Ronni Lundy is One
Hot Tamale!

 

Congratulations to Ronni Lundy, TheZenchilada's awesome Editor-in-Chief and contributing writer, who won first place for Best Internet Food News or Feature Story from the Association of Food Journalists at its annual conference in October 2011--a new award category for the 37-year-old organization.

 

Ronni's winning feature, "Old Zen River Tamales," explores the whys and wherefores of the Mississippi Delta's tamale tradition. If you missed the story when it was published in the first issue of TheZenchilada.com in the fall of 2010, you can read it here.

 

You can also catch Ronni in action on the update video posted on TheZenchilada's fundraising site. (There's a link in the story that follows.)

Buy the First Print Issue
of TheZenchilada

 

In the midst of all the holiday madness TheZenchilada staff is making a serious effort to raise funds to print The Saffron Trail, the next issue of the magazine. So what we are doing is asking everyone who reads us, loves us, and has been wanting a copy of our beautifully illustrated magazine to have and to hold, to make a pledge toward our goal by clicking on this link.

 

Pledges are made by credit card, but the cards aren't charged until the project reaches its deadline (January 14, 2012). The fundraising site we are using is an all-or-nothing deal. If we reach or surpass our goal, the cards get charged and we get the money. If we fall short, no one's credit card is charged. Pledges can range from $15 to $5,000--perfect for anyone who has to clean out a pesky bank account by the end of the year. A pledge in any amount will help us meet our goal--and a more modest $25 pledge guarantees you a copy of the print issue as well. The sooner you pledge, the more you'll help us build the momentum we need to reach our goal.

 

And our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has already made a donation. Your support right out of the gate means a great deal to us.

 

Everyone who clicks through to the site (whether or not they make a contribution) will be entered into a random drawing to win a copy of Mourad: New Moroccan, Artisan's gorgeous new cookbook celebrating the creative cuisine of Mourad Lahlou and his award-winning San Francisco restaurant, Aziza. (See review below.)

 

 

A glance at the shaven head and tattooed arms of Mourad Lahlou on the cover of his eponymous new cookbook, Mourad: New Moroccan, seems to place him squarely in the panoply of hot young chefs reinventing the cuisines of their native lands--whether that land be the Deep South, the frozen North or the sun-drenched souks of North Africa. But the first few pages of the introduction to the beautifully designed and illustrated tome make it clear that Lahlou, the chef/owner of San Francisco's Aziza, the only Moroccan restaurant in the US to earn a Michelin star, is offering a more intimate and loving portrait of his family and their daily rituals than one usually finds in a cookbook--as much a feast of memory as food.

 

It's those early childhood memories, Lahlou says, that inspired him to cook and that still underlie his very personal approach to Moroccan food, an approach that weaves the fresh ingredients of his adopted California home into his continuingly evolving cuisine.

 

While most of the recipes in the book are well written and easy to follow, they are also complex in the way that chefs' translations of their restaurant offerings often are--with multiple sub-recipes prepared separately before being combined to create a single dish. But the front of the book, composed of seven separate "cooking class" chapters (akin to the seven salads that start Moroccan meals, Lahlou says) can help home cooks assemble the spices, condiments and sides that give Moroccan cooking its unique flavor profile. If you never prepared another dish in the book, mastering his gently tweaked spice blends, preserved lemons, harissa and charmoula would expand the possibilities of your larder a hundredfold, and add excitement to the staples you cook everyday.

 

A case in point: Lahlou offers three recipes for harissa--a hot sauce that can add depth and a hit of flavor to eggs, sandwiches, rice, couscous, soups and pasta sauces: a classic, smoky version that requires much soaking and grinding of a variety of chiles; a quicker version based on tomatoes rather than chiles; and a dry version that delivers the punch without the moisture, ideal for seasoning nuts, meats, vinagrettes, and popcorn. ("Spice" Lahlou writes, "is a verb"...)

 

"Ever since I opened my first restaurant," he says, "I've served harissa in little dishes as a condiment with all kinds of things. I soon realized that we were going through five gallons of the stuff a day, and it was totally impractical to have one cook soaking and seeding that many peppers. So I experimented with other ways to make it and came up with this version, which we still use at the restaurant today." Although the sauce cooks for several hours, he calls it quick "because it takes just a few minutes to put together."

 

QUICK HARISSA

(Makes about 2¾ cups/628 grams)

 

One 14-ounce (396-gram) can tomato puree, preferably San Marzano

3 cups (702 grams) cold water

1½ tablespoons (11.5 grams) ground cumin

1½ teaspoons (4.5 grams) kosher salt

¾ teaspoon (1.4 grams) ground black pepper

1½ tablespoons (10.2) grams cayenne

1 tablespoon (8 grams) sweet paprika

¼ cup (50 grams) granulated sugar

¼ cup (58.3 grams) champagne vinegar

½ cup (75 grams) garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

6 tablespoons (25 grams) coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley

6 tablespoons (25 grams) coarsely chopped cilantro

6 tablespoons (80 grams) extra virgin olive oil

 

1. Put all the ingredients except the olive oil in a large nonaluminum saucepan and whisk them together. Place the pan over medium-high heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1 to 1½ hours, stirring occasionally and adjusting the heat as necessary, until the puree has thickened and reduced to 2¼ cups (555 grams). Don't let the heat go above a low simmer, and keep an eye on the mixture so it doesn't burn.

 

2. Working in batches if necessary, transfer the harissa to a blender, turn it on, and slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Pass the harissa through a fine mesh strainer.

 

3. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight glass jar, with a film of the olive oil on top, for up to 3 months.

 

(Excerpted from Mourad: New Moroccan by Mourad Lahlou, Artisan Books, Copyright 2011)