The Mint Restaurant
219 Fayetteville Street Mall (1 Exchange Plaza) Raleigh, NC
(919)821.0011

Web Site: http://www.themintrestaurant.com

Click Here to Listen to The Mint Podcast

Related Post: The Mint is Loaded (VarmintBites)

Related Post: Greg Cox Just Doesn’t Get It (VarmintBites)

Sous Chef/Pastry Chef Eric Foster (left) and Chef de Cuisine Jeremy Clayman

Click on the above photo for a hi-res slide show.

My meal this week at The Mint will go down as one of the most memorable I have ever had in the South, including my many wonderful meals in New Orleans. The Mint is as good as any of the fine restaurants we have in New York City which specialize in local sustainable cuisine — that I compare it to Gramercy Tavern or Blue Hill is not without serious consideration for the level of art and technique that is being practiced at this restaurant, which Raleigh should consider itself extremely lucky to have.

Ready for some unbridled vitriolic anger directed at the local Raleigh food critic? Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Co-incidentally, the restaurant was reviewed in today’s Raleigh News and Observer by Greg Cox. I am sure Mr. Cox is a seasoned reviewer of his local restaurant scene, but I believe he lacks the perspective of a New Yorker or a fine dining veteran to be able to state:

“the lukewarm temperature and semiliquid white of the accompanying sous vide-cooked “hot spring egg” isn’t likely to win many fans. A first-course offering starring medallions of veal flank is marred by a chewy star ingredient. So, inexplicably, are crab cakes with braised fennel and a lavender-vanilla sauce.”

Mr Cox, have you ever dined at any of our finer restaurants in New York? Have you ever been to Paris? Los Angeles? San Francisco? Chicago? Hello? Bueller? That’s about as asinine and uninformed a statement as if I, a New Yorker and a Yankee were to say something as uninformed as “I wasn’t crazy about the pinkish color of my ribs when I got them at the local barbecue restaurant”. Semiliquid runny egg white? Do you know what the !@#$ a properly made carbonara sauce is supposed to be? And as to the crab cakes, all I have to say is mine were absolutely perfect — the addition of scallop mousse makes the texture creamy, certainly not chewy. And “chewy star ingredient?” Come on! Its VEAL FLANK STEAK, not filet @#$%^&* mignon. The point of flank steak is to emphasize the beefiness of the flanken.

As much as it makes me cringe to say it, I really would have preferred that someone more like Frank Bruni had reviewed this place with the perspective of someone who has eaten this type of modern fine dining before.

I suspect many Raleigh residents, due to Mr. Cox’s disservice, will never experience the gem of a fine dining destination they now have.

Read the rest of the story on ZDNet (click)

China Palace Restaurant
5210 Garrett Rd, Durham NC
(919) 493-3088

While the Triangle area seems to have an abundance of delicious ethnic cuisine, it appears to be lacking in authentic Chinese restaurants. I had pretty much given up on the idea of finding good Chinese food until a Google search revealed some positive blog posts about China Palace, a small Cantonese/Sichuan/Hunan restaurant in Durham. I like this place so much, that I’ve already been to it twice and its already become my “go to” local Chinese. The portions are big, so expect leftovers for lunch the next day.

China Palace looks like a dinky, run of the mill Chinese Restaurant. Don’t let this distract you, go right in.

On a busy night, don’t be surprised if you have to wait 15-20 minutes for a table. This place is real popular with the locals.

Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

No, these guys aren’t on the menu.

China Palace has the usual American Chinese dishes you’d expect, but they also have a SPECIAL CHINESE MENU with authentic, regional dishes on it. My recommendation would be to bypass the regular menu entirely and go straight for this laminated insert.

Page two of the special dinner menu.

This is a Ma Po Dofu, tofu Sichuan Style with Ground Pork. One of the best and spicyest I’ve ever had.

Spicy Eggplant with Ground Pork in Garlic Sauce.

