If ever there was a weekend Shabbat cult food, jachnun—deep golden coils of buttery dough baked low and slow—fits the bill. As is the case with yeasty, brioche-like kubaneh bread, jachnun, which contains only baking powder, is traditionally placed in the oven or on a hot plate before Shabbat on Friday, then devoured the following morning after synagogue prayers. It’s sold in almost every makolet (mini-market) and from food trucks and carts all over the country, and in the neighborhood where I live (Tel Aviv’s Yemenite Quarter), tiny jachnun joints (usually open only on Friday and Saturday) sell it by the piece with its traditional accompaniments: resek (grated tomato), schug (hot sauce), and hard-cooked eggs.
This is a spectacularly refreshing salad, especially when it is made when cantaloupe melons are at their densely honeyed best. You can roast your own peppers or get them out of a jar if you are in a hurry but do make sure your tomatoes are sumptuously ripe. The bread will soften by soaking up all the fruity juices. This is one to make throughout the summer.
In Mexico you are as likely to find the comforting pasta dish fideo seco on the table as beans or rice, especially in central Mexico, where it is very popular. We cook fideos not as the Italians do, but like the Spanish, who brought them to Mexico, first frying them in oil until they are toasty and nutty-tasting, then simmering them in a tomato-based sauce or broth until the sauce thickens considerably and coats the noodles. Forget al dente—our pasta is soft, and that’s the way we love it. The dish is called fideo seco—dry noodles—because it is not saucy at all. It’s also very convenient, because you can make it ahead. You can get packages of fideo pasta, thin noodles broken into pieces, in stores that sell Mexican ingredients, but you can also use thin Italian noodles such as vermicelli, angel hair, thin spaghetti, or spaghetti, and break them up yourself.
I include three different kinds of dried chiles—ancho, guajillo, and chipotle—here in addition to tomatoes, onion, and garlic. For one more layer of complexity—a bit of sweetness in addition to smoky heat—I add some adobo sauce from chipotles in adobo. Top with a drizzle of crema and a sprinkling of tangy cheese, with some sliced avocado to counterbalance the heat of the chiles, and I guarantee that you’ll make it again and again.
I think I prefer this English version of pesto even to the classic Italian basil one. It’s lighter and more versatile. It’s good with pasta, on pizza, or just as flavoring for salad dressing, or indeed to serve with grilled chicken or lamb chops. Just about anything really!
Crisp shards of flatbread give crunch to this dish, which lies somewhere between a Greek salad and Levantine fattoush. Typically, it is served in Tajikistan on a large communal wooden platter, along with a hot, flaky, Tajik flatbread called non for everyone to scoop up the salty cheese and fresh vegetables. [Ed. note: This version is made with pita, but any flatbread -- naan, focaccia, non -- will do.]