Serves up braised Israeli chicken shakshuka with minted roasted pepper couscous to students, staff
“Mazal tov!” (Hebrew for “Congratulations!”) to the students and staff of Mountain Lake Public School (MLPS) for the opportunity they recently had to experience the taste of Israel, courtesy of Taher Chef Chris Murray.
Chef Chris served up a main dish of braised Israeli chicken shakshuka with minted roasted pepper couscous to local palates, most of whom are novices in Middle East and Northern Africa food fare, at noon lunch on Thursday, October 6.
Shakshuka is one of Israelis’ most loved foods. The dish, which was brought to Israel by Jewish immigrants from Tunisia in North Africa, traditionally consists of spiced stewed tomatoes topped with poached eggs.
It is a staple on the menus of coffee shops and restaurants around the country. Modern interpretations augment the sauce with all sorts of vegetables, cheeses or meats, including eggplant, kale, feta or sausage. Some variations replace the tomatoes entirely – one popular version substitutes a spinach-cream sauce.
Couscous is a coarsely-ground pasta made from made from two different sizes of the husked and crushed, but unground, semolina, which is a type of hard wheat. Like macaroni and spaghetti, couscous is made from semolina flour, but, rather than mixing the semolina with a prescribed amount of water and/or egg into a dough, couscous is made by rubbing the semolina between moistened hands until the flour combines with just enough water to form hundreds of tiny grains. The process takes a light touch, otherwise the grains combine into a gooey mass, but once learned, it is one of the simplest forms of making pasta and one that is practiced in villages all around the Mediterranean basin.
After the couscous grains are formed they are dried and steamed over a stew, usually made from lamb, in a special pot called a couscoussière. Steaming couscous is an involved operation, requiring sealing the top of the couscoussière to its bottom with rags dipped in flour paste, and then interrupting the steaming several times to rub the softening couscous grains to insure that they remain separate.
Couscous doesn’t have a lot of flavor on its own, but it works well as a base for vegetable or meat dishes. It also mixes beautifully into salads and can be flavored with herbs like coriander, basil or mint, or even studded with fruit like raisins or apricots. It’s a very neutral — and nutritious — base for all sorts of dishes.
Fortunately, couscous now comes in instant and non-instant varieties.
Additionally, on Wednesday, October 5, Chef Chris spent quality time baking with the seventh-graders in the high school’s kitchen classroom.
Chef Chris is a member of the Taher Chef Council. Taher is the food service provider at the school. Members of the Taher Chef Council travel around the world as a team in order to stay on the cutting edge of the culinary field.
Before Chef Chris joined Taher, Inc. in 2003 as Corporate Catering Manager, his culinary experiences included – Director of Catering for the Minnesota Vikings Food Service preparing food for the executive suites and VIP parties at the Hubert H. Humphrey dome; Chef at the Eden Prairie City Center, catering weddings, corporate functions and private parties; Executive Chef to the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and Board of Directors for the IDS/American Express Corporation and owner of a successful “Personal Chef Service,” catering dinners, proms and private parties. In 1998, Chris had the privilege of catering the 1998 United States Presidential visit of Bill Clinton.
As Regional Chef for Taher, Chef Chris assists with new account openings and large catered events, and awes customers with his On Display cooking of international cuisine at Taher-managed accounts. He is an active member of the Minneapolis Chapter of the American Culinary Federation (ACF) where he enthusiastically donates his time to help others less fortunate. In 2001, he was awarded the “Presidential Hero of Everyday Life” award for his work feeding homeless, and in 2007, as Taher’s Executive Chef at Hennepin Technical College (HTC), Chris received the “Spirit of the Heart” award given by Dr. Kathryn Jeffery, President of HTC-BP, for his commitment to students. He has organized many fundraising golf tournaments to assist charitable organizations, and participated in “We Can Ride” fundraising dinners for handicapped children in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
Following is a photo gallery of the visit of Chef Chris to the kitchen and cafeteria of MLPS:
