For Women, cookbook are often memories of their mothers. Daisy Taïeb, the mother of two daughters, wrote Les Fêtes Juives à Tunis Racontées à Mes Filles (Jewish Holidays in Tunis as Told to My Daughters). “My daughters wanted to learn the religious customs in Tunis, like the fète des filles, a festival where the girls go to the synagogue all in white,” she told me. “Soon, with rapid Frenchification and assimilation, you will be able to learn about these traditions only in museums.” One day when I was in Nice, I watched Madame Taïeb cook her famous meatballs stuffed into vegetables. She was making them for Friday night dinner, to serve with couscous. Though I had expected a quiet, grandmotherly woman, I found her to be a trim, stylish lady who had taken the Dale Carnegie course on public speaking. She is the president of the French version of the Jewish Federation in Nice, and the representative of B’nai B’rith on the Côte d’Azur. These days, Madame Taïeb, who has lived alone since her husband’s death, invites people in for Sabbath dinner. “In Tunisia, you have the same foods as in Nice— fish, vegetables, spices— so it is not difficult to make the recipes,” she told me. “But you have to use your hands to judge, not your eyes, when making meatballs.” For Madame Taïeb, couscous with meatballs stuffed into peppers, artichoke bottoms, and eggplants, one of my favorite dishes, is symbolic of family, remembrance, and Friday night dinners.
Ingredients
about 3 dozen vegetable stuffed with meatballs
Step 1
First, prepare the vegetables for stuffing. Put the artichoke bottoms in a large bowl with the lemon juice and water to cover. Cut the eggplants once down the center lengthwise, and then across the width. Scoop out some of the pulp from each piece, making sure you don’t go all the way through the skin. You should end up with four cuplike pieces for each eggplant, plus the pulp. Cut the zucchini into three cylinders. With an apple corer, remove the center, saving the pulp. Cut the bell peppers in half widthwise, removing the pith, seeds, and stem. Cut each half in two, then cut across, to make eight pieces. Separate the rings.
Step 2
To make the meatballs, first soak the bread or matzo in water for a few seconds, and then squeeze to drain. Break up the bread or matzo. Put the bread in a medium bowl with the meat, the cilantro, dill, parsley, onions, garlic, coriander, allspice, harissa, salt, pepper, and two of the eggs, and mix well. Roll the meat mixture into balls of about 2 tablespoons each. Press the meat into the artichoke bottoms, the hollowed-out eggplants, the pepper pieces, the onion and the zucchini. Don’t try to stuff too much into them.
Step 3
Heat 2 inches of the vegetable oil in a frying pan.
Step 4
Put the flour or matzo meal in a bowl. Break the remaining egg into a second bowl, and mix well with the 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Dip the open part of each stuffed vegetable first in the flour and then in the egg. This will help keep the meat together while frying, but you still have to be gentle when handling.
Step 5
Fry the stuffed vegetables in batches in the oil until the meat is golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels. Finish cooking in the tomato sauce (see page 226) with the reserved eggplant and zucchini pulp.
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