Kuku? Wuddat?
Kuku - also spelled kookoo - is nothing more or less than a Persian frittata - an open-faced baked omelette. Here’s the one I made last night:
Fava bean kuku.
I don’t have a huge amount of experience with these bad boys, but when I saw the photo of a fava bean kuku in the new book by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Jerusalem: A Cookbook), I knew I would have to make one for myself.
Your typical kuku is crammed with herbs - this one has dill and mint - and generally other ingredients like tangy dried barberries (AKA zereshk, the dark little goobers in the photo above), beans (fava beans, in this case), and/or potatoes and/or nuts. There’s also a dash of saffron and cream for another layer of flavor. There are plenty of eggs, too, mainly serving to hold the whole thing together.
I suppose this is the child that would result if an omelette were to get it on with a latke. Regardless, it is, to use Alton Brown’s terminology, Good Eats.
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6 comments:
Looks muy delicioso.
I dunno about that one. I'm a bit leery of baked eggs in general.
Still, the favas are tasty. I blogged a while back about "foul mudammas", an Egyptian dish based on the fava bean.
Apparently there are folks that can't tolerate the fava bean. Some kind of amino acid deficiency. They're said to have "favism".
Well, better than than Favreism, where you insist that over-the-hill Quarterbacks stick it out just one more season...
In this dish, you barely notice the eggs - there's so much else going on with the fava beans, herbs, and barberries.
There are about 400 million people worldwide who suffer from glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, a metabolic disorder. They cannot handle certain amino acids that are present in broad beans - eating favas will cause destruction of red blood cells in such people. Supposedly, people with G6PD deficiency are slightly more resistant to malaria... kinda like sickle cell anemia sufferers.
Favas don't cause a problem for me, especially if I have them with a nice Chianti. (Human liver is optional.)
Needs some sausage or bacon in it.
@BobG - Works for me. I think they call that "quiche."
Looks like a fat grub worm in lower center of photo. Is that what makes it exotic? LOL
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