Finding inspiration in Tel Aviv’s storied Carmel Market

A walk through Tel Aviv’s Shuk HaCarmel is often the highlight of my trip to Israel. I’ve written about the shuk a few times over the years in What’s cooking? Each time is different with new ingredients to discover and interactions to be had.

This year, I had no intention of actually buying anything. But after snapping some quick photos and taking a closer look at some of the greens and herbs available, I realized I’d never seen nor tasted some of them.

One type that looked much like pea tendrils and purslane is a local herb called hilbeh or fenugreek. I have tasted the leaves dried and used the spice before, but I’d never seen it fresh and wild. Used in Middle Eastern dishes, hilbeh is often touted for its medicinal purposes in helping lower blood sugar. Dried, it’s a key ingredient in the Persian dish Ghormeh Sbazi.

Another green I noticed specifically for its delicate white budding flowers was a peppery herb called radash. The most I could find about radash is that it’s a type of cress. What it resembled most was a delicate, wild cilantro, but in flavor much like a deeply peppery and earthy cress.

I bought a huge bunch of green onions and baby arugula, or rocket, as it is often called in Europe. Tiny, delicate leaves of different shapes and degrees of sharpness were all part of this bouquet that I was envisioning as a shuk-inspired herb salad, the perfect match for simply roasted, crisp chicken thighs, fish or steak. They’d also be beautiful tossed with salty Bulgarian cheese or ricotta salata.

While I used the hilbeh and radash in my salad, visit your local farmers market and pick out some fresh herbs like parsley, cilantro, chervil, watercress and chives. You’ll get just as much punch and flavor dressing these leaves with lemon juice, salt and olive oil.