Gai Lan greens with Oyster Sauce

Choy Sum Greens with White Garlic Sauce.

Kung Pao Squid, another Sichuan preparation. I’ve never seen Squid done Kung Pao before, usually chicken and sometimes shrimp. The squid is of the mature, chewier type, but I liked this dish a lot.

Shredded Pork with Green Chiles and Pressed Bean Curd. This is a Sichuan dish made with Hot fermented soybean paste and black bean sauce.

Read the rest of this story on ZDNet (click)

Obadiah Stane description from the Iron Man website: “As … a top executive in Stark Industries, Stane is a calculating genius who is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.”

From the people who brought you Luthor or Larry?

When a favorite restaurant dies, you undergo a bereavement process as a former patron. You try to replace it with another one, usually failing to do so. Then occasionally, you come across a dish at another place that tastes familiar, but doesn’t -quite- get there. You see glimmerings of the original, enough to make you do a double take, but then you come to your senses and again realize you are someplace else. Its like walking down the street and seeing someone who resembles another person who has been dead for years, or playing with another person’s pet that looks remarkably similar to one of yours which passed away. You tear up a bit, think about the good times, and then move on.

Such as it is with my favorite Chinese restaurant, China 46, which closed down in September of 2007. I haven’t taken this loss particularly well, as there were a lot of dishes that were prepared there that I cannot get at any other Shanghai/Sichuan restaurant I’ve been to, and this includes the very good local newcomers such as Chengdu 1 and Petite Soochow, which I recommend heartily. I thought I had moved on until I had this dish recently at China Palace restaurant, a small authentic Chinese place in Durham, North Carolina:

Spicy Capsicum Pepper Saute with Pressed Tofu, from China Palace restaurant in Durham, NC.

This dish closely resembles another dish at China 46 restaurant, which was called “House Special Saute” and consisted of ground pork with finely chopped Chinese green peppers and pressed tofu, in a spicy Sichuan hot bean sauce. The China Palace version here is excellent, using julienned pressed tofu and shredded portk, but it is not the same — the China 46 one was drier and less saucy and a much finer dice.

Once I had this dish, I was committed to faithfully replicating the China 46 version, at least as close as to it I could recall. I don’t have original photos of the dish I am trying to replicate, so I am just going from memory here.

Spicy Sichuan Capsicum Saute, fondly remembered and re-created from the late China 46 restaurant in Ridgefield Park, NJ.

Re-Create this fantastic Sichuan dish in your own home. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

China 46 Spicy Capsicum Saute

12oz of Ground Chicken, Turkey or Shredded Pork Tenderloin

8-10 Chinese “Long Hot Green” Peppers, or 6 Cubanelles or 8 Hungarian Green peppers, seeded and finely diced

3 Scallions, whites and greens separated, chopped.

1 Package of Pressed or Baked Tofu, Finely Diced

8-10 dried Chinese red chiles or other dried red chile

1 Thumb of Ginger, minced

6 Cloves of Garlic, minced

1 Tbsp Fermented Black Beans

1 Tbsp Sichuan Chile Soybean Paste

1 Tsp Crushed Sichuan Peppercorns (or more if you like this flavor a lot)

1 Tbsp Sesame Oil

White Pepper to taste

3Tbsp Soy Sauce

Here’s the type of Tofu you’ll need. It comes seasoned in Five Spice marinade, or plain. Either type is fine.

You will need Chinese Fermented Black Beans (left) and Hot Soybean Paste (right). In the middle is Korean Fermented Chili Soybean paste, which is similar to the product on the right. I used a tablespoon of all three in combination, but you could use just the type on the left and the right.

Slice your Chinese long green chiles lengthwise and remove most of the ribs and seeds, and chop into a medium fine dice.

Here’s your mise-en-place: Chopped pressed tofu, Garlic and Ginger, Scallions, dried Red Peppers, Chopped Chinese long green peppers, and your ground/chopped chicken or turkey. Obviously, you can use shredded pork if you want to be totally faithful to the original.

