mango, dried cranberries, toasted pecans, yogurt cheese*, and a lemon juice/white wine vinegar/olive oil vinaigrette. Quite tasty.
That’s it for this evening. I have to do a bit of research to write a goofy scene folks will either love or hate. See ya on Father’s Day!
D.
*Yogurt cheese: dead easy. Combine two cups of yogurt (the fattier the better — I used whole milk yogurt) and one teaspoon of salt. Stir well. Load it into two or three layers of cheesecloth, tie up the cheesecloth, and hang it over a bowl. Let it dry like that for 24 hours.
Spoon out walnut sized lumps of cheese and sprinkle with ground black pepper and minced fresh herbs (I used oregano, thyme, and sage). Pour a bit of olive oil over the cheese balls and refrigerate. The result tastes a lot like cream cheese but with a creamier texture.
I have one cookbook. A raggedy one that I bought 15+ years ago and rarely ever use. Oh, but I have a Bartender’s Bible. Anyway – we’re supposed to have books?
I can’t keep all those recipes in my head!
Yorkshire pudding, for example. Nothing tastier than batter fried in beef fat and bloody drippings, but I can never remember how much flour, how much salt, eggs, etc. New York Times Cookbook to the rescue.
The only thing I have memorized is my beloved focaccia 😉
Doug, I don’t know whether I should be thanking, or cursing you for this. I haven’t had b’steela (sp?) in…well…..decades. And once again, you’ve provided me with a thoroughly addicting link (The traveller’s Lunchbox) *sigh* my productivity goes further down the tubes. Thank you again 🙂
I’ve had a look at my receipt. You start by simmering the pigeons (whole) for about 1 1/2 hours (or, as we Brits say, cook them like you would any vegetable). The eggs get beaten and then cooked very slowly with the cooking liquid from the pigeons until they become creamy, then you fry the almonds in oil (or, as the Scots say, cook them as you would almost anything), crush those nuts, mix them with the eggy mess, and then make up your filo pie, with a thin layer of filo halfway through, presumably for structural integrity. Bake for 45 minutes at 180C/350F then for a final 15 at 200/400.
Obviously there’s lots of flavouring details missed out from that description, but you should get an idea of the basic chemistry.
I also have a receipts for Squabs Cortez, pigeons in chocolate and Strathspey Pigeons, pigeons in whisky. I haven’t tried either.
The vaguely bistela-like Phoenix Pie from the same book appears to involve turkey rather than phoenix…
You’re welcome. 🙂
Here’s another cookbook collection to be jealous of, Doug.
O. M. G.
(aside: anyone know how to get drool out of a keyboard?)
Heh. Our fave Greek restaurant in San Antonio had belly dancers every Thursday & Friday evening. Possibly not coincidentally, about that time our family going-out-to-dinner-night was Thursday. 😉
It looks delicious, and I’m sure I’ll get to try it soon.
On the topic of cookbooks, my late ex-mother-in-law had a wall of bookshelves in her kitchen, 9′ high, 20′ long. All cookbooks. And she’d read every one of them. She read cookbooks the way I read sci fi.
Beard, whatever you do, don’t check out the new links I’ve listed under Food! I spent a couple hours last night reading Waiter Rant — that guy can write.
Alas, no pigeons here, Stephen. As for the eggs, it sounds like you and I are doing the same thing to cook them. The result isn’t very custardy. I wonder whether it’s possible to cook a custard in fillo and have it cook appropriately without making the fillo soggy. Hm.
May, I am NOT going to click on that link. I spend too much money on books as it is.
Darla — ack! You mean there was bellydancing in San Antonio and we missed it? Dammittohell.
sxKitten, let us know how it goes.
Dang.
But even Justine Larbalestier links to the Amateur Gourmet–he’s got a book coming out next year, in fact.
And have you met the Food Whore yet?
The Food Whore . . . why didn’t I ever think of that!?
Doug, too late, I spent about 3 hours reading “The Waiters Rant” the other night, I think it was posted on FireDogLake. Oh, and regarding that bookcase in May’s link….I should take a picture of mine sometime. It’s not as big as sxKitten’s MIL’s collection, but it’s about 140 books, not counting the collections from things like the Rochester Symphony Orchestra, and the Unitarian Ladies League. And yes, people should read Julia Child for pleasure (I took 7 of her books with me camping for a week, and read them while in the river with happily iced bourbon) (There’s more of a story there, but well….it might scare you)
[…] In honor of Doug’s Bisteeya. Yes, that was weeks ago, but he made me do an easy recipes TT during that time. […]