Sweet Potatoes Ras El Hanout with tahini + Ouzo, Grapefruit Juice and Fresh Mint Cocktail

Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail

  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
    Beef kofta, pickles, Israeli salad, roasted yams and tahini sauce.
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
    Galia's favorite brand of tahini, brought to her from Israel by her sister-in-law, a chef in Tel Aviv.
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
    Artist Galia Linn prepares lunch at Blue Roof Studios in South Central Los Angeles.
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
    The guest room at Blue Roof Studios, decorated with work by Galia, and her friends.
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail
  • Galia Linn’s Middle Eastern Sweet Potatoes + Tahini Sauce and Grapefruit Ouzo Cocktail

NOTES

Ras el hanout is a classic North African spice mix, often used to season meat. The ingredients change from one mix to another, but it is made with some combination of cardamom, cumin, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice, dry ginger, chili peppers, coriander seed, sweet and/or hot paprika, fenugreek, and turmeric. Tahini sauce is so simple, you just can’t afford to skimp on the quality of the tahini you use. I use Seed+Mill tahini, but Galia turned me on to her favorite brand, brought to her all the way from Israel by her sister-in-law, a chef in Tel Aviv.

The cocktail is a simple mix of the anise flavored liquor, ouzo, and fresh grapefruit juice, garnished with a sprig of mint. We kept the ratio of alcohol to juice low, so this made an ideal day-drinking recipe.

INSTRUCTIONS

To Make The Potatoes and Tahini Sauce:

Pre-heat oven to 400° F and set a large baking sheet inside.

Scrub and dry potatoes. Slice them lengthwise into 1/2″ thick wedges.

Add them to a mixing bowl with olive oil and toss to coat. Add ras el hanout and salt, and toss until the potatoes are completely coated with spice. Remove the hot tray from the oven, and spread the wedges out evenly. Roast for 15 minutes, and flip. Cook for an additional 8-10 minutes. If they aren’t turning golden brown, place until the broiler for another 3-5  minutes, until they are fork-tender and crispy.

While the potatoes are cooking, make the tahini sauce. Add tahini to a small bowl and mix using a whisk or a fork. Microplane 1 clove of garlic into the bowl . Add lemon juice, salt and one tablespoon of water at a time. The tahini will thicken at first, but continue stirring and adding water until it becomes pourable, but thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (amount of water varies depending on the tahini). Add chopped parsley and salt to taste.

Serve potatoes with a drizzle of tahini on top, and more on the side (trust me, it will get used).

To Make The Cocktail:

Fill a cocktail shaker 3/4 of the way with ice. Add ouzo and grapefruit juice, close the lid and shake. Fill two collins glasses with ice, and fill. Garnish with a sprig of fresh lime and serve. If you are batching the cocktail for multiple servings, you can do so in a pitcher, and stir to combine before pouring over ice.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

EASY

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SERVES

2

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PREP TIME

40 MINS

Sweet Potatoes

  • 2 
    medium  
    sweet potatoes (1 lb 5 oz)
  • 2 
    tbs 
    olive oil
  • 1 3/4 
    tbs 
    ras el hanout
  • 3/4 
    tsp 
    kosher salt (plus more to taste)

Tahini sauce

  • 1/4 
    cup 
    fancy tahini
  • 2 
    tbs 
    lemon juice
  • 1/2 
    clove 
    garlic
  • 1/8 
    tsp 
    kosher salt
  • 4-6 
    tbs 
    cold water
  • 1 
    tbs 
    finely chopped parsley

Ouzo Mule

  • 3 
    ounces 
    ouzo
  • 8 
    ounces 
    fresh pink grapefruit juice
  • 2 
    sprigs 
    fresh mint

INSTRUCTIONS

To Make The Potatoes and Tahini Sauce:

Pre-heat oven to 400° F and set a large baking sheet inside.

Scrub and dry potatoes. Slice them lengthwise into 1/2″ thick wedges.

Add them to a mixing bowl with olive oil and toss to coat. Add ras el hanout and salt, and toss until the potatoes are completely coated with spice. Remove the hot tray from the oven, and spread the wedges out evenly. Roast for 15 minutes, and flip. Cook for an additional 8-10 minutes. If they aren’t turning golden brown, place until the broiler for another 3-5  minutes, until they are fork-tender and crispy.