Saute the hot peppers, scallion whites, and about half the ginger and garlic in about half the sesame oil for about 3 minutes. Wok in the Ground or Shredded meat, with the Black Beans and Hot Bean Paste with the remainder of the oil. Season with Soy Sauce and ground white pepper. Wok in the crushed Sichuan Peppercorns and the Scallion greens. Serve immediately over Brown Rice.

Here’s to you, Cecil. I hope you come back soon.

I’ve been wanting to do a post series on re-doing classic dishes in a healthier way for some time now. To start it off, I thought nothing would be better than giving props to someone who I thought that nicely re-engineered one of my favorite Sichuan Chinese dishes, Kung Pao Chicken.

Charlie Deal’s Jujube Restauant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina is known for its inventive Asian Fusion cuisine. The dish which struck me the most there was his Kung Pao, which is radically different and much more healthier than the one that is made in most Chinese restaurants, which typically has a great deal of oil and not really that much vegetable content in it, if at all. Most versions as served in the United States at Chinese-American restaurants just consist of Chicken, Peanuts, Hot Peppers, and maybe some chopped up celery as an accent flavor. In my opinion, the definitive version of the dish is published in Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land Of Plenty, which is one of the best and most authentic Sichuan cookbooks there is.

Here’s one of my favorite traditional versions, from Chengdu 1 restaurant in Cedar Grove, NJ:

As you can see, it’s in a brown sauce, thickened with cornstarch, with basically no vegetable content in it other than water chestnuts and maybe some onion. It’s tasty, but not optimized for my current diet. It’s also heavily dependent on sopping the sauce up with rice, which leads to more carbyness ingestion.

Here’s another variation that I had at a Korean-Chinese place that I really enjoyed. Again tasty, but healthy, no.

Here’s another really good version of the classic at Mary Chung’s in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There’s no veggies in this at all. I can’t believe I used to eat like this all the time.

Here’s Charlie Deal’s version at Jujube Restaurant. The difference is dramatic — the vegetable to protein ratio is much higher, and he is using a lighter sauce, which is essentially just soy, Chinese Black Rice Vinegar (which gives the dish its amazing tang and brightness) and seasoned with Sichuan Peppercorns, a small amount of sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and dried Sichuan hot peppers. Another thing I like about this dish is that during dinnertime he does it in a completely vegetarian version using Soy chicken, which cuts down on the fat tremendously.

I loved this dish so much that I ate it on two of the three visits that I made to the restaurant so far. I also was determined to try to replicate it at home and make it part of our usual Asian stir fry night repertoire.

To make my version of this dish, you will need the following

8 oz “Soy Chicken” or Firm Tofu (that has had the water pressed out of it)
12 ounces Chicken Breast, cut up into small pieces (or omit to have completely vegetarian)
1 Bunch Scallions, chopped, whites and greens separated
1 large thumb Ginger, minced
6 cloves Garlic, minced
1 small Napa Cabbage
1lb of Baby or Shanghai Bokchoys or one big regular Bokchoy, chopped, hard and leafy parts separated
8oz of Mungbean Sprouts
8oz of Snow Pea Pods
1 oz peanuts
1 Tbsp Chinese Five Spice Powder
1 Tbsp Sichuan Peppercorns
1 Tbsp Cornstarch
10-15 Dried Sichuan Red Chiles or any other small dried red chile
1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
3 Tbsp Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp Chinese Black Rice Vinegar (Chinkiang grade preferable)
White Pepper to taste

Want to learn how to make this great dish? Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more..

First, get out your Five Spice Powder. Notice something about that ingredient list?

Yup, it’s missing the most important one — Sichuan peppercorns. This is what gives this dish its traditional and authentic flavor. You’ll want to get a good tablespoon of this out and crush it up in your mortar or spice grinder.

