LOAF IS IN THE AIR
Chefs prepare Easter feasts with special dishes, breads
In Christian terms, Easter is a holiday that celebrates the resurrection. But even among the secular, its arrival at the beginning of spring makes it a day often associated with renewal and rebirth.
Chef David Bazirgan doesn't consider himself especially religious, but Easter still has a special place in his heart. He grew up in a family with Armenian heritage and fondly remembers all the cultural traditions that accompanied Easter celebrations — like the annual “egg cracking contest,” in which players knock eggs dyed red with onion skins (to represent the blood of Jesus Christ). The cracked shells, it is said, signify Christ rising from his tomb.
This year, Easter Sunday also happens to be the fifth birthday of Bazirgan's son, so his celebrations will be extra special. And it's the chef's first Easter since returning to the Boston area from San Francisco, where the Newbury native moved in 2003 and earned raves for work at tasty hot spots like Dirty Habit. So he's in a period of new beginnings, now breathing fresh life into Cambridge restaurant Bambara Kitchen & Bar, where Bazirgan has imported his sophisticated, creative and Mediterranean skewing global influence.
In a way, it's always Easter at Bambara now. One of Bazirgan's now-signature menu items is choereg bread, traditional egg-enriched Armenian Easter bread, which the chef serves every day flecked with za'atar and accompanied with salted whipped honey butter. His special Easter brunch menu includes a few other Mediterranean-inspired offerings, such as a leg of lamb (a family favorite for the holiday) with mint salsa verde and a gem lettuce salad with tahini-Caesar dressing and boquerones.
“It was always a serious spread,” said Bazirgan of his family's Easter meals. After church, his clan would assemble for egg hunts, egg cracking and mezze, such as basturma (spiced, air-dried cured meat) and lahmajoun (thin pizza-like dough topped with minced meat and veggies).
His family's feasting certainly made an impact on Bazirgan's culinary career. He started out as a teenage dishwasher in Newburyport restaurants and, before moving to San Francisco, worked for mentors like Todd English at Olives and Barbara Lynch at No. 9 Park, where he helped develop the elegant Beacon Hill icon's now-legendary multicourse tasting menus.
A fresh start, and a celebration of Easter cultural traditions, is also underway at the Seaport's trendy, modern Greek restaurant Committee. In January, the spot welcomed a new chef in Theo Tsilipanos, who was born in Boston but raised in the central Greece city of Lamia. Easter was a major holiday there, said Tsilipanos, who remembers family celebrations beginning with Saturday night church service followed by late-night noshing on spanakopita and magiritsa, a soup of lamb offal and avgolemono, or egg-lemon sauce. On Sunday, they would rise at the crack of dawn to start building the fire to roast an Easter lamb, sometimes spending the holiday with family in the tiny rural village of Mavrilo.
“They are beautiful memories,” said Tsilipanos, who also worked at Boston's fine dining institution L'Espalier in the mid-2000s, but resettled in the Hub permanently just three years ago.
This Sunday, he'll spend Easter re-creating tradition with a lamb roast at his aunt's Somerville home — but not before offering an Easter brunch spread at Committee that includes egg-stuffed meatloaf wrapped in wine leaves and tsoureki, a Greek Easter bread, re-imagined in French toast-like form. Last week, Tsilipanos also hosted an Easter-inspired installment of Committee's monthly wine dinner series, including such dishes as octopus xidato, braised octopus sliced thin like carpaccio and marinated in red wine vinegar, which Tsilipanos served with pickled red Easter eggs.
Over at Mast', an indus-
trial-chic Neapolitan eatery in downtown Boston, chef-owner Marco Caputo, a Napoli native, will offer special Easter items like a traditional stew of lamb (a classic sacrificial symbol) with potatoes, peas, onions and cherry tomatoes. Dishes like this and pastiera, an egg and ricotta tart, were popular for Easter feasts back home, Caputo said.
This year Easter Sunday is followed by Marathon Monday, which should make it easier to enjoy Caputo's favorite holiday tradition: La Pasquetta, or Easter Monday, when families take the day off to enjoy the outdoors with picnics and trips to the countryside. Or in Boston, perhaps — if you're not sprinting down Boylson Street — just a day to recover from one fantastic food coma.
Committee consulting chef and Greek cookbook author Diane Kochilas shared this recipe for traditional Greek Easter bread.
GREEK EASTER BREAD
2 c. plus 2-3 T. milk 2 envelopes active dry yeast 8-9 c. bread flour 1E c. sugar 1 c. almonds, very finely chopped 1 t. salt Grated rind of one orange 2 t. finely ground aniseed D c. olive oil 5 eggs, very well beaten
Warm two cups of milk and place in a large bowl. Add the yeast, one cup of the flour, and D cup of the sugar. Cover and proof for one hour.
In a large bowl, combine 7 cups of flour, ground almonds, salt, remaining sugar, orange rind and aniseed. Make a well in the center. Add the yeast mixture, olive oil and eggs. Work from the center outward, stirring the mixture until dough begins to form.
Dust work surface with a little of the remaining flour and knead, adding more flour if necessary, until the dough is smooth and doesn't stick to your hands, about 12 minutes. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with a cloth, and set aside in a warm, draft-free place to rise until doubled in bulk, about two hours.
Punch down dough. Divide into six small balls and roll each into strips 12-15 inches long, and about 2 inches in diameter. Lay three strips side by side, pinching together at one end, and braid. Pinch together at the other end to hold the loaf intact. Press two dyed eggs between the strips of the braid. Repeat the procedure to make the second loaf. Place the breads on a lightly oiled baking sheet, covered, and let rise for two hours, or until doubled in bulk.
While the braids are rising, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat together the egg yolk and remaining milk. Brush over tsoureki loaves and sprinkle with slivered almonds. Bake for about 40-45 minutes, or until golden brown. The bread should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Remove and cool on racks.