While the potatoes are cooking, make the tahini sauce. Add tahini to a small bowl and mix using a whisk or a fork. Microplane 1 clove of garlic into the bowl . Add lemon juice, salt and one tablespoon of water at a time. The tahini will thicken at first, but continue stirring and adding water until it becomes pourable, but thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (amount of water varies depending on the tahini). Add chopped parsley and salt to taste.

Serve potatoes with a drizzle of tahini on top, and more on the side (trust me, it will get used).

To Make The Cocktail:

Fill a cocktail shaker 3/4 of the way with ice. Add ouzo and grapefruit juice, close the lid and shake. Fill two collins glasses with ice, and fill. Garnish with a sprig of fresh lime and serve. If you are batching the cocktail for multiple servings, you can do so in a pitcher, and stir to combine before pouring over ice.

Galia Linn’s mind never exits the ceramics studio. When she’s cooking, she thinks of mixing tahini like stirring a gloppy glaze, loading the oven is like loading a kiln, and forming kofta between her palms calls upon her muscle memory from years of forming clay. The kitchen where we are cooking is just steps away from her workspace, a 28 foot tall room she refers to as “the sanctuary.” It is metaphorically and literally a sacred space, the chapel of a former church in South Central Los Angeles.

If you are a ceramic artist with your own kiln and space, you can rest assured you will have other artists knocking on your door. In her former Culver City workspace, Galia had a habit of taking in artists in need of space to prep for shows (my friends Cammie Staros and Elena Stoneacker have both had stints as her anointed guests). And while offering her space was an act of kindness, Galia herself found herself energized by the proximity to other people’s practices. So, she set out to find a larger building, one where she could formalize that relationship , and still maintain her a bit of privacy. One year ago, Blue Roof Studios was born, a home to her contorted, monumental ceramics,  her custom oversized kiln, a shared kitchen, exhibition space, guest accommodations and ten artist studios. Every office and every bit of ceremonial space in this former church complex is now filled with art. There is a separate gallery dedicated to the community, and space for art classes that are free to local residents and their families. In a real estate market that continues to push artists farther and farther afield, Galia has managed to carve out a permanent home for herself and her creative cohorts.

Ask Galia Linn to, “make a salad,” and she suggests, “kabobs with pine nuts and parsley, Israeli/Arab chopped salad, sweet potatoes roasted with ras el hanout, and a heavy drizzle of the best tahini sauce. And, an ouzo grapefruit and cocktail because… it’s Monday.” She makes a point to offer more than just a salad. This is a typical Israeli meal, each of the components a dish that conjures countless lunches in her native country. Galia and her husband, Oded Noy, have been in LA since the 1991, but their Middle Eastern food traditions have not waned. After all, they met in the kitchen while serving in the Israeli air force. He was a flight school cadet, otherwise known as a “flight flower,” training to become a fighter pilot. He was on kitchen duty while she was doing her job as an efficiency engineer, studying how long it took to execute a range of kitchen tasks from prep work to cleaning (I shudder at the thought of evaluating such a thing in my own home). While she studied architecture in Israel and completed her two years in the service, Galia tells me, “by the time I was 18, I had lived through three wars. I had had enough,” so she came to Houston with a JCC program that brings Israeli citizens to the U.S. to work as camp counselors.

During that first trip to the U.S., she made a fateful visit to The Houston Art Museum in 1991. There, she had an encounter with a painting that, “made the entire corridor vibrate” upon first sight. It was a work by Georgia O’Keefe. “Growing up in Israel, I didn’t even know being a fine artist was an option,” she says. While Galia continued to work as an architect, the seed had been planted. She threw herself into ceramics, starting with functional pottery, and eventually letting her pieces slump, break, crack and  grow to the point where it could be called nothing else but sculpture. At the age of 37, Galia finally began to call herself “an artist.” Over our generous meal, she tells me of her ambitious plans for Blue Roof Studios, grant applications and outreach to local nonprofits, and I suggest she add “activist” to her job description as well.