Cooking Irish can also be found at Pinterest and PETITCHEF.
We holidayed in Israel during our time in Ireland and stayed in Jerusalem for a few days. We toured the ancient walled section of the city extensively, visiting the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, and the streets where Christ carried the cross. We went to Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, Jericho, and Masada. We found this incredible soufflé restaurant where the only items served were soufflés both sweet and savory. My son had a chocolate soufflé; my daughter had an apple soufflé, and I had a mushroom soufflé. We dined there a few times in our short stay as Erin and Eli fell in love with soufflés.
My daughter Erin and son Eli in Old Jerusalem
What idea, story, place inspires you the most, moves you the most? Without a doubt, for me it is Masada. I first became aware of the history of Masada with a made-for-tv miniseries in April of 1981. The "ABC Novel for Television" was a drama of the historical siege of the Masada citadel by legions of the Roman Empire in 73 A.D. The TV script is based on the novel The Antagonists by Ernest Gann. The miniseries starred Peter O'Toole, in his first American miniseries appearance for which he won an Emmy nomination, as the Roman legion commander Lucius Flavius Silva and Peter Strauss as the Jewish commander Eleazar ben Ya'ir. A 2-disc DVD entitled Masada--The Complete Epic Mini-Series was released on 11 September 2007. I highly recommend it.
I knew I had to visit there one day, and four years later I did. While we were staying in Jerusalem in July of 1985, we took a city bus to visit nearby tourist areas like Bethelehem, the Dead Sea, Jericho, and Masada. Israel was accessible and safe enough in the mid-eighties to tour on your own. You were not forced to see all the sites via a group tour. I find it much more enjoyable to roam about either walking or using local transportation to find those out of the way adventures. Especially traveling with children, I would take a tour the first day in a city to get the lay of the land, and then we would explore on our own. If you are not familiar with the story of Masada, here is a short version.
Masada, Hebrew for fortress, is a plateau situated atop an isolated rock cliff at the western end of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea not far from Jerusalem. It is a place of gaunt and majestic beauty. On the east, the rock falls in a sheer drop of about 1300 feet to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, and in the west it stands about 300 feet above the surrounding terrain. The natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult as the Romans discovered in 73 A.D.
"And so met (the Romans) with the multitude of the slain, but could take no pleasure in the fact, though it were done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution, and at the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was."
operates at the site for those who wish to avoid the physical exertion. Due to the remoteness from human habitation and its arid environment, the site has remained largely untouched by humans or nature during the past two millennia. The Roman ramp still stands on the western side and can be climbed on foot. Remains of the ramp, created during the filming to simulate the ramp built by the Romans to take the fortress, can also be seen at the site.
Many of the ancient buildings have been restored from their remains, as have the wall-paintings of Herod's two main palaces, and the Roman-style bathhouses that he built. The synagogue, storehouses, and houses of the Jewish rebels have also been identified and restored. The meter-high circumvallation wall that the Romans built around Masada can be seen, together with eleven barracks for the Roman soldiers just outside this wall. Water cisterns two-thirds of the way up the cliff drain the nearby wadis [river valley] by an elaborate system of channels, which explains how the rebels managed to have enough water for such a long time.
In the area in front of the northern palace, eleven small ostraca--broken pottery fragments--were recovered, each bearing a single name. One reads "ben Yair" and could be short for Eleazar ben Ya'ir, the commander of the fortress. It has been suggested that the other ten names are those of the men chosen by lot to kill the others and then themselves.
Archaeologist Yadin's excavations uncovered the skeletal remains of 28 people at Masada. All the remains were reburied at Masada with full military honours on 7 July 1969.
The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Moshe Daya, initiated the practice of holding the swearing-in ceremony of soldiers who have completed their Tironut (IDF basic training) on top of Masada. The ceremony ends with the declaration: "Masada shall not fall again." The soldiers climb the Snake Path at night and are sworn in with torches lighting the background. Since Israeli law requires every man and woman to serve in the army, every Israeli citizen experiences this wondrous, inspirational ceremony. The ABC miniseries ended the movie with its reenactment atop Masada.
One interesting tidbit: a 2,000-year-old seed discovered during archaeological excavations in the early 1960s has been successfully germinated to become a date plant, the oldest known such germination.
Tracy Harrison, an Australian we toured Israel with, Eli, and Erin standing at the site of the wall where the Romans finally broke through at Masada in 74 AD. [Tracy, where are you?]
