On The Menu; Lebanese Food at Cafe Lebanon

Oh. Tonight we're cooking Lebanese with not Deen cashews owner of Cafe Levanon in Springfield. We'll also learn how to shop for ingredients online with local chef Daniel Arends and Paul provost will be along to pair wines with our recipes. That's all coming up next on the menu. On the menu is brought to you by the members of WG y in by. Welcome to my kitchen and to another episode of On the menu tonight my special guest is Nadine cashew who is the owner and chef of café Levitt in Springfield Massachusetts. A great family owned restaurant and

that's up on State Street. Yes great. And what we're going to be cooking tonight tonight we're going to start with an appetizer marinated artichoke hearts. And we have for the main entree we have a summer chicken with rice for rice and we're going to finish with them whole lobby which is the most base putting. Now this sounds like it's all Middle Eastern. It is strictly Middle East right. And the best of ingredients of course when I was like with the artichokes. Absolutely. OK well simple dish simple dish very easy to prepare. You can buy it by the can from the market. You take the artichoke heart you cut in half. And of course if you want to go through the trouble of you can cooking the. It's a lot of work just to get to the house exactly. So you cut in half and you set aside and you know that's should be plenty. And for the dressing we're going to take one global garlic. OK. And with a little bit of salt just maybe a pinch of salt. You're going to smash. Down your way. Just smash them. I imagine that comes

out pretty nice on this audio. Thank you I'm going to try to keep dipping into M.. OK take a fresh lemon ham. Half is enough you just freshly you know squeeze it white in you know every home kitchen ought to have. Castle Absolutely absolutely. I've seen them in granite I've seen them in wood it looks like it was a well-used. This is believe it or not this is from Lebanon. Really Yes but you know it came from the my home country. So these are one of the things that once you have it it becomes a very special you know Absolutely that's why it came with the the show that's a very fairly simple appetizer dish you can make a salad out of this one by using more baby greens. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to use a little bit of that for the Ganesh you take I did show right on top. And could one using a router and or any other type any kind of greensward whatever whatever suits you. This is a very

simple. Yeah addressing in what we do is we take it in. This is it was completely done to gun I want to put that off to the side because we have a lot of other things to be doing so well so I'm going to do that and we're going to move into our next dish and it's kind of interesting you said this is what kind of price it's called Hush rewrites. This is a very popular Rice in Lebanon. It has meat and it has black pepper or ground cinnamon allspice. It's a great dish soup and I'm going to eat for us. And I probably should have done that beforehand but now we have to wait we've had this wonderful electric snow. I'm not going to Chris is still getting more of what I'm going to tell you I had an electric stove at home. I just recently moved on to gas so there will be a chef's nightmare. But we're going to have to work with it. Yes tell me a little bit about your restaurant it's a family owned. It's a family owned a lot of you work in it.

I have myself and my brother in law my sister my niece and I have my nephew we're going there at one point. OK. It's kind it's nice to have the whole family there seven days a week seven days a week seven days a week. We open Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner and Saturday Sunday we're open for dinner all the neat and we're just going to adlib it is going to have probably a quarter cup of oil. Now you're using one here this is a regular and I can all I need to and there's this 10 percent olive oil and I got enough and they're a little bit it doesn't hurt. Yeah you know but you need to get food for the ground beef it needs to be like 80 20 or 85 15. Yeah it's nice to have a little bit of fat it kind of adds a little bit of flavor to you know I was 80 24 or hamburgers are absolutely the best. And I mean some people want to go for the lead but believe doesn't taste as good you know if you want to eat something you might as well enjoy it you know right now what we want to do is just chop this icicle chop it smash it whatever you want to do with it while you do and

this is I have the three seasoning that we're going to be adding and allspice. This is we're looking at a recipe it's good for four people. Oh this is you using half a pound. But why beat around on the spices we use in a half a tablespoon of allspice have a cable spool of life episode and like three quarters to maybe one of cinnamon. OK so this is nice. Nature will give it a flavor and also I want to remind all of our viewers that menus can be received by going to our website. That's why dot org and you just check on local programming and go directly to Cafe Lebanon and you'll be able to get this recipe absolute all the directions on how to do it and if you prefer the old fashioned way that's okay to simply send a self stamped address on Iraq to Deputy VicRoads for heading to the street and we'll get that off to you before signing on the rice.

