Since it was just a few of us this last Chistmas and not the usual crowd (thanks to you-know-what), we decided it was time to make our dinner a tribute to St. Nicholas. Specifically, Saint Nicholas of Myra, the Bishop of Turkey. Which means ... Turkish cuisine!

Now, a proper Turkish feast means lots of different dishes. But I didn't want to go crazy given that there were just the four of us, and there was only so much we could eat. So I settled on a menu of two meze (small dishes), two salads, a palate-cleaning soup, manti as the main course, and a pastry pudding as dessert.

The two meze were what I jokingly called "cheese sticks and meat sticks". The "cheese sticks" are a very common Turkish appetizer known as "sigara böreği", or "cigar pastries", for reasons that should be obvious if you look at the picture. If you can locate the correct dough, called yufka, these are very easy to make. Yufka is about twice the thickness of phyllo, but doesn't dry out or tear as easily. Better, in a well-stocked Middle Eastern grocery you can find yufka cut into triangles perfect for rolling sigara in the freezer case. Grate some village cheese or kasseri, add a little yogurt and chopped mint, and roll them up, then fry.

The meat sticks were even easier, because I bought them pre-made from the butcher at Basics Market on Sandy. They were a mixture of beef & lamb, a simple kebab I didn't need to prepare myself (especially since I wasn't going to eat it). Then, the salads.

For a touch of seasonality, both salads were red and green. Red with a little green is this salad, made from rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes, peppers, pomegranate seeds, feta and mint. This was excellent, and worth making again as a winter salad. But it wasn't as good as then other salad.

This one was green with a little red. The red was just hothouse cherry tomatoes, but that wasn't what made the salad great: that was the herbs. Like other near Eastern recipes, this salad treats herbs as salad greens, having handfuls of parsley, mint, basil, watercress, and dill. Now, as you can imagine in the middle of winter that made it a bit spendy, probably $20 worth of herbs there. But boy was it worth it, so that's the salad I'm going to share with you.

Herb Salad with Pomegranate Dressing

based on a recipe from Istanbul & Beyond

Salad greens

volumes below are loose packed, and very approximate. More of one herb can substitute for less of another

• 1/2 head of Romaine lettuce (full leaves, not just hearts), torn into bite-sized pieces, about 3 cups
• 1 bunch watercress leaves, about 1 cup
• 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped large, about 1 to 1.5 cups
• 1 small bunch basil or Thai basil, leaves stripped and very roughly chopped, about 1 cup
• 1 small bunch dill, roughly chopped, about 1/2 cup
• 1 bunch mint, leaves stripped, around 1 cup
• Leaves from several twigs of oregano, about 1/2 cup
• 1 basket cherry tomatoes, halved

Dressing

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 Tbs pomegranate molasses
• 1-2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt

Put the greens in a very large bowl and toss them until completely mixed. Add the tomatoes on top.

Whisk the dressing together, and taste it for tartness. It should be pleasantly tart; if not, add the extra tablespoon of lemon juice. Drizzle it onto the greens. Toss again, and serve within 1/2 hour of tossing.

Enough for six people as a first course.

After I made latkes for Christmas, some of my non-Jewish relatives wanted this recipe, so here it is.

Latkes are potato pancakes, or fritters, not much different from kartofelpuffer or rosti. Since the story of Hanukkah features olive oil, though, we shallow-fry ours in plenty of oily goodness. Plus that means maximizing the crispy bits.

This recipe is based on one from the Bette's Diner Pancake Handbook, which I recommend you acquire.

latkes

2 large russet potatoes, or 4-5 small ones, around 2lbs
1 small sweet potato, about 8-10oz (or just use more russet potatoes)
1 small-medium yellow onion, around 8oz
2 oz melty but mild cheese, like dry mozzarella or monterrey jack
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 eggs
1/4 cup of flour, plus more
1/2 tsp baking powder
up to 1 cup olive oil, depending on pan size
applesauce
sour cream (optional)

Peel the potatoes, sweet potato, and onion. Grate them on a box grater or in a food processor into a large bowl. Grate in the cheese. Add the salt and pepper and mix.

Mix in the eggs, then the flour, and then the baking powder. See if you need to add more flour; this is gonna depend on how "wet" your potatoes are. If they're especially dry, you might even need to add a couple of tablespoons of water. If there's a big pool of starchy water in the bottom of the bowl, add more flour until the liquid reaches a batter-like consistency and coats the potato shreds.

Fill a large, steep-sided pan about 1/4" deep in olive oil. Heat it until a shred of potato dropped in sizzles right away, around 350F. Drop in spoonfulls of potato batter, around 3 Tbs at a time; you're looking for little round latkes here, not big flat ones, because smaller latkes means more crispy bits. Depending on the size of your pan, you can fit 3 to 6 in one pan. Fry them until the edge potato shreds turn brown, 3-4 minutes, and then flip each one. Brown the on the other side, around 3 more minutes.

As the latkes come out of the pan, drain them of oil and put them on a rack or heavy paper towels to cool and crisp up; they're actually a little better if you hold them in a 200F oven for around 20 minutes, enough time to make the whole bowl.

Serve with applesauce, and optionally sour cream. Serves 4-5 people.

Of course, one can't have Passover without the one dish which expresses the true meaning of the holiday: matzoh ball soup!