Add your sliced up chicken, soy chicken/tofu to a mixing bowl, and add 1Tbsp of Soy Sauce, 1Tbsp of Five Spice, 1Tbsp of crushed/ground Sichuan Peppercorns, A “drizzle” of sesame oil and a few grinds of fresh White Peppercorns to taste.

Add in 1Tbsp of cornstarch and mix up with the protein until coated and most of the moisture is all sucked up. You can omit this step if you are worried about the extra carbs, but the “Velveting” step we are doing here really gives the meat the nice Chinese Restaurant texture. Let this marinate for a good 10 to 20 minutes.

Chop up your veggies. Here are the rough and crunchy parts of the Napa Cabbage with the Baby Bokchoys. Not shown are the leafy parts of the bokchoy, the sprouts and the snow pea pods.

Open up your package of dried red chiles.

Get your bottle of black rice vinegar ready. The type I am holding above, Chinkiang, is the highest grade available. If you don’t have this stuff accessible — they sell it in Asian markets but you can also order it online — you could probably use a basic balsamic vinegar or a cider vinegar. It won’t taste exactly the same but it will be pretty good.

Mise-en place of chopped scallions, whites and greens separated, with minced garlic and ginger, and the dried red chiles.

Wok up your scallion whites, about half of the ginger and garlic. with about half of the sesame oil. Allow the chiles to get a bit browned up.

Toss in your marinating Chicken and Tofu. Wok up good at high heat for about 2 minutes.

Throw in the crunchy napa parts. Season with about half of the soy sauce and several healthy shots of the black vinegar.

Wok in the Bokchoy. To get this to cook faster, cover it for about a minute with a pot cover or another large inverted frying pan. Cook up until mostly done and reserve in a bowl.

Wok up the remaining vegetables with peanuts and more soy sauce, vinegar, ginger and garlic and the rest of the sesame oil.

Combine with reserved wokked vegetables and protein. Taste for tangyness — if it needs more black vinegar and soy, add it in, with a final drizzle of toasted sesame oil to taste.

Serve over brown rice with hot tea.

Read the rest of this story on the Raleigh News & Observer site (click)

The New Jersey Share Our Strength charity event is right around the corner. If you haven’t been to one of these before, it’s a great way to taste a whole lot of dishes from some of the region’s best restaurants all at once, and help out a great charitable cause, the fight against child hunger. Plus, most of the admission fee is tax deductible!

The New Jersey event (click for details) is to be held this year at the Birchwood Manor in Whippany, on May 5 at 6PM. Over 40 of New Jersey’s top restaurants will be featured. To purchase tickets ($85 in advance, $95 at the door) call (973) 772-4474.

The Pit Authentic Barbecue
328 W. Davie Street, Raleigh NC
(919) 890-4500

Web Site: http://thepit-raleigh.com

Click Here to Listen to the Ed Mitchell Whole Hog Podcast

Click Here to see a short video clip of the Whole Hog BBQ Smoking Process

Related Post: VarmintBites — The Pit Is Great, and They’re Open for Lunch!

Related Multimedia: Ed Mitchell A/V Presentation at Raleigh News and Observer

Click Here for a Hi-Res Slide Show of The Pit Restaurant in Raleigh, NC

Jujube Restaurant
1201-L Raleigh Rd, Glen Lennox Shopping Center (next to BIN 54)
Hwy 54 at 15-501, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
(919) 960-0555

Web Site: http://jujuberestaurant.com/

Click to Listen to the Off The Broiler Podcast

Charlie Deal, Northern California transplant and Chef/Owner of Jujube Restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

A sampling of Jujube’s eclectic Asian Fusion cuisine.

