THE COOKBOOK TEST #0033: ZAYTINYA
INSTALLMENT #0033 (PAID) HEROISM / THE GREATEST HITS / BROKEN CRAB CAKES / DANCE OF THE MANTI
Dear Subscribers,
As an excessively skeptical, well-read, relentlessly informed man of the world, I have very few heroes. Not many people live up to their hype, and a share of even those have massive skeletons in their closets that make it harder to enjoy their good qualities.
I think my working list looks like this: Kurt Vonnegut. Absolutely killer novelist and a remarkably humane and gentle person. [1] George Washington. I got deep into his life (and personal letters) for a book project, and he was an incredibly decent person who held together an incredibly dangerous and difficult enterprise through sheer force of will and personal humility. Malcolm X, who fought fearlessly for the noblest of causes and kept evolving as he did so. (I read his autobiography in fifth grade which might have been a little beyond me at the time, but it made a lifelong impression.) Julia Child, who was just magical combination of talent, humor, ambition, culinary genius and overall wisdom.
And the chef/humanitarian José Andrés, author of this week's restaurant cookbook ZAYTINYA, also makes the cut. There is an absolutely sacred aspect to the concept of hospitality, and Andrés extends it to its logical conclusion: feeding good food to people in need, wherever they may be, who are suffering the worst circumstances imaginable.
My kids divide their personal money between "spend," "save," and "give" piles, and they've both given a lot of their discretionary cash to World Central Kitchen - partially at my recommendation, partially because the group's story is so current and so compelling right now. The Israeli airstrikes that killed WCK workers just broke my heart - not that it wasn't already broken by the terrible nature of that conflict, but it just put a fine line under exactly how cruel human beings can be to one another when the stakes seem high enough.
I reviewed the WCK cookbook for a much earlier edition of THE COOKBOOK TEST, but I thought it would be interesting to engage with Zaytinya, too - it's Andrés in a more natural environment for him, and I've actually eaten at the restaurant - about 20 years ago, while visiting a dear friend in D.C. To my memory, the place was just excellent, and I'd love to return.
at your service,
James
ZAYTINYA: DELICIOUS MEDITERRANEAN DISHES FROM GREECE, TURKEY, AND LEBANON
BY JOSE ANDRES WITH MICHAEL COSTA
ECCO | 2024 | $45
The first thing I'll say about Zaytinya is that it doesn't suffer too terribly from restaurant cookbook-itis. It's not stuffed with utterly arcane dishes you can't hope to cook, each of which is hobbled with three or four equally involved sub-recipes for sauces or garnishes that you'll only use once. The book has an eye for beauty and (consequently) for plating, so the reader is expected to step it up a little bit from a weeknight supper, but nothing seems excessive or sadistic.
Its recipes are regional standards, a little bit to a fault - if you're familiar with this side of the Mediterranean and were hoping to learn something new, Maydan or The Turkish Cookbook would be much better bets. Zaytinya is mostly a collection of the area's greatest culinary hits, from toum to beet salad to stuffed grape leaves. There's nothing wrong with that - while it won't to wow the hardcore nerd, it'll be accessible and intriguing to anyone who has spent any time in that part of the world or who just enjoys a seriously good Mediterranean restaurant. (For my part: I've been to Israel twice, Jordan, and the West Bank, so this sort of food is pretty close to my heart.)
Zaytinya's contextual writing is clear and helpful, the recipes are edited appropriately (detailed, but not overwhelmingly so; accessible, but not bastardized) and it's a well-wrought, thoughtfully considered book as a whole.
Now - to the kitchen!
BROKEN CRAB CAKES
How much of a problem is it when a cookbook recipe is broken - but easily fixable? When the ingredient is a $50 can of lump crab meat, it's not a trifling affair - a less experienced cook might attempt this recipe, watch it founder, and surrender to despair.
The problem: Zaytinya's recipe for East Coast crab cakes with a Greek twist makes a pan full of really delicious-looking and delicious-tasting crab cakes that basically explode when you try to flip them. And while crab hash isn't useless, it's not exactly what's promised by this particular method.
The solution: adding a couple of eggs to the crab cake batter fixes everything. Suddenly the explosively unstable discs of crab hang together tenaciously and flip easily. Is there some kind of compensatory decline in flavor or texture? Not really - I tried the crab hash versus the egg-reinforced and functional crab cakes, and both were tasty. The latter had the additional advantage of looking really cool and being the perfect format for the fussy but ultimately enjoyable garnishing called for by this recipe.
CRAB CAKES WITH GARLIC YOGURT SAUCE
Yogurt Sauce
1 Tbsp Garlic Confit (see below)
2/3 Cup Greek Yogurt (substitute half with labneh if you can get it easily)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
Pinch kosher sauce
Pinch white pepper
Crab Cakes
1/2 Tbsp whole grain mustard
1/2 Cup mayonnaise
3 cloves Garlic Confit, smashed
1/2 Tbsp minced shallot
3 Tbsp thinly sliced scallions, divided
2 Tbsp freshly chopped dill, divided
1/2 tsp Aleppo pepper or hot pepper flakes
Pinch white pepper
Kosher Salt
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat
1/4 coarse bread crumbs such as panko
2 eggs
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
Flaky sea salt
Yogurt sauce: smash garlic into medium bowl, whisk in yogurt, then drizzle in olive oil and lemon juice while continuing to whisk. Finish to taste with salt and white pepper.
Crab cakes: Whisk mustard and mayonnaise together in a mixing bowl, then add Garlic Confit, shallots, 2 Tbsp of the scallions, 1 Tbsp chopped dill, Aleppo pepper or pepper flakes, white pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, and eggs, and whisk until well combined. Gently fold in crabmeat and bread crumbs.
Line a plate with paper towels. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a nonstick saute pan over medium heat, scoop crab mixture into 1-ounce balls (about 2 Tbsp), gently pat into discs, and place them in the pan in batches to avoid crowding. Saute until golden brown on both sides, about five minutes per side. Transfer to plate and drain.
Toss the remaining 1 Tbsp of scallions with the remaining 1 Tbsp of chopped dill, a drizzle of olive oil, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt.
To serve: spread a layer of yogurt sauce on a platter. Place the crab cakes on top of the yogurt, and top each with some of the scallion-dill salad. Sprinkle with some Aleppo pepper and flaky sea salt.
GARLIC CONFIT
Peel two heads' worth of garlic cloves and trim the ends. Combine them in a small pot with 1 cup of olive oil, making sure they're submerged. Warm slowly over medium heat, until the oil starts to simmer, then reduce heat to low and cook until garlic is very soft and lightly brown, about an hour. Strain the garlic, and reserve the oil for other uses. Refrigerate garlic and oil for up to 2 weeks.
DANCE OF THE MANTI
Zaytinya's recipe for tiny meat dumplings (manti) is tedious and exhausting and also quite good. The result are dozens of little meat-stuffed pasta dumplings that drift lackadaisically upon a cloud of garlic yogurt, finished with paprika butter, flakes of sea salt, and little pinches of mixed herbs.
Sophisticated? Yes. Tasty? Absolutely. The best manti I've ever made? Surprisingly, no.
There's a nigh definitive Turkish cookbook by Phaidon called, of all thing, The Turkish Cookbook that includes a recipe for buttery tomato sauce-based tray manti that is an absolute blockbuster, the sort of recipe that will summon guests as though they have been commanded by God Himself to appear at your table. Zaytinya's manti are nice, and my fussy-but-perceptive daughter quite liked them, but they're not to die for, which is fine.
Both The Turkish Cookbook and Zaytinya's manti recipes include a really frustrating facet: they call for you to roll out the recipes' dough to something like a micron thick, covering several dining room tables' worth of area, and by the time you've spent 30 minutes exhausting yourself with the rolling pin, you've got a two-inch thick plug the size a fifty cent piece. (It's not actually that bad, but I would estimate that for both of these recipes, I'm only able to get my dough to about half the surface area the authors would like me to attain.)
The result is that my manti are thick, ugly, awkward, and clearly the sort of thing that The Least Impressive Daughter-in-Law would make back in the home village. Nevertheless, they're still goddamn delicious by U.S. standards, at least.
Maybe you can crack the code (more resting? more rolling? something like vinegar to make the dough more pliable?), but my manti seem doomed to be chunky clunkers. So it goes.
I'm sparing you the (quite good) recipe for the manti from Zaytinya because The Turkish Cookbook version is commandingly better.
DIZME MANTI (TRAY DUMPLINGS)
FROM THE TURKISH COOKBOOK
100g AP flour for dusting
60g butter, melted
2 fresh basil sprigs, finely sliced
4 flat leaf parsley sprigs, finely sliced
large pinch ground sumac
1/4 tsp black pepper
For the dough
250g AP flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, whisked
75ml milk
1 Tbsp olive oil
For the filling
400g minced or ground lamb
60g medium onion, finely sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp black pepper
For the sauce
150g butter, melted
4 garlic cloves
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tsp tomato, pasted
200g tomato, finely sliced
1/2 tsp salt
100ml beef stock, hot
Combine flour and salt in large bowl, make a well, add the egg, milk, and olive oil and combine gently. Knead for 10 minutes into a coarse dough. Divide into 2 equal parts. Cover with a damp dish towel and let rest for 30 minutes.
Sprinkle the rest dough with flour and use a rolling pin to roll each piece into a 12-inch diameter circle. Cut circles into 2x2" squares.
Preheat oven to 425F. Grease a lip baking sheet with 2 Tbsp of butter.
To make filling: Knead lamb, onion, salt, red pepper flakes and black pepper for 5 minutes until well combined.
Divide the filling equally among the squares, pair the corners and pinch together while keeping the middles open. Arrange the dumplings on the baking sheet and drizzle with remaining 2 Tbsp butter and bake in hot oven for 8 minutes.
To make sauce: Heat the butter in saucepan over medium heat, add the garlic cloves and sauté for 20 seconds. Add dried chili flakes and saute for another 10 seconds. Add the tomato paste and sauté for 1 minute, then add tomato and salt and cook for 5 minutes. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, add hot stock and cook for another 5 minutes.
Pour the sauce over the cooked dumplings and sprinkle over the basil, parsley, sumac, and black pepper. Return to oven for 1 minute then serve immediately.
THE VERDICT ON ZAYTINYA
(BUY IT / ***BORROW IT*** / SKIP IT / SCRAP IT)
Zaytinya is a lovely and impressive book, but it hits notes typical of the region in a way that is easily accessible, and is therefore probably not one that your kitchen absolutely calls out for. If you can snag it from the library, you can skim the cream of its crop and save your $45 for a donation to World Central Kitchen.
[1] FOOTNOTE: They say "never meet your heroes," but I met and interviewed Kurt Vonnegut for my college newspaper and found him to be every bit as warm, amusing, thoughtful, humane, and patient as I'd hoped. What a person.