This is one of those dishes you would enjoy making, every single step of it. First roast sliced potatoes topped with a layer of olive-oiled tomatoes/spring onions/italian peppers mess – the dish within its own right. In the meantime make charmoula – tiny red bird chiles, preserved lemon (bergamot), parsley, mint, scallions, garlic, cumin – i guarantee you’ll lick the bowl clean. Slather a layer of charmoula on thick fish fillets – nice haddock today.
Let it marinade for 30mins, then put on top of potatoes and roast until the fish is ready while enjoying the aroma – i for one tend to hang out around the kitchen while it happens…

And when you’re eating please note the incomparable dense texture of roasted white potatoes…

The inspiration – courtesy of Nadia Roden (via F&W magazine)

Came up with a new filling: chicken and eggplant.
Two globe eggplants (about 1.5 lb) halved, deeply scored, salted, sprinkled with cumin seeds and brushed with olive oil and roasted on thyme branches in 425F convection oven until sligtly charred and soft. The flesh is scooped out and drained. Don’t discard a skin before trying snacking on it – delicious! The flesh is whizzed in food processor, stopping before it turns to paste.
1lb of boneless skinless chicken thighs partially frozen, cut in 0.5″ cubes and pulsed in food processor until finely cut, in two batches. Mixed with eggplant and some thinly sliced scallion greens added. Salt and a lot of black pepper.
Panfried gently.
Served with greek yogurt and zaatar. And spanish ketchup (minced piperade).

Mediterranean dishes are funny this way. You look at the recipe for water borek (turkish) and then for achma (georgian) and you coudn’t tell one from the other…

Tonight i was trying to recreate a dish i had many many years ago in Moscow: i didn’t remember the name but from my memory it resembled both borek and achma…

I started with a recipe for a turkish water borek, by the esteemed Binnur and streamlined, streamlined, streamlined… Used a small pyrex dish the size of an eggroll sheet. Didn’t boil the sheets, and used 2 instead of 4 for dough layers. Same amount of filling, in 3 layers though. Halved the amount of topping. Kept int he fridge for an hour only.
Baked as per the original recipe.
Came out nice and indeed reminded a borek very much though not the dish from my memory…

Oh and btw – have you noticed the Valentine theme?