Click Here to view a Hi-Res Slide Show of Jujube Restaurant

Pho 9N9 Vietnamese Cuisine
2945 S Miami Blvd, Durham, NC 27703
(919) 544-4496

It’s no secret now that I’ve been staying in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area for the past several weeks, traveling back and forth between my home in New Jersey on a four month project. The RDU/Triangle area, while not as ethnically diverse as say, San Jose and the Silicon Valley, is of equal importance to our nation’s high tech industry, due to the presence of many large technology companies in the Research Triangle and surrounding areas. And as we all know, you can’t feed computer geeks without having decent Asian food around.

The weather is just starting to turn warm here, so I’ve been in the mood for light cuisine. I was pointed towards Pho 9N9, a small Vietnamese pho shop that is on the outskirts of Durham, by my old friend, fellow foodblogger and native Triangle resident Varmint.

Pho 9N9 is located in a rather non-descript and rather industrial looking strip mall, which houses mostly commercial businesses. That’s just fine with me.

Serious Pho in the Triangle. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

Nice and sunny inside.

The usual array of Vietnamese condiments. They’ve also got a “Chunky” Sambal Oelek sauce thats got more peppers and garlic in it, in addition to the ubiquitous “Rooster” sauce from Huy Fong.

Apparently the reason why they call the place “9N9″ is that it is open from 9am to 9PM. However as I understand they are expanding the hours.

Beef Pho. Nice meaty, beefy flavor, with rare beef. I sucked down the broth and left most of the noodles over. Gotta low carb it, ya know.

Pho herbs.

This is a saute of squid with vegetables and pineapple in a sweet and sour type of sauce with chili. I liked it, although its probably more sweet than I would like.

This mussel dish with lemongrass is a real winner, I’ve ordered it on each occasion I’ve been here.

This lotus root salad with shrimp and pork is very refreshing, healthy, and its a huge portion. I had to take more than half of it home for a midnight snack,

Read the rest of my commentary on ZDNet.

Discuss this article on Slashdot

If you’re in the San Francisco area TasteTV is having a New Media Tastemakers Summit, the first of its kind.

“A first-of-its-kind gathering of 300 of the most important Digital Media, Traditional Media and Web 2.0 producers and platforms specifically focused on the lucrative & highly influential Lifestyle categories of: FOOD & WINE, FASHION & DESIGN, AND REGIONAL/CITY SITES. Powered by the techniques and technology of New Media, these categories are not only required daily reading and viewing by tens of millions of consumers and businesses, they also have the ability to begin or end major trends, make fortunes & careers, and thrill & delight advertisers.”

Off The Broiler is proud to be a Media Sponsor of this event. For registration, please visit http://www.newmediatastemakers.com

As some of you have learned by now, I am currently on a longer-than-usual assignment in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina this summer. Because it is a four month engagement, and it necessitates that I sometimes need to stay down here for two weeks at a time, I’ve rented a small apartment so that I can live more comfortably and do cooking for myself and store items over the weekends when I need to go home. This has forced me into a bachelor-like lifestyle where I have had to actually take care of myself, something I haven’t really had to do for like, I dunno, 13 years.

Routine shopping has become a new pastime for me. Oh, Rachel and I shop all the time, but I tend to ignore the mundane aisles, such as the personal hygiene products, because I tell Rachel usually to buy a whole bunch of something at COSTCO or get whatever is on sale. I don’t care — as long as I don’t stink up the house or walk around with a foul odor on me that my co-workers might notice, it makes no difference to me what product I use. So I have no cultural frame of reference for what is actually going on with that industry.

Maybe I have been so out of the routine shopping thing for so long, but these products caught my eye on a shopping trip to Kroger yesterday:

Maybe these have been around for years, but It appears there are now “Pro” and “Clinical” strength antiperspirants. This seemed like a particularly good idea to me, as the weather in Durham is approaching 90 degrees already and I have been taking half mile walks between the buildings that I need to work at. And we big guys tend to reek when we get sweaty.

I was about to grab 2 or 3 of these to test out, until I saw the PRICES.

WHOA! Eight bucks per stick? That’s more than twice the price of their regular brand!

Okay, I want to be All Day Fresh or Arctic Clean, but not at these prices.

