For home cooks seek­ing fresh ideas, New Flavours of the Jew­ish Table offers an attrac­tive selec­tion of con­tem­po­rary dish­es. Denise Phillips, a chef, cater­er, and teacher, draws on her trav­els and her friends to intro­duce a wide vari­ety of every­day and hol­i­day food. Instead of gefilte fish, try Egypt­ian Fish Balls with Toma­to Sauce; Aunt Nina’s Hameen — a recipe from a Chi­nese cook in Sin­ga­pore — or Ada­fi­na, the Sephar­di cholent, a fla­vor­ful alter­na­tive to the tra­di­tion­al Ashke­nazi Shab­bat after­noon meal. 

Phillips is a thor­ough and sen­si­ble teacher. Her intro­duc­tion is a suc­cinct run-through of kashrut and hol­i­day food tra­di­tions; she pro­vides care­ful ​“Notes on Recipes” with help­ful instruc­tions; the notes also sup­ple­ment the recipes, which are laid out in a clear, well-orga­nized for­mat, with infor­ma­tive head­notes and pareve and Pesach sub­sti­tutes. All in all, New Flavours of the Jew­ish Table is an invit­ing sup­ple­ment to the stan­dard Jew­ish cook­book. Read­ers should be aware, how­ev­er, that this is a British book and that names for ingre­di­ents, most notably the veg­eta­bles, may be unfa­mil­iar. Glos­sary, index, plus pareve and Pesach-friend­ly indexes.

Recipe:

Moroc­can Sweet Pota­to Stew

This recipe is per­fect for Rosh Hashanah and Suc­cot when you may have to cook for larg­er num­bers.
It is almost a meal in itself — just add some warm pit­ta bread with zhug, haris­sa or hum­mus. My
kind of meal!

Don’t be tempt­ed to stir the stew too often as the sweet pota­toes will break.
(Please note that in the book this recipe has a sym­bol above it indi­cat­ing that it is pareve)

Prepa­ra­tion: 20 min­utes
Cook­ing: 35 min­utes
Serves 6 – 8

3 table­spoons veg­etable or sun­flower oil
1 large onion, rough­ly chopped
3 gar­lic cloves, fine­ly chopped
2 tea­spoons turmer­ic
1 tea­spoon ground cin­na­mon
1 tea­spoon medi­um cur­ry pow­der
1 tea­spoon ground cumin
1/4 tea­spoon fresh­ly grat­ed nut­meg
3 tea­spoons salt
1 tea­spoon fresh­ly ground black pep­per
1 red pep­per, deseed­ed and cut into large squares
1.3 kg (3 lb) sweet pota­toes, cut into cubes
1 aubergine (egg­plant), cut into cubes
2 x 400 g cans chick-peas, drained and rinsed
2 x 400 g cans chopped toma­toes
475 ml (15 fl oz) veg­etable stock
Sprigs of fresh corian­der, to gar­nish

* Heat the oil in a large deep pan. Add the onion, gar­lic, turmer­ic, cin­na­mon, cur­ry pow­der, cumin, nut­meg, salt and pep­per and sauté over a medi­um heat for about 3 min­utes to bring out the flavour of the spices. Add the red pep­per, sweet pota­toes, aubergine, chick-peas and toma­toes. Add the stock.

* Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and sim­mer for 35 min­utes.

* Serve on a large warmed serv­ing plat­ter, gar­nished with sprigs of corian­der.

Note: The stew improves with time, so make it a day ahead and refrig­er­ate it to achieve the best flavour.

New Flavours of the Jew­ish Table ©2009 by Denise Phillips. Used with per­mis­sion from Ebury Press, pub­lish­er, and Trafal­gar Square Pub­lish­ing, distributor.