Eli at Masada overlooking the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth.
Masada National Park
The thermal baths on Masada
The Roman ramp as seem from atop Masada
Remnants of one of eleven Roman legionary encampments just outside the wall built by the Romans
An aerial view of Masada, the ancient Jewish fortress overlooking the Dead Sea
Now that soufflé recipe. This is a combination of a few recipes. I have never found just one that was quite right. It combines ingredients and suggestions from Alton Brown, Bobbe Wooldridge, and a handwritten recipe found in one of my mom's cookbooks. The wonderful soufflés we had in Jerusalem were individual-size, but these recipes are family-size.
Irish Cheese Mushroom Soufflé [Serves 5]
Ingredients:
Butter, cold for greasing the soufflé
2 tbsp. of Parmesan cheese, grated
3 tbsp. of butter
3 tbsp. of flour
1/8 tsp. of kosher salt
1 1/3 cups of whole milk, hot
4 large egg yolks
6 oz. of sharp Cheddar cheese
1 tsp. of Worcestershire sauce
5 egg whites plus 1 tbsp. of water
½ tsp. of cream of tartar
½ lb. of fresh mushrooms, sliced and sautéed in a small amount of butter
In a separate bowl combine the flour and kosher salt. Whisk this mixture into the melted butter. Cook for 2 minutes.
Whisk in the hot milk and turn the heat to high. Once the mixture reaches a boil, remove from the heat. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks to a creamy consistency. Temper the yolks--add the egg yolks a little at a time to prevent them from curdling--into the milk mixture, constantly whisking. Remove from the heat and add the cheese and Worcestershire sauce. Whisk until incorporated.
In a separate bowl, using a hand mixer, whip the egg whites and cream of tartar until glossy and firm. Add ¼ of the mixture to the base. Continue to add the whites by thirds, folding very gently.
Using a slotted spoon if the mushrooms contain any liquid, place the sautéed mushrooms onto the bottom of the soufflé pan and pour the egg mixture over the mushrooms. Fill the soufflé to ½-inch from the top. Place on an aluminum pie pan. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes. As with any soufflé, be careful removing the pan from the oven so it will not drop. Serve immediately.
If you want to make a soufflé with your children, here are a couple of easy recipes for a cheese soufflé from Cooks.com.
Easy Cheese Soufflé
Ingredients:
5 slices of bread
Butter
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 ½ cups of sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1 ½ cups of milk
Salt and pepper
Preparation:
Butter the slices of bread on both sides and trim off the crust. Break the bread into small pieces and place in a well-buttered casserole or soufflé dish. Combine the beaten eggs and the rest of the ingredients and pour over the bread. Bake in a 375°F. oven until set, about 25 minutes.
Easy Cheese Soufflé
The kids will love it as much as macaroni and cheese or a grilled-cheese sandwich, especially since they made it.
We holidayed in Israel during our time in Ireland and stayed in Jerusalem for a few days. We toured the ancient walled section of the city extensively, visiting the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, and the streets where Christ carried the cross. We went to Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, Jericho, and Masada. We found this incredible soufflé restaurant where the only items served were soufflés both sweet and savory. My son had a chocolate soufflé; my daughter had an apple soufflé, and I had a mushroom soufflé. We dined there a few times in our short stay as Erin and Eli fell in love with soufflés.
My daughter Erin and son Eli in Old Jerusalem
What idea, story, place inspires you the most, moves you the most? Without a doubt, for me it is Masada. I first became aware of the history of Masada with a made-for-tv miniseries in April of 1981. The "ABC Novel for Television" was a drama of the historical siege of the Masada citadel by legions of the Roman Empire in 73 A.D. The TV script is based on the novel The Antagonists by Ernest Gann. The miniseries starred Peter O'Toole, in his first American miniseries appearance for which he won an Emmy nomination, as the Roman legion commander Lucius Flavius Silva and Peter Strauss as the Jewish commander Eleazar ben Ya'ir. A 2-disc DVD entitled Masada--The Complete Epic Mini-Series was released on 11 September 2007. I highly recommend it.
I knew I had to visit there one day, and four years later I did. While we were staying in Jerusalem in July of 1985, we took a city bus to visit nearby tourist areas like Bethelehem, the Dead Sea, Jericho, and Masada. Israel was accessible and safe enough in the mid-eighties to tour on your own. You were not forced to see all the sites via a group tour. I find it much more enjoyable to roam about either walking or using local transportation to find those out of the way adventures. Especially traveling with children, I would take a tour the first day in a city to get the lay of the land, and then we would explore on our own. If you are not familiar with the story of Masada, here is a short version.