Even the “loss” leader in this category, Right Guard, is still more than twice the price of their volume product.

So I looked at the back of these boxes and peered at the actual label. Like all other deoderants and antiperspirants, besides fragrance, the primary active ingredient is Aluminium Zirconium Tetrachlorohydrex Gly. All the “Pro” versions seem to have it in a 20 percent ratio whereas the regular products have it around 14-16 percent. At four to six percentage points difference, is this really going to make you sweat less and smell less stinky on a super hot day? And even in milder climates, is it really going to help, at more than twice the price? And is Aluminium Zirconium so expensive that a minor percentage increase in formulation will vastly increase manufacturing costs for companies like Gilette, Procter & Gamble, Mennen and Unilver to justify such a large price increase for these products?

Do any of you actually go out and buy this stuff or do you agree that it is a total ripoff?

Click For Hi-Res Slide Show!

Luke Restaurant
333 Saint Charles Ave, New Orleans, LA
(504) 378-2840

Web Site: http://www.lukeneworleans.com

I noticed that fellow Fat Packer Ed Levine is in New Orleans this week and is lamenting about how his current diet is being affected by the local cuisine. This made me laugh, because I completely feel for what he is going through. I’ve probably put more pounds on in the last year eating in New Orleans restaurants than in anywhere in the US — the city is known for its excess, and boy did I indulge in it on my last trip there, back in August of 2007. But if I had a milestone weight loss that I wanted to celebrate, and say “to hell with it” for a day, and if I had to make a Sophie’s Choice of what one restaurant in New Orleans I should make that cheat at, John Besh’s Lüke would probably be very high on the list of candidates.

Be it as it may, It recently occurred to me that I had completely forgotten to post about my August 2007 experiences at the restaurant. Ed’s current trip to the city during the 2008 IACP conference gave me the impetus to drag out my photos (and I shamefully apologize to Chef Besh who had Todd Price, Rachel and myself as his guests at this meal that was never chronicled) which have been collecting virtual dust on Flickr until now. Fortunately, the menu has stayed effectively the same, so contextually, the food should be nearly identical to what the restaurant serves now.

I hope this post serves to motivate the IACPers and other travelers who are heading to the city this spring to try this wonderful restaurant, because God knows I won’t be eating there again or eating like this for a while.

Ready for a trip back in time to OTB Classic? Click on “Read the rest of this entry” link below for some artery clogging Beshy hofbrau goodness.

Luke is very much a casual dining atmosphere, with a hofbrau-like decor to complement the Alsatian-Germanic food the restaurant specializes in.

All sorts of oysters and fresh shellfish to be had.

I guess its fitting that I post this during Passover. Does he still have the Matzo Balls on the menu? We didn’t have a chance to try it.

A Pastis, One of the many New Orleans-style cocktails the restaurant prepares.

Todd Price chose to go with one of the nice microbrews.

Wow, when was the last time I saw one of these?

The Pied De Cochon, the fried pigs feet balls. Trust me they taste a lot better than they sound

Flamenkuche, a type of Alasatian Pizza. This is an absolute must order if you come here. I don’t care what your damn cardiologist says, you can take a double dose of Lipitor with this one.

The grilled homemade Boudin Noir, with a side of sauteed potatoes, onions and apples. Sinful.

Pied de Cochon, interior view.

Crabmeat Maison, with fresh herbs and local greens.

Crabmeat Maison served with the toasted bread. OMG.

Boudin Noir closeup.

Jagerschnitzle Mit Spätzle, a classic Germanic dish. Pan fried veal cutlets with home made noodles and chantrelle and oyster mushrooms. Sorry Rachel, I apologize for posting this.

Shoot me now.

The Luke Burger. Probably the best burger in the entire city.

The Cochon Du Lait sandwich, Besh’s interpretation of a Cubano, Cajun style. I could seriously go for one of these right now.

