Features

By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
Mary Therese Biebel on Facebook   |   @TLTLMaryTBiebel on Twitter

If his mother hadn’t agreed to host an exchange student years ago in Maryland, Gene Litz might never have met his French friend, visited Paris and Provence and developed a love for cooking.

click image to enlarge

White beans, braised lamb, lamb sausage and baguette crumbs go into Gene Litz’s cassoulet, which also makes use of the aromatic flavorings of celery, onion, bay leaves and thyme.

AIMEE DILGER/THE TIMES LEADER

click image to enlarge

The Lamb and Bean Cassoulet goes well with a full-bodied red wine, chef Gene Litz from City Caf� in Scranton says.

AIMEE DILGER photos/THE TIMES LEADER

Additional Photos Below

Select images available for purchase in the
Times Leader Photo Store

If New Jersey hadn’t been such a hectic place to live, Dominic Saadi might not have decided to move back to Scranton and follow his parents’ footsteps by opening a restaurant here.

Call it fate or call it fusion. But those things did happen.

Earlier this year, Saadi opened City Caf� on North Washington Avenue and, thanks to his sister Juliette’s influence, the menu includes Lebanese specialties their parents, Miled and Lilla, used to enjoy.

As for Litz, the chef, he occasionally blends Lebanese and French influences, as he did last week when he demonstrated the preparation of a savory, aromatic Lamb and Bean Cassoulet.

As he alternated layers of beans and meat in a dish and topped them with baguette crumbs and parsley, he related some history.

“Back in the 14th or 15th century, in the Southwest of France, near the town of Cassoulet, during the 100 Years War, soldiers put the last of their provisions into a pot – it would have held several gallons – and cooked them together,” the chef said.

“They would have had beans, smoked or cured sausage, maybe salt pork, things that would keep since they didn’t have refrigeration.

“It was kind of a peasant dish, made a little differently by everyone. “

Using lamb instead of pork makes the dish more Mediterranean, said Litz, who, because he couldn’t find that kind of sausage in local stores, ground some lamb himself and stuffed it into casings with rosemary and garlic.

If you can’t find lamb sausage either, and don’t want to make your own, he advises substituting fresh garlic sausage or smoked sausage, perhaps even kielbasa.

The cassoulet is something City Caf� might serve as a special on a weekend night, Litz said.

Other entrees on the regular menu include lamb stew, moussaka (layers of ground beef and eggplant topped with bechamel sauce), salmon, crab cakes, baked kibbeh and kibbeh naya, which is a Lebanese-style steak tartar flavored with onion and mint.

Appetizers range from stuffed grape leaves to spinach pies to shankleesh, which is a semi-soft aged yogurt cheese served with mixed herbs and olive oil.

The Muhammara is a walnut dip with sun-dried peppers, pomegranate, molasses and olive oil; the veggie burger has carrots, red onions, mint and parsley mixed in with chickpeas and falafel, and the chickpea salad complements its legumes with red bell peppers, tomatoes, scallions, Kalamata olives, feta cheese, sherry, vinegar and olive oil.

“We promote the vegetarian dimension of our menu,” Saadi said. “We promote the Mediterranean side.”

If you’re interested in Mediterranean-style cooking, baking or nibbling at home, the Mediterranean Market inside the caf� offers rosewater and phyllo dough, olives from Lebanon, Morocco and Sicily; grape leaves from California, sesame-seed candies, dried apricot paste, cardamom-flavored Turkish coffee, pistachio-rich pastries and much more.

The canned fava beans and chickpeas, for example, give you the main ingredients for a salad people enjoy in Egypt. “That is to Egypt what frijoles are to Mexico,” Saadi said. “You can eat it for breakfast.”

If you’d rather someone else did the prep work, City Caf� serves the Egyptian bean salad — Ful Mudammas — all the time.

There’s something else Saadi hopes guests will find at his restaurant — a calming, uplifting experience.

“I call this place City Caf� because a city is the center of culture and because a caf� connotes conversation and friendliness,” Saadi said. “I’d like people to get used to that idea, that you don’t have to rush through a meal.”

That said, if you wanted to dine at City Caf� before a performance at the Scranton Cultural Center — which is just up the street — just tell your server about your intention, and Litz promises to make every effort to prepare the food in a timely fashion.

And, if you’d like to try his Lamb and Bean Cassoulet at home, we’re publishing the recipe today.

LAMB AND BEAN CASSOULET

1 pound dry white beans

2-pound leg of lamb cut into 2-inch cubes

3 pounds fresh lamb sausage

3 and 1/2 quarts stock

2 bay leaves

6 to 8 thyme sprigs

1 medium onion

3 stalks celery

3 tablespoons tomato paste

2 cups dry white wine

1 baguette

1/2 bunch parsley

Soak beans in water overnight, then drain. Simmer with half the stock, the bay leaves and thyme about 45 minutes, until beans are tender.

Season (with salt and pepper) and brown lamb on all sides. Remove from pan. Put thinly diced onions and celery in the pan and saute until tender. Return the meat to the pan with the vegetables. Add tomato paste, wine and stock. Braise about 90 minutes, after which meat should be tender.

Remove meat, cool it and pull apart into bite-size pieces.

Brown lamb sausage and cut into 2-inch oblong pieces.

Put baguette into food processor and process until you have fine bread crumbs. Add chopped parsley to the bread mixture.

In large oven-proof dish (or 8 to 10 ramekins), layer ingredients starting with beans, then sausage, more beans, braised lamb, more beans, sausage and a final layer of beans. Top with baguette crumbs mixed with parsley. Then pour liquid from braising pan over the mix until dish is full.

Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour and a half.

Serves 8 to 10 people.