Puaa

 

Puaa is a coffee shop and restaurant in shuk Hapishpishim in Yafo. It's an interesting place. For starters everything in the shop is for sale. There are small price tags on all the tables, chairs, yes, on all the furniture they have. Secondly, everything in the restaurant is second hand, so nothing looks the same, not even the plates or glasses. What a cool idea! There is a lot to see at Puaa for retro lovers.

But what about the food? Actually the food is good. They offer a lot of vegetarian dishes but also a few with meat and fish. We recommend the pumpkin dumplings in curry and coconut milk. Yummy! They also have a delicious Persian black lemon drink that you should try.
If you want to go to Puaa on a Friday or Saturday, it's not a bad idea to book a table in advance. Otherwise, walk around lovely Yafo while waiting for a table.

Location: Rabbi Yohanan Street 8, Jaffa, Flea Market

Pumkin dumplings in curry and coconut milk

Jemenit breakfast, Melawach

I'm going crazy with the malawach!

Inside Puaa

Tahini Cookies with Chocolate

Cookie addict

Tahini cookies might be some the best type of cookies in the world. Trust me, being a cookie addict I know what I'm talking about. They are very popular in Israel, and you can find them in almost any store. Of course they taste much better if you make them yourself. Here is a recipe for tahini cookies that I make and love (so does everyone else, especially Jill).
 
Chocolate and tahini work very well together. Try them and then tell us if we're wrong!  

Tahini cookies
 
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
200 grams of butter, softened
1/2 cup of suger
1/2 cup raw tahini
1 tsp vanilla sugar
100-150 grams of dark chocolate chips

1. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

2. Beat together sugar and butter until fluffy. Then add tahini and vanilla sugar.

3. On low speed, add flour carefully, mix until a crumbly dough forms. Add the chocolate and combine.

4. Transfer to a sheet of plastic wrap, and form the dough into a flat square approx.1,5-2 cm high. Put it in the freezer for at least an hour. It has to be completely hard.

5. Heat oven to 175°C (350°F).

6. Take out the dough from the freezer and make small squares approx. 2.5x2.5 cm, roll balls and put on a lined baking sheet. Make sure that they are not too close to each other, approx. 4-5 cm in between.

7. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cookies get a nice color and start to crack. Transfer to a cold rack and let cool completely.

Enjoy! 


© 2012 Jill Schweber and Channa Waje, all rights reserve

Beetroot Salad with Nuts

This is a salad that my mother makes at home in Sweden, and we all love it. She actually discovered it by mistake, because there were leftover beetroot and beans in the fridge. It's a really good and healthy salad with nuts, beans and carrots. It's perfect with a grilled steak in the summer, but also as a side dish for just about any occasion.

Ingredients

Salad
1/2 cup of assorted nuts (sunflower seeds, cashew cores, pumpkin seeds)
1/2 can of kidney beans
1 carrot, finely diced
3-5 rosted beetroots, finely diced
A handful of chopped parsley
Olive oil
Sea salt (for the nuts)

Dressing
3 tbs pumpkin seed oil (olive oil is also ok but not the same)
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
Sea salt
Black pepper, freshly ground
1 tsp garlic powder

1. Grill the beetroots in the oven for about 45 minutes (or until soft all the way trough) at 225°C.

2. Put some olive oil in a frying pan and fry the nut mix until it gets a nice golden color. Season with sea salt.

3. Take the nut mix from the pan, save the oil and fry the beans for a couple of minutes.

4. Place the diced carrot, beet roots and chopped parsley in a bowl. Add the fried beans and the nuts and mix.

5. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing and mix it with the salad.

Enjoy! 

© 2012 Jill Schweber and Channa Waje, all rights reserve 

Leikaj de Pesaj

For Pesach we don't eat chametz (anything that is leavened). So we don't eat anything good dessert wise. Instead of regular flour we substitute with matza meal, which to be quite honest doesn’t taste that good. There is of course ways to go around (like the amazing Principe Alberto Cake) but we are supposed to suffer a bit because of our ancestors that walked out of Egypt, and therefore we eat matza.
 
This is a good Pesach cake with cake meal (finely ground matza meal) and orange. This is a big batch, so if you have a lot of people coming over this is a perfect cake to make.   

Ingredients
11 eggs
1 cup cake meal
1/2 cup orange juice
Peel from one orange
1 1/4 cup of sugar
3 tbs vegetable oil (not olive oil)

Topping: icing sugar

1. Line a round pan with butter and matza meal.

2. Separate the yolks from the eggs whites. Beat the yolks with the sugar. Add the remaining ingredients (except for egg whites).
 
3. Beat the egg whites separately and then mix gently with the batter, so the air stays.

4. Place in oven for 50 minutes at 180°C. This is a big cake, so it can be put into a big round pan or two medium ones (we put a pan underneath because it sometimes leaks). If you use two medium ones, let them bake for 30 minutes instead of 50 minutes. 

Yummy!

Enjoy!
 

Apple Cake with Cardemom and Cinnamon

Here is an easy to make, delicious cake with apple, cardamom and cinnamon. You won’t be disappointed, I promise, this is a cake that doesn’t just taste good – it also looks good. The secret ingredient of this recipe is the cardamom that makes the cake exceptionally good. Cardemom is a commenly used spice both in Scandinavian cooking and Middle Eastern cooking. Try it, it's my favorite apple cake! 

Ingredients 
3 eggs
1 cup casted suger 
75 g butter, melted 
1,5 tbs baking powder (don’t be afraid of using baking powder, it makes the cake pop)  
1 tbs vanilla suger 
1 tbs ground cardamom 
150 ml milk 

Filling 

3 large apples, peeled and sliced 
3 tbs cinnamon 
3 tbs dark brown sugar 
 
Topping: icing sugar
 
1. Warm the oven to 175°C.
 
2. Grease a round baking tin with loose base, and sprinkle with bread crumbs so that the cake won’t stick.
 
3. Beat egg and sugar pluffy. Add flower, baking powder, vanilla sugar, cardamom, melted butter and milk.  
 
4. Place the sliced apple pieces, dark brown sugar and cinnamon in a plastic bag. Close and shake until all the apple pieces are covered. 
 
5. Place a little piece of the batter in baking tin just to cover the bottom, place a layer of apples and then put in the rest of the batter. Press down the first layer of apples, and then add another layer on the top in a nice pattern (see step-by-step pictures). 
 
6. Bake in the oven for 40 min. Don’t worry if it’s a little sticky in the middle. 
 
7. Let the cake cool and sprinkle icing sugar on top of it.
 
 Enjoy! 

© 2012 Jill Schweber and Channa Waje, all rights reserve 

step by step: how to layer