This I recall was an Apple and Caramel dessert that was just scrumptious.

Last night I appeared as a guest on Craig Crossman’s Computer America syndicated radio program, courtesy of Linux Magazine. Inevitably, the conversation shifted to food — the great unifier of all geekdom.

Click to listen to the first hour (MP3 format)

Click to listen to the second hour (MP3 format)

I plan to return once a month to discuss Linux and all things Open Source. Hopefully, my voice modulation and radio decorum will improve with time!

by Rachel Perlow

This veggie kugel was a big hit at our Passover Seder last night. Knowing it was low carb and low fat, everyone took seconds of this instead of the Potato Kugel. When we made it yesterday, I used 4 boards of matzo and 20 oz of egg product, but we found the results a little too starchy tasting. So, the proportions below use less matzo and more egg. I am hoping to achieve a more quiche or souffle like texture on our next attempt.

It’s not just a Passover dish, it’s a St. Patrick’s Day dish too! Green Kugel is made of PEOPLE!!! It’s made of PEOPLE… oh never mind.

Does the Veggie Kugel frighten you? It should, because it’s damn tasty. Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

Low-Karb Veggie Kugel

2 10 oz packages frozen chopped Spinach*
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1 10-12 oz package fresh, Button Mushroooms, diced
1 small to medium sized Onion, diced
1 large Carrot
1 Red Bell Pepper, roasted
2 Whole Wheat or Spelt Matzos or 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Matzo Meal
1 cup Chicken Broth or Water*
1/4 cup Zaatar (or a combination of Thyme, Cumin, Salt and Pepper)
24 oz Egg Beaters

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Defrost spinach and squeeze out all the water from it you can (* if you are making this vegetarian and not using chicken broth, save the “spinach juice” to moisten the mazto meal). Grind the whole grain matzos in the bowl of a food processor to make matzo meal (if unable to find whole wheat matzo meal). Put in a large mixing bowl and stir in 1 cup chicken broth (or spinach water) to moisten.

Saute the spinach in a large non stick skillet to cook out additional moisture, adding minced garlic after a few minutes. Remove spinach to the bowl of the food processor and allow to cool while preparing the rest of the ingredients. Saute the diced onion and mushrooms until nicely browned, put in mixing bowl. Slice the carrot into coins and add to pan with a sprinkling of water. Cover and allow to steam for 2-3 minutes. Add to mixing bowl. Dice peeled and seeded roasted red pepper in a large dice (about 1/2 inch square) and add to mixing bowl. Add zatar or other seasonings and stir to combine all.

Pulse the spinach in the food processor to cut it smaller and add to mixing bowl. Add the Egg Beaters (or 12 whole eggs if not watching your fat and cholesterol) and thoroughly combine. Taste for seasonings, you might want to add some more salt & pepper.

Place a few layers of paper toweling on sheet pan just large enough to hold your tube pan baking dish. Grease the spring closure tube pan (fluted tube pan optional, a bundt pan would work too) with cooking spray and place on top of the paper toweling. Spoon batter into tub pan and smooth the surface. Place pan on tray into the oven and pour water onto paper toweling just under the level where the spring pan seal is or to the level of the sheet pan lip if not using a pan with a spring closure, like a bundt pan.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on if you are serving immediately or if it will be reheated later.

These are some “Lower Carb” Matzos we picked up this year which use whole grains. On the left is an imported Israeli Whole Wheat, on the right is a Streit’s (US Brand) Spelt Matzo.

Zaatar is the spice mix which really makes this dish. We wanted a Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern flavor to this vegetable kugel to compliment our Ashkenaze-focused meal. This particular Zaatar spice mix is a Jordanian blend, but there are many other types of Zaatar blends you can buy in Middle Eastern markets of different ethnicities.

Illustration by Brandon Perlow

Why is the Open Source community different than all other communities? Read the post on ZDNET.

… Try marketing it a different way. Click here to read my article on ZDNET.