I created this bread in Israel with Henrietta Lovell, my love. We were invited to do an event that turned out to be a true collaboration, with a lovely man and great chef, Ezra Kedem, in his studio/restaurant, called Arcadia, close to Jerusalem. We paired Ezra’s food with my bread and Henrietta’s iced oolong tea, blended with fresh garden herbs. (If you know anything about Henrietta, you’ll know she is the drinks master, with the most amazing palate. They call her the Tea Lady, but her love and skill extend way beyond tea.)
Arcadia is set on a rural farm, on a beautiful mountainside with spectacular views. The day before the event, I walked around the kitchen garden, totally inspired by what they were growing. I thought that making a rye bread with Ezra’s seasonal farm ingredients was the way to bring our worlds together.
He had a few fig trees on the property, and I wondered what it would be like to line the bread pans with the leaves. It looked amazing and added a great flavor, almost a coconut scent. To make it even more figgy, I’ve added dried figs to this recipe, soaked in tea as a tribute to that day.
Chitra Agrawal calls herself an American Born Confused Desi, a term commonly used to describe a “desi” or South Asian born and brought up in the US. In Chitra’s case, she is of Indian descent, born in New Jersey, raised in California, and now settled in Brooklyn, New York. While labels can be hard to shake, for Chitra, this cultural disparity was her fuel. In 2009, she started her inspiring blog, The ABCDs of Cooking, a journal of vegetarian recipes rooted in traditional Indian cooking and reflective of Indian diaspora. She also channels her heritage into Brooklyn Delhi, her line of premium achaars, an Indian pantry staple.
This recipe is adapted from Ruby Punch, a recipe that cocktail historian David Wondrich found in Jerry Thomas’s Bar-Tenders Guide from 1862 (but can trace back even further) and which he describes as “a plush and seductive punch that practically drinks itself”. He’s not wrong. It features a seriously tasty combination of black tea, ruby port, lemon, and a funky rum-esque liquor called Batavia Arrack. In its original form (not clarified with milk) the tannins from the black tea and port provide grip and add texture, not to mention deep, inky color. After clarifying with milk the result is full bodied, but silky smooth with a rosé-like color and fruitiness. This is my personal favorite milk punch recipe.