The erev shabbos (AKA Friday) after Thanksgiving was full of kitchen fashlas (AKA minor disasters). This seems to be a recurring theme. I don’t know where to begin so I won’t even try, except to suggest—no, insist—that you inspect all your spice jars for bugs. NOW. Especially the paprika. I also suggest/insist that you buy only glass-jarred spices from now on. No details; just trust me.
I made many things, among them the salatim that I ate again for lunch the following Sunday. Clockwise from top: hummus (why are you buying it when it’s so easy to make?); cucumber, radish, and cherry tomato salad (based on the little salad that accompanies the toasted bagelim at Caffit, one of my favorite cafes in Jerusalem and whose website has mysteriously disappeared); ajvar (click); and last but not least, the subject of this post, chershi.
Let’s talk about chershi. Tchershi? Tshershi? Who knows. Who ever heard of it before? Not me. But when I was in Israel in October, my cousin took me to Gueta (click and then go have lunch there immediately), a Tripolitan restaurant in Tel Aviv where I had one of the best meals of my life. Among the selection of tasty salatim that we started off with was something we’d never had before and whose flavors we couldn’t quite place. Cumin, yes. Garlic, yes. But what else? It was incredibly delicious but what the heck was it? Chershi! We quizzed the waitress on how to make it but what we really should have done is ask for the chef; I’ve been googling “chershi” ever since. I found Gueta’s recipe online (click, but brush up on your Hebrew first) but it didn’t quite translate to my New York kitchen and I’m pretty sure that what we ate in Tel Aviv did not contain as much garlic. I’ll definitely make it again, but with, like, half the garlic. That is, only seven cloves.
2 months ago • 4 notes