Mind you, Kris would like it if I made matzoh ball soup more often, but it's quite a time-consuming dish (and requires 3 pots), so she only gets it on Passover. And, of course, I prefer not to have the traditional chicken stock, so I make my own veggie stock. That's why this recipe is "parve", which means neither dairy nor meat. Yes, this is a vegetarian matzoh ball soup, although it is not vegan.

Stock

Skins/ends from all the other onions in the recipe (see below)
½ bunch parsley, plus any leftover stems from rest of recipe
1 large onion, cut into 8 pieces
3 carrots, cut in to 1-inch pieces
5 stalks celery, cut into 2-inch pieces
3 cloves garlic, smashed but not peeled
4 small-medium white or red potatoes, quartered
2 bay leaves
1 shallot, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
2 tsp whole peppercorns
2 tsp salt
Large stockpot, strainer

This is my "no chicken stock", which takes advantage of the fact that home-made veggie stock tastes better than canned chicken stock any day. I've had people refuse to believe that no barn fowl died for this stock. The onion skins are added for color.

Put all the ingredients in the 8-qt pot and cover with water. Heat to boiling, then simmer gently for one hour, then strain. This stock can be made ahead.

Matzoh Balls

1 ½ cups matzoh meal
½ cup finely minced curly parsley
½ large onion, grated or pureed
2 cloves garlic, pressed or pureed
4 whole eggs (no fake eggs, you need the yolks), beaten
3 tbs vegetable oil
½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ to ½ cup seltzer water
2 qt. canned stock (optional)
Large bowl, large pot, cookie scoop (optional)

Make the matzoh ball dough: combine all ingredients, adding the seltzer water last after everything else is incorporated. It should have the texture of thick porridge; if not, add more seltzer. Set aside somewhere cool for at least ½ hour.

Make the matzoh balls: Boil lightly salted water and/or or canned stock, in the wide pot (unless the pot is at least 13" in diameter, it's better to do two batches). Roll the dough between both hands into balls about 1 ½ inch in diameter (should be 18-24 balls); use a cookie scoop to make them uniform size if you have one.

Drop the balls gently into the boiling water. They should sink to the bottom, then come back up in two to five minutes.

Simmer, covered, until the balls have about doubled in size and are getting soft, about 45 minutes. Do not check them more often than once every ten minutes or so; if they don't stay covered, they won't puff up well. Remove from the water with a slotted spoon or strainer, and set aside.

Soup

1 large onion, cut into wedges or eighths
3 carrots, peeled & cut into 2-inch lengths
4 white or red potatoes, cut into wedges or eighths
3 stalks celery, cut into 2-inch lengths
12 small sprigs parsley
Large pot, ladle

Add the soup vegetables to the pot, except for the parsley. Simmer for ½ hour, or until the carrots & potatoes are tender. Add the parsley and matzoh balls, and cook for another 5 minutes. Turn off and let cool for 10 minutes. Serve, making sure each diner has a couple matzoh balls, some soup, and vegetables.

For leftovers, it's better to refrigerate the matzoh balls and the soup separately, otherwise the balls are liable to become waterlogged and fall apart. The balls will shrink in the fridge; this is normal (ask any guy). Then, put the balls in the soup and reheat them gently. Can also be frozen.

Options for a more "gourmet" soup: replace the onions or celery in the soup with sliced fennel root. Or: garnish the soup with aioli or pistou. Or: add hot paprika and oregano to the matzoh balls, and make the soup with a light tomato broth. Or: add white fish or salt cod to the soup. If you're really cutting corners, you can replace the veggie stock with a mixture of 1qt stock-in-a-box and 6 cups of the water you cooked the matzoh balls in.

Continued from Part I and Part II

According to what I've read and seen, tkemali, or Georgian sour plum sauce, is the "salsa" of Georgia, appearing on many dishes and in many, many variations. Since this had been the whole inspiration for this meal, I whipped some up. We served this over a simple roast chicken and salmon, in order to cover both the meat and fish eaters: just salt & pepper and butter as seasonings, since the plum sauce is potent enough on its own. Recipe follows.

Finally, we couldn't possibly have an Eastern European meal without dessert! My sweetie prepared dessert, like usual. Here she turned to the Russian Heritage Cookbook, and put together a cheesecake with a cookie dough crust. The original cheesecake recipe called for Tvarog, a fine-curd buttermilk cheese which we couldn't easily get in Oregon. But hey, it's easy, let's make it! We consulted an online recipe from Urban Cheesecraft, and tried to whip up a batch. Unfortunately, the recipe isn't so great; the cooking time and temperature are off, and the yield for the recipe is way lower than stated. So, we used the backup cottage cheese.

The cheesecake was excellent nevertheless. We served it topped with jam, as appropriate for a Russian meal.

Sour Red Plum Sauce (Tkemali)

1 quart sour red plum puree and juice
3-5 cloves garlic, mashed
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 to 1 tsp hot paprika or Aleppo pepper (to taste)
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup finely chopped mint leaves
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro (optional)
2-3 Tbs lemon juice (optional, see below)

Place all ingredients except the mint in a small pot, over medium-low heat. Simmer gently until reduced in volume by 1/3, about 30 minutes. Add the mint. Put away in a container to cool. Serve at room temperature as a sauce on meat, fish, or red beans.

Notes: If you can't get sour plums, add 2-3 Tbs lemon juice to the plum puree. To get the plum puree and juice, stew 2 to 3 lbs small red sour plums (use wild plums, or just underripe commercial ones) for 1/2 hour. Drain, mash, and push through a food mill. Traditionally, the mint used in this recipe would be pennyroyal, but regular spearamint works fine.