Street appeal

Susan Feniger reaches out for the white pepper, but her hand hovers, fingers twitching -- which one is it?

Feniger certainly knows what pepper looks like. But right now, the 5-foot-square island in the center of her home kitchen is a tangle of plates, food-stained notebooks, tasting spoons, an industrial strength blender and spice grinder, a kitchen scale, and a sea of prep bowls brimming with exotics such as anardana (dried and ground pomegranate from the Middle East), resham patti (an Indian chile) and graceful ribbons of Thai pandan leaves.

It’s another day of testing recipes and fine-tuning the menu for Feniger’s first restaurant venture without longtime business partner Mary Sue Milliken -- Susan Feniger’s Street -- slated to open later this month.

As originally envisioned and pitched to investors, the restaurant was just, simply, Street. It was a name chosen to reflect a menu inspired by global street foods -- the finger foods, cheap eats and tradition-steeped delicacies you’d find walking down the street in far-flung locales such as Singapore, Mumbai and Beirut.

But, Feniger says, it turns out you can’t copyright a common term like “street.” Which may be just as well: When Susan Feniger’s Street opens later this month, it will be as much about a 55-year-old celebu-chef who decided she still had something to prove after nearly 30 years in the business as it is about the food.

Proving herself

“The choice was to be on my deathbed, saying I ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda,’ and I just said, ‘What am I scared of?’ and I realized I needed to do this,” Feniger says above the din, courtesy of friends who have stopped by and Street staffers who are using Feniger’s hillside home above Sunset Boulevard as their base of operations.

Pepper located, Feniger uses it to season a soft-boiled egg that she’s also drizzled with soy sauce. Alongside, she plates sandwich points made of Malaysian white bread. The trick here, she explained, is toasting two slices stacked one on top of the other so that just the outsides go golden brown, and then slathering the still-warm insides with coconut jam and thin slivers of butter.

She hands the plate to a clutch of somewhat skeptical onlookers. Granted, this is chef Susan Feniger, she of Too Hot Tamales, City, Ciudad and Border Grill fame. It’s going to be good, right? But still. A coconut jam and soy sauce?

“Go ahead,” Feniger urges. “You use the bread to break the yolk.”

At first, the bite is more about texture and sensations than flavor. The light crunch of the toast, the bread’s still-pillowy insides, the silkiness of the coconut and the gentle heat coming off the yolk.

The rest? Rich, salty-sweet decadence.

The dish, on the menu as kaya toast, is something you’d eat in Singapore if you happened to find yourself out wandering the streets in the middle of the night, hung over, and looking for relief. It’s also the kind of dish that finds itself front and center on the snacks menu at Street.

New and ‘relevant’

While it’s hard to imagine a worse time to open a new restaurant, Street’s best shot at survival could rely on the fact that it eschews the fancy-schmancy, fine-dining experience one might expect from a Westside restaurant helmed by an instantly recognizable chef in favor of something more “relevant” and “equalizing.”

One of her favorite items on the new menu is pani puri. Feniger recalls being in Bombay, and watching a crowd including men in business suits as well as impoverished youngsters lining up at a street-side stand. They all wanted a taste of the crispy-fried rounds stuffed with a savory potato mixture and then plunged into a pungent chile sauce.

“It’s more important to me to serve a delicious dish, in a comfortable, vibrant environment, than it is to do something formal,” she says. “I’m way more drawn to this idea, conceptually, that you have people who are from all walks of life enjoying the same exact thing. There’s something to seeing someone with no money enjoying the same exact thing as someone with a bunch of money.”

But “relevant” and “recognizable” are two different things.

The menu hopscotches the globe and includes Egyptian baked fish, South Indian spinach paneer, Moldavian meatballs, Lebanese chicken kebabs, Vietnamese pho and Malaysian black pepper clams. There’s also Cantonese radish cakes and savory breakfast dishes such as spicy tapioca, a South Indian dish sauteed with curry leaf, chiles and spices, or utma semolina, with caramelized onions, peas and tomatoes.

“The food pushes people a bit,” Feniger says. “The idea is to experience something new without having it be risky. . . . I love to have people learn about things that they’ve never eaten before.”

But enough about the menu already.

What about Mary Sue?

That, of course, is the question that Feniger has answered on a near daily basis since making public her plans to launch a solo restaurant, which will be in the old Highland Grounds space on Highland Avenue, just north of Melrose Avenue. Feniger and Milliken have forged a trailblazing partnership ever since they burst onto the L.A. culinary scene in the 1980s with City Cafe and then City Restaurant. It was a time when women chefs running a restaurant were practically unheard of. “The girls” became household names with their popular show on the Food Network, “Too Hot Tamales,” and helped introduce authentic Latin food to the masses here in America. They wrote five cookbooks. They built a brand: the popular Border Grill restaurants in Santa Monica and Las Vegas (two other Border Grill expansions, in Pasadena and Green Valley, failed to catch on).

But something happens when success is served up this way. One partner, or the other, or both, can be filled with a nagging fear. “There’s a voice in your head that says, ‘Is my success tied to my partner? If I did this solo, would I be a failure, a bag lady on the street?’ ” Milliken said in a phone interview.

That’s in part why Feniger made the decision to forgo any assistance from her corporate staff at Ciudad and Border Grill. She needed to prove to herself, no one else, just herself, that she could build this thing from the ground up. To that end, she has personally handled every detail of Street, including planning the exterior and interior designs, deciding where the dish station would go and hand-selecting chairs, candleholders and dining soundtracks.

Milliken says she is proud of Feniger’s bold decision to slay any dragons of self-doubt: “It’s just the perfect concept,” she says of Street. “It’s going to be a huge success.”

Feniger adds, “The reason our partnership has lasted this long is that we both have given each other the space to grow and change and be who we are.”

Dynamic trio

That’s not to say Feniger is doing it alone. Her life partner, Liz Lachman, helped wrangle a business plan and has been a “powerful force” in making Street a reality. (A filmmaker and an Emmy-winning composer, Lachman has also documented the ups and downs of the process in several funny Webisodes available at the restaurant’s website, www.eatatstreet.com.) And a former Ciudad and Border Grill employee, Kasja Alger, has poured herself into the new restaurant alongside Feniger and is its co-owner and co-chef.

Feniger says she’s always wanted to expand her scope beyond Latin American cuisine and go global. She’s an avid world traveler. India alone has been a destination on five occasions.

“Ask anyone. It’s something I have talked about for years . . . for forever,” she says. Lachman says she told Feniger on numerous occasions: “Stop talking! Do it already!”

About five years ago, Feniger said, she “got really clear” on her goal. It was after suffering a string of devastating personal losses that she was powerless to do anything about. When she talks about pursuing Street because she didn’t want deathbed regrets, she’s speaking from a place of knowledge.

“I lost my oldest and best friend, who had scleroderma . . . three months later, my mother passed away, and five months later our 14-year-old dog passed away and then eight months later, my father. It was just like a series of brutal, brutal times.”

Loss turned to action.

Because what else was there?

“I got to this place of just feeling like, life is just so fragile.”

It was nothing more dramatic than that.

Feniger just turned the corner.

“I went from ‘I want to do this, I’ve been wanting to do this,’ to ‘I’m going to do this.’ ”

--

rene.lynch@latimes.com

--

Turkish doughnuts with rose hip syrup

Total time: 1 hour

Servings: 4

Note: Dried rose hips can generally be found at Middle Eastern and Indian markets. Rose water can be found at Middle Eastern and select gourmet and well-stocked markets. This recipe makes about 1 3/4 cups rose hip syrup, more than is needed for the doughnuts. The extra syrup will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 2 weeks.

Rose hip syrup

1 cup water

1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup coarsely crushed dried rose hips

1 teaspoon green cardamom seeds (removed from crushed pods)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup rose water

1. In a medium, heavy-bottom saucepan, bring the water, sugar, rose hip tea and cardamom to a gentle simmer and cook slowly until the sugar is dissolved and the rose hips have softened, 12 to 15 minutes.

2. Increase the heat to medium and bring the mixture just to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice and rose water. Set aside to cool while the doughnuts are made, then strain before using. If not using immediately, cover and refrigerate until needed.

Doughnuts and assembly

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (3 1/2 ounces) flour

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground green cardamom

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup water

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup ( 1/2 stick) butter

2 eggs, divided

Oil for frying

Rose hip syrup

Sour cream or yogurt, berries and jam for serving

1. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cardamom, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

2. In a medium, heavy-bottom pot, combine the water, sugar and butter. Bring to a boil over high heat, making sure the butter is fully melted.

3. As soon as the water is boiling and the butter is melted, add the flour mixture all at once. Remove the pan from the heat and stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together in one lump, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, into the mixture, stirring constantly. Be sure that the first yolk is almost entirely absorbed before adding the second yolk. The dough should be light and soft, but stiff enough to form into a doughnut shape; if the dough is overly stiff, add egg white a little at a time until the desired consistency is achieved. Stir constantly until the mix comes together as a glossy dough, 4 to 6 minutes.

4. Dampen your hands with cold water and divide the dough into 8 even pieces. Roll each piece into a ball (wet your hands if the dough begins to stick). On a firm work surface, punch a hole through the center of each ball with your finger. Widen the hole slightly with your finger to form a doughnut. Continue with