A Bottarga Board and Recipe

The Sephardic Movie Pageant is all the time some of the glamorous, enjoyable and memorable occasions on our calendar. The vibe begins if you drive by the tall gates onto the fabled Paramount Photos lot. Strings of twinkling lights adorn the timber, there’s a lengthy pink carpet and the flash of cameras exterior the theater.

Pat’s Restaurant units up massive, luxurious buffets and there are white-shirted waiters serving champagne.

Over time, there have been fantastic honorees, like Yehoram Gaon, Lainie Kazan, Gad Elmaleh and Emmanuelle Chriqui. One 12 months we had the legendary Enrico Macias, who generously gave a full live performance. And Hank Azaria was the nicest man (and simply beloved the home-made burekas from our bake sale).

In fact, all that glamour takes onerous work. Neil has all the time been answerable for curating the movies, which signifies that we spend hours screening motion pictures (some enjoyable, some boring) to search out the one gem for opening night time.

Created within the late 1990’s, the primary movie festivals had been run by the powerhouse Sarita Fields and my husband Neil Sheff and all our wonderful SEC mates. I used to be busy with younger kids and would principally assistance on the night time of the Gala. Slowly, slowly I received extra concerned and have been fortunate sufficient to run the previous few festivals with Sarita.

Over time, we’ve screened movies telling multi-faceted tales of Sephardic Jews from all over the world. Tales from Morocco to Turkey, from India to Iraq, from Syria to Rhodes and extra.

I’m very passionate in regards to the Pageant as a result of the earnings fund the Sephardic Instructional Heart within the Previous Metropolis of Jerusalem. I’ve seen firsthand the ability that these scholarships have for teenagers, housing Israeli troopers, educators and Rabbis from all over the world.

At this 12 months’s Pageant, which opens with a gala on November 13, and continutes from November 15-20 on the Music Corridor in Beverly Hills, our Grasp of Ceremonies is David Suissa, wonderful editor of the Jewish Journal. Nira Sayegh, one in every of our closest mates, staunch supporter and longtime board member of the SEC, will obtain the Maimonides Management Award.

The Sephardic Legacy Award goes to SEC alumni Michael Morhaime, the online game creator of World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo and Overwatch. As a particular shock, the Cinema Sepharad Award goes to Shaun Toub and the TV sequence “Tehran.”

Sharon and I hope you’ll be a part of us for one more fantastic Pageant.

—Rachel

Upon our discovery that the topic of the quick movie exhibiting at this 12 months’s Sephardic Movie Pageant was bottarga, Rachel and I simply knew that we needed to inform our readers about this “kosher caviar.”

The topic of the movie is 87-year-old renaissance man Dan Maslia, who teaches Sephardic cooking lessons to standing room solely audiences on the Or VeShalom Congregation in Atlanta (based by Jews from Rhodes).

As a younger boy, he had a job cleansing fish at a contemporary meals retailer in Atlanta. The bones and entrails of the fish had been all discarded, however he would rigorously salvage the mullet roe (the sac of fish eggs) to take house to his mom and aunts and neighbors. Utilizing a recipe introduced with them from Izmir, an historic metropolis on the Aegean coast of Turkey, the lengthy pouches had been cleaned, salted and cured on their again porches. These immigrants referred to as the prized delicacy “abedahu”. It was a much-loved ingredient of the Ladino Shabbat meze, alongside kalamata olives, reshas (crispy crackers) and raki (an alcohol comprised of twice-distilled grapes, generally known as the nationwide drink of Turkey).

A few years later, he and Rabbi Robert Ischay, the beloved non secular chief of Or VeShalom, took up the craft, making bottarga side-by-side. These days, Maslia has a thriving enterprise, delivery his bottarga throughout oceans and shared ardour for this treasured ingredient has linked him to Sephardim all around the world.

To make our personal lovely meze board, we reached out to Julien Haggiag, proprietor of the incomparable purveyor of wonderful meals merchandise, Elyon Connoisseur. He tells us that he “received into the bottarga enterprise to flee the torturous world of trend.”

Each he and his spouse had been born in France; he’s of Tunisian descent and his spouse is of (Turkish and Greek) Rhodes descent. Their culinary traditions share comparable Mediterranean influences, however above all they share an unconditional love of bottarga. His grandmother referred to as it damchut and her grandmother referred to as it abedahu.

Haggiag imports Safa Bottarga, which is made in France and sells at La Grande Epicerie in Paris. He initially offered it to Los Angeles kosher markets, like Western Kosher, Glatt Mart and Elat Market. However the rising recognition of bottarga signifies that he has rising orders from non-kosher distributors and the venerable Santa Monica Seafood has change into one in every of his greatest clients.

Bottarga is subtly salty and deliciously creamy with hints of fishiness. Generally known as the “truffle of the seas,” Italian cooks like to shave it into their spaghetti.

Bottarga is subtly salty and deliciously creamy with hints of fishiness. Generally known as the “truffle of the seas,” Italian cooks like to shave it into their spaghetti. Whereas the best-known model comes from the Mediterranean, it is usually valued in Asian delicacies. There may be Japanese karasumi, Taiwanese wuyutsu and Korean eoran.

Begin with somewhat bottarga shaved into your pasta and also you’ll quickly develop hooked on the flavour of this delicacy.

—Sharon

BOTTARGA SPAGHETTI

4 garlic cloves, shaved or thinly sliced
½ cup further virgin olive oil, plus 2 extra
tablespoons
Pinch of pink chili flakes or Calabrian Chile
1 teaspoon contemporary lemon zest
1 finger of bottarga
1/2 bunch of parsley, finely chopped

• In a small sauce pan, heat olive oil over low warmth. Add garlic and sauté till golden, about 2 minutes. Take away from warmth and add chili flakes and lemon zest.
• In salted water, boil pasta in keeping with bundle instructions. Drain pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of water.
• Toss the pasta within the garlic and olive oil. Slowly add the reserved water, till it seems creamy (it will not be crucial to make use of all of the pasta water).
• Toss within the parsley. Shave the bottarga over the pasta.
• End with extra shaved bottarga and lemon zest and chilli, to style.