Ptitim

September 24, 2009 - 8:25 PM by · 5 Comments
Filed under: Food, History and Culture, Israeliness 

Heart-shaped ptitim by Osem

Heart-shaped ptitim by Osem

I’m having a love affair with ptitim. I’m calling it orzo, actually, the Italian name for this rice-shaped pasta, but given that I live in Israel, no one’s letting me get away with that term. You see, orzo, or ptitim, is a staple of the Israeli school lunch menu, the steady side dish to the chicken schnitzel, served with a generous dollop of ketchup. So even when I serve it up with roasted peppers and zucchini and a grating of parmesan, the kids — and, usually, the adults — say, “Oh, ptitim…” But then they eat it up.

According to Janna Gur in ‘The Book of New Israeli Food,’ this Israeli toasted pasta now comes in many shapes, including stars, loops and hearts, but originally was shaped like grains of rice. It first came on the market in the fifties and was dubbed ‘Ben-Gurion rice’ after Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. It seems that Ben-Gurion was the one to come up with the idea to manufacture a substitute for rice, which was in major demand but short supply during those years of rationing. Another version of that same story is that immigrants from the East dubbed the rice-shaped pasta after Ben-Gurion because they were unhappy with their rice rationing.

A handful of orzo

A handful of orzo

In any case, ptitim are now known as Israeli couscous — not Israeli orzo — and this lunchroom fave has since been rediscovered as a versatile carb that can be boiled like pasta or first fried with onions and then cooked in boiling water or stock.

Here’s how I’m cooking them:
1. Roast a few of your favorite vegetables; I like a combo of colorful peppers and zucchini. For me, roasting involves slicing up said veggies into strips, tossing them with a few tablespoons of olive oil and kosher salt, and baking at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes.
2. In the meantime, cook your ptitim/orzo as you would pasta.
3. Toss your cooked ptitim and veggies together; grate some parmesan on top for some extra flavor.

And here’s a similar orzo recipe from writer Barbara Kingsolver, who has to come up with many ways to use up her bumper crop of zucchini, as written in ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:’

Disappearing Zucchini Orzo
3/4 lb. pkg orzo pasta
1 chopped onion, garlic to taste
3 large zucchini
olive oil for saute
thyme
oregano
1/4 cup grated parmesan or any hard yellow cheese

Bring 6 cups of water or chicken stock to a boil and add pasta. Cook 8 to 12 minutes. Drain. Use a cheese grater to shred zucchini, saute briefly with chopped onion and garlic until lightly golden. Add spices to zucchini mixture, stir thoroughly, and then remove mixture from heat. Combine with cheese and cooked orzo, salt to taste, serve cool or at room temperature.

B’teavon. Enjoy your orzo.

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B-bye bourekas

July 31, 2008 - 9:14 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, Food, General, Israeliness 

Chef Erez Komorovsky, the founder of Israeli sourdough heaven Lehem Erez, says “there is no logical reason” for Israelis, who “live in a land of abundant olive oil, to go anywhere near trans fat, unless they are locked into a conference room for most of the day. ‘And then their situation is not all that great,’ he says.”

bourekas.jpgKomorovsky is quoted in a Haaretz article about saying b-bye to bourekas, those layers of filo dough slathered with margarine, as well as rugelach (yes, including Jerusalem’s famous Marzipan bakery in Machane Yehuda) and other popular pastries that Israelis love, yet are smothered in trans fat, read margarine, canola or soy oil.

I’m chuckling over Komorovsky’s conference room comment, since it’s simply so right on the mark, given the Israeli penchant for putting out plates of potato bourekas, chocolate wafers and sesame-studded pretzels, along with water and soda at pretty much any conference room gathering, whether it be at the Knesset or a venture capital firm boardroom. Okay, maybe Herzliya venture capitalists are sticking to fresh fruit and sparkling water these days. But every bakery slides out its trays of vegetable- and cheese-filled bourekas each day, along with cinnamon and chocolate rugelach, and people buy them by the box and bagful.

“Israelis’ affection for bourekas and manufactured pastries, along with the long work days that lead to snacks of this sort, are liable to have disastrous results. Another risk factor is the widespread use of margarine in Israel – in part due to kashrut considerations – since margarine is entirely trans fat,” according to the Haaretz article. And while “the good news for Israelis is that restaurants here are better than in the United States. Even McDonald’s in Israel stopped using trans fats as far back as 2004, and switched to canola oil,” we’re still a country that likes its trans fat in plenty of products.

I’m hooked on these concepts right now because I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s excellent new book, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life”, and contemplating finally starting my compost pile and growing some more vegetables in our garden. Don’t know whether that will actually happen. But I’ll tell you this much: No more bourekas in this house.

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