Masada, Hebrew for fortress, is a plateau situated atop an isolated rock cliff at the western end of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea not far from Jerusalem. It is a place of gaunt and majestic beauty. On the east, the rock falls in a sheer drop of about 1300 feet to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, and in the west it stands about 300 feet above the surrounding terrain. The natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult as the Romans discovered in 73 A.D.
There does exist a written source about Masada, The Jewish War by Josephus Flavius. Herod the Great built the fortress of Masada and "furnished this fortress as a refuge for himself." He had been made King of Judea by his Roman overlords and was hated by his Jewish subjects. It included a casemate wall around the plateau, storehouses, large cisterns ingeniously filled with rainwater, barracks, palaces, and an armory.
Some 75 years after Herod’s death, at the beginning of the Revolt of the Jews against the Romans in 66 A.D., a group of Jewish rebels overcame the Roman garrison of Masada. After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, they were joined by refugee zealots and their families who had fled. With Masada as their base, they raided and harassed the Romans for two years. Then, in 73 A.D., Silva marched against Masada with the Tenth Legion, auxiliary units, and thousands of Jewish prisoners-of-war. The Romans established camps at the base of Masada, laid siege to it for 2 to 3 months, and built a circumvallation wall. Frustrated that they were not able to break through to the top, they then constructed a rampart of thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth against the western approaches of the fortress. Some historians believe that Romans used the Jewish slaves to build the rampart. On 16 April 74 A.D., they moved a battering ram up the ramp and finally breached the wall of the fortress. When they entered the fortress, however, the Romans discovered that its 960 inhabitants had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide rather than face certain capture, defeat, slavery or execution by their enemies.
Josephus Flavius dramatically recounts the story told to him by two women who survived the suicide by hiding inside a cistern along with five children. They repeated verbatim Eleazar ben Ya'ir's exhortations to his followers, prior to the mass suicide. Because Judaism strongly discourages suicide, the defenders
drew lots and killed each other in turn, down to the last man, who would be the only one to actually be forced to take his own life. Eleazar ordered his men to destroy everything except the foodstuffs to show that the defenders retained the ability to live, and so chose the time of their death over slavery.
drew lots and killed each other in turn, down to the last man, who would be the only one to actually be forced to take his own life. Eleazar ordered his men to destroy everything except the foodstuffs to show that the defenders retained the ability to live, and so chose the time of their death over slavery.
"And so met (the Romans) with the multitude of the slain, but could take no pleasure in the fact, though it were done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution, and at the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was."
The heroic story of Masada and its dramatic end attracted many explorers to the Judean desert in attempts to locate the remains of the fortress. The site was identified in 1842, and intensive excavations took place only in 1963-65, headed by Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin with the help of hundreds of enthusiastic volunteers from Israel and from many foreign countries, eager to participate in this exciting archeological venture. Masada symbolizes the determination of the Jewish people to be free in its own land.
A hike up the Snake Path on the eastern side of the mountain is considered part of the "Masada experience," but a cable caroperates at the site for those who wish to avoid the physical exertion. Due to the remoteness from human habitation and its arid environment, the site has remained largely untouched by humans or nature during the past two millennia. The Roman ramp still stands on the western side and can be climbed on foot. Remains of the ramp, created during the filming to simulate the ramp built by the Romans to take the fortress, can also be seen at the site.
Many of the ancient buildings have been restored from their remains, as have the wall-paintings of Herod's two main palaces, and the Roman-style bathhouses that he built. The synagogue, storehouses, and houses of the Jewish rebels have also been identified and restored. The meter-high circumvallation wall that the Romans built around Masada can be seen, together with eleven barracks for the Roman soldiers just outside this wall. Water cisterns two-thirds of the way up the cliff drain the nearby wadis [river valley] by an elaborate system of channels, which explains how the rebels managed to have enough water for such a long time.
In the area in front of the northern palace, eleven small ostraca--broken pottery fragments--were recovered, each bearing a single name. One reads "ben Yair" and could be short for Eleazar ben Ya'ir, the commander of the fortress. It has been suggested that the other ten names are those of the men chosen by lot to kill the others and then themselves.
Archaeologist Yadin's excavations uncovered the skeletal remains of 28 people at Masada. All the remains were reburied at Masada with full military honours on 7 July 1969.
The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Moshe Daya, initiated the practice of holding the swearing-in ceremony of soldiers who have completed their Tironut (IDF basic training) on top of Masada. The ceremony ends with the declaration: "Masada shall not fall again." The soldiers climb the Snake Path at night and are sworn in with torches lighting the background. Since Israeli law requires every man and woman to serve in the army, every Israeli citizen experiences this wondrous, inspirational ceremony. The ABC miniseries ended the movie with its reenactment atop Masada.
One interesting tidbit: a 2,000-year-old seed discovered during archaeological excavations in the early 1960s has been successfully germinated to become a date plant, the oldest known such germination.
Tracy Harrison, an Australian we toured Israel with, Eli, and Erin standing at the site of the wall where the Romans finally broke through at Masada in 74 AD. [Tracy, where are you?]
Eli at Masada overlooking the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth.
Masada National Park
The thermal baths on Masada
The Roman ramp as seem from atop Masada
Remnants of one of eleven Roman legionary encampments just outside the wall built by the Romans
An aerial view of Masada, the ancient Jewish fortress overlooking the Dead Sea Now that soufflé recipe. This is a combination of a few recipes. I have never found just one that was quite right. It combines ingredients and suggestions from Alton Brown, Bobbe Wooldridge, and a handwritten recipe found in one of my mom's cookbooks. The wonderful soufflés we had in Jerusalem were individual-size, but these recipes are family-size.
Irish Cheese Mushroom Soufflé [Serves 5]
Ingredients:
Butter, cold for greasing the soufflé
2 tbsp. of Parmesan cheese, grated
3 tbsp. of butter
3 tbsp. of flour
1/8 tsp. of kosher salt
1 1/3 cups of whole milk, hot
4 large egg yolks
6 oz. of sharp Cheddar cheese
1 tsp. of Worcestershire sauce
5 egg whites plus 1 tbsp. of water
½ tsp. of cream of tartar
½ lb. of fresh mushrooms, sliced and sautéed in a small amount of butter
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375° F. Use the cold butter to grease an 8-inch soufflé mold or pan. Add the grated Parmesan cheese and roll around the mold to cover the sides. Cover with plastic wrap and place into the freezer for 5 minutes. In a small saucepan, heat the butter. Allow all of the water to cook out.In a separate bowl combine the flour and kosher salt. Whisk this mixture into the melted butter. Cook for 2 minutes.
Whisk in the hot milk and turn the heat to high. Once the mixture reaches a boil, remove from the heat. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks to a creamy consistency. Temper the yolks--add the egg yolks a little at a time to prevent them from curdling--into the milk mixture, constantly whisking. Remove from the heat and add the cheese and Worcestershire sauce. Whisk until incorporated.
In a separate bowl, using a hand mixer, whip the egg whites and cream of tartar until glossy and firm. Add ¼ of the mixture to the base. Continue to add the whites by thirds, folding very gently.
Using a slotted spoon if the mushrooms contain any liquid, place the sautéed mushrooms onto the bottom of the soufflé pan and pour the egg mixture over the mushrooms. Fill the soufflé to ½-inch from the top. Place on an aluminum pie pan. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes. As with any soufflé, be careful removing the pan from the oven so it will not drop. Serve immediately.
If you want to make a soufflé with your children, here are a couple of easy recipes for a cheese soufflé from Cooks.com.
Easy Cheese Soufflé
Ingredients:
5 slices of bread
Butter
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 ½ cups of sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1 ½ cups of milk
Salt and pepper
Preparation:
Butter the slices of bread on both sides and trim off the crust. Break the bread into small pieces and place in a well-buttered casserole or soufflé dish. Combine the beaten eggs and the rest of the ingredients and pour over the bread. Bake in a 375°F. oven until set, about 25 minutes.
Easy Cheese Soufflé
5 or more slices buttered and cubed bread
1 lb. grated Cheddar cheese
9 beaten eggs
2 c. milk
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. salt
Dash cayenne (about 1/8 tsp.)
Dash Worcestershire
1 lb. grated Cheddar cheese
9 beaten eggs
2 c. milk
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. salt
Dash cayenne (about 1/8 tsp.)
Dash Worcestershire
Alternate layers of bread and cheese in greased casserole - 1 1/2 quart round or oblong. Mix mustard, salt, pepper, Worcestershire and add to eggs. Mix and pour over cheese and bread. Let stand several hours or overnight. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees.
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