We need the three to four pounds of chicken. OK what do we need to do is we need to simmer or boil it. We're going to be using two two in that dish. Now you you actually put this into just water just for the water cover with water probably two to three cinnamon sticks and maybe two three leaves really no salt nothing because we're going to be adding some chicken base to it and it has a little bit of the salt in a stew if you boil it fill it stand of polio from the time a boy you're looking at like 25 to 30 minutes OK. You take it you put aside let it cool so you have burning your fingers as a director here d boning it and you can I get a little bit more about that restaurant. And one of the things I understand if you have there special is that Friday and Saturday night every Friday and Saturday night we have a few belly dancing shows at 7:30 and then a clod. It's a nice way and it's unlike the show Raju dining sometimes it's a fresh for people to come in and give a belly dance of like you know that of us that we eat at and I've heard from friends that have gone absolutely to die for and I understand you have a fully to license.

Yes and a lot of specialty wine we have I don't want to say a lot but we have probably a fleet of four different kind of wine that comes from Italy from Lebanon. I read analyze they could have a very authentic absolutely I thought usually people end up with a lot of these wine it's an excellent wine and you had a bottle there of white wine with that white line it was a bit rough on the shuttle was really have to film with and in Iraq and Iraq and that this was like and it was a little stronger 100 percent full on a lot of soul and if you want to leave this one alone for the day now we've got this cooking along very nicely and one it's a brown one that's ready for that's going to write down all the like maybe. It also would add the rice and the water through what you have is this a pretty traditional headed way of cooking rice definitely. That really is a family recipe or is this something it's a Lebanese recipe a little economics in this bed in a fountain in front of the line in a way it's one of the popular rices and the restaurant to press. Yeah well this is really neat and I would just add we dress add the rice Let's go ahead and you know

that right here and for a family of four will look just I made two cops who got involved. So two cups and what kind of rice is this is the word love. Remarkable Father Boyle got rides along JOHN RYAN Right exactly and now some water actually if we can measure the water though a big wave. OK. What I would normally say for each cup of rice use two cups of water. I don't do that for each cup of rice I use one and a half or so of the rice as I go so we was like Oh I think that is one of the hops right there that's I hope will go one more round. There we go. I sleep in the little bit more also. You just you just tell me when. That's good. OK OK. I give this one more steer definitely. You know what are we going to add to it. Price this way. This is interesting. Usually some people cook it into the oven OK which I never understood how but this is what we have. That's probably a tablespoon of chicken

base. You know we buy it in the Big 8 pound tubs. You probably find it in cubes in the market. OK. Can or something like that. You're probably going to need maybe three cubes of of that. OK. And this is going to make sure it's fully melted. Otherwise when you take a bite into it it's just a small little digs. Yeah and that's great and then we just simply put the top on lettuce baby got you know trying to you know the flame down a little bit and let it simmer a little. Right. Probably 15 to 20 minutes that should be right. Okay that's great. That's like you know you talk about some of these special spices that we used to hear some of these things are sometimes difficult to get in local stores. And the nice thing about that show that he is out on the trail she's actually going to be doing a little internet search to find some of the special spices used and Middle Eastern cooking will be interesting. We're going to go visit her now that he learns. Finding

exotic ingredients for some of your favorite recipes can be pretty challenging. But I'm here on the internet and it can be a wonderful resource for finding those really unusual spices or products that you just can't normally find in your supermarket. Right now I'm on the Internet and I need to really do is go into your favorite search engine and let's type in cooking and see where we go with it. There we are. OK let's look at spices because those can be really difficult to find sometimes. Yeah we are. OK. This takes us into a company that specializes in spices called Penzeys. Let's see. Wow. Got some really nice options here we can look for recipes and here we could get a catalog but here's the online store. There we go. OK. We can actually go right

into the catalog right online. And here we have spices and herbs and seasonings from A to Z. And let's see what they have for specialty spices. There we are Irish one seed all the way down to Zach tar sumac. Let's see how we would go about ordering these. All right we got a little bit of a description of the spice and then we can actually order anywhere from a little over an ounce all the way up to a one. So get on the Internet and see what you can find on shift Debbie Lorenz. See you next time. Welcome back to the kitchen with Chef or Nadim cashew from the cafe Lebanon. I hope that you enjoyed that segment with the chef that beat as she surfed the net.

The web I should say and certainly tried to help you find ingredients that you sometimes can't find in your local market. But nowadays you can get just about anything just local stop and shop for a Big Y or host of one of the cart Whole Foods up in Hadley. Great great show as well. What have we been doing while you've been on the web. We have finished off Rice as you can see it is cooked with the meat and those. No wonder the CIA says yeah what they want but brings out the most out the cinema cinema number can I come you don't want to over overdo it or do it exactly. Well I'll tell you it absolutely wonderful thank you. I chicken as we talked about before we have boiled that it just simple water with some spices a bay leaf and use a cinnamon stick sediments there as well so sediment is really a pretty important ingredient in Lebanese It is now called last soup and now what are we going to do from here we're going to go ahead and light that up we can do that the absolutely down below we have a nice little plate.

OK this is a serving for one person you want to be happy too. A little bit of rice and while you're doing this I'll get the chicken but right here in the center you get it. I want to be Portion control is that good enough. Also a little bit more you know they're probably hungry. Of course at your restaurant they get a girl absolutely should have civil thing. I understand that you do something pretty special there at the end of the month is it the last Friday of the month. It's the last Saturday of the month. It's called the Arabian Night and Arabian Nights and what happens for that night that we don't open at 4 o'clock on Saturday for that I would own up until 7:30 and it's my reservation only and we normally sell out every time we have a set menu for that evening and we have a four piece band to belly dancing shows and the ghost of 12 o'clock now is there a special dancing that takes place where you know not just the entertainment that you watch the entertainment and you know the belly dancer performing to life and you as a kid so it's a very

exciting evening. It should be and that takes reservations only reservations only. OK. Well as you can see we put the way I see there's two ways of serving you can either leave the meat as a whole or you can shred it. I like to shred it it makes it. First of all you make sure there's no bones into which I just caught one and it goes right. On the meat on the meat and I want to remind people about CAFE Lebanon located on State Street in Springfield. You also have a Web site called the Cafe Lebanon dot com. Yes people can get directions they can get directions you can also get the menu for the evening events so what's going on for that night super That was really great. Now you have already cooked off some of the omens and pine nuts. But if I would go ahead and do that I would simply take the raw product and use a little oil absolute just a little bit of oil so they want steak and will give the plants all the elements of color living color and so on.

And both are done at the same time. Actually they do because they think yeah pine nuts takes longer than the almonds. So these would just simply cook up until they're nice and brown and think you have him there. Exactly do the Ahmanson well we're done sort of and so I won't go through that step because that's already been done i'll just make sure that our stove is shut off and we can continue with this story with this one or do you basically do is you take there will supply nuts almonds and gravy. This is it. That's a lot of flavor to the dish really does believe because when we were talking about the Arabian night I made mention of the fact that if someone wanted real Lebanese cooking they wouldn't have to go all the way to Lebanon. They simply know how forensics you know pass was not taken really required for it just come down we're going to put this up to the side bring it back a little bit later. And now what we should do is move on to the dessert. OK so here we've been heating up some whole milk as well. I'd like to use homemade gives that deserve a nice flavor. This is worse is using it to

present a weapon scent on a very low flame you just heat it up. Probably I used to have a gallon I'm sorry like 32 ounces of milk you need for that recipe you need probably half a cup of sugar which you can add in and I almost taste that every once in a while because one time I thought I had sugar when I had salt. Oh it really doesn't make you. This is imported from Lebanon. You get blossom water and you get water and these we were able to purchase locally so I could read those. Actually you can buy them locally you know my llamas do carry them that way right on Howard Street carries them. And it's used primarily in baking. We use a lot of that in dessert baklava be put over taken right now to rice pudding. That's that's very well used. Neat Yeah. So all you need to do use is probably like maybe three four drops of this one. So be careful with this exactly like the cinnamon in here a little too much a

little spoiled little of them yet. Now obviously you're at the restaurant most of the time but do you cook Lebanese at home as well. I don't cook at home you don't cook I don't cook I don't I have a beautiful kitchen at home but I don't even use it I can just go out and try different restaurants to finish the product we're going to bring it up a little bit to a hotter temperature we have two tablespoons of corn starch here we're going to add a little bit of cold milk to it dissolve the corn starch and we get added to it and that's going to give the the thing I started like that actually we have a great one here that we you know we go anyway. Yeah in fact I want to remind people about our own website because all of the recipes that we do with on the menu you can find at our website even past year segments as well so that's WG white dot org. And if you prefer of course they can do it the old fashioned way as I say send a stamped addressed envelope and

that would be 44 Haddon street Springfield Massachusetts and more than happiness. You know those recipes. OK. You want to go ahead. OK. You can just add a little bit then just keep on strong. This is where it really gets good. Now we just keep you stirred and when we go and as we go and as you can I'm beginning to see that thickening up here. You can go ahead and dump the whole thing. And that just has to set up you know as it gets hotter it's going to begin right and you can leave it unattended it's going to stick to the plan because if it all of a sudden become well exactly like it's going to come to putting an iPod OK and you don't know you don't want that you don't want that when this is standing up there you know you that's not a good sign you know it's not a good sign. And this is a very simple desert. It really could be made in seconds. You can use some

some garnish with it. We have some government shit when it's hot it's good by itself it's a nice desert and it's comforting desert hot. But what he can do is he can have it chilled when it's cold it becomes a customary texture to it. You put it in a bowl like this if you get something exactly sized just exactly what I what I normally do is we put it and I know for cop a plea form cop so you can poke a hole in it then it comes with the goods you might as well drink otherwise it's going to get stuck will be OK. But to put it in this basically let me just got something right over here and you're moving along nicely with that. And this is one that's already cut it with a knife. And just what I've done that is really good. But this one you can serve it with any kind of fruits and you selected I selected teach today teach and I

also have some strawberries to go with that very colorful dish with some very refreshing especially after a nice meal. The rule is a long time there was syrup and then the nice thing about it as you say it's not a dessert that fills you to the to the exactly what that is. That is really when it's still like Dad what I'd like to do what I'd like to you is to use a rose water. OK this is the same product that uses the same product we use to make this one is very simple and very easy you take two pots of sugar one pot of water you bring it to a boil you had a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to it and a little bit of rosewater. And it sickens and this is it. And when you're talking water here you're talking rows of Ocelot I went out talking regular was OK great. Well that's about it as you're finishing this dish up what we're going to do is we're going to go to Paul provost who's a tape of mine and Paul and his associates are going to be nice enough to match some wines with the

seedlings menu I think it's going to be very interesting but you know that absolutely and when you come back we will have plated everything up and ready for the eating. With the chef that deems artichoke hearts salad I've selected trim box reverts trama near a special coup they call saying are they ruble Pierre. This is a rich full bodied spicy highly fruited wine fully mature from the 1996 vintage that I think really can stand up to the challenges of artichokes. You know artichokes of despair Agus and green beans are very difficult vegetables the pear wines with. But this is such a full bodied flavored wine that I think it will easily stand up to the challenge. Live cafe

Lebanon's main course of chicken with pine nuts and all MN's and gravy I thought a full bodied ripe roasted rich cold the Rhone would work beautifully. I've selected the Ross style coat to roll in the lodge via a being from tard you're in Little Rock. These are tuna go see Oz Dominical raw from Burgundy and Michelle tarred you from the Rhone Valley who've pared their talents to produce and market wines of exceedingly high quality about 75 percent of this wine was made from the Granada grape and it has a really peppery spicy full bodied character roasted in the hot sun of the lower Rhone Valley. This really should make a wonderful pairing with our chicken dish. I'm Paul provost from table environment Town and Country. Those are my picks for a copy of tonight's recipes. Simply mail a self addressed stamped envelope on the menu in care of booty for Hamdan street

Springfield Mass 0 1 1 0 3. Or go online AWG white dot org. Well Chef Nadeem cashew from Cafe Lebanon we have completed the meal as it looks beautiful. Thank you. Starting off with our other show dish or any added garlic lemon juice olive oil a little bit of salt. Simple but complex in its tastes ourselves and then of course our chicken. Some are chicken served over the history of rice which is with the meat and the seasoning topped with well supine let's all mint and the secret ingredients of the cinnamon cinnamon and then I deserve it. Milk based putting whole milk Rosewater a little bit of course launch and voila. That's right they're fresh We're going to tell you now to taste the wine said Paul provost from cable and Vine has picked for us today we'll see how that. Always Right on. All right all right on target we want to thank Paul we want to thank cafe Levitan and you

chef for being a part of the show cafe Lebanon located right across from the civic center in downtown Springfield on State Street. Yes thank you and I hope to be seeing you next on the menu. On the menu is brought to you by the members of WG wine in Bali from the northern village of Belo Italy to the banks of the Connecticut River. They're free Go family has upheld many traditions and recipes serving the people of western Massachusetts into 1050 with the highest quality in service and specialty foods. Their family will be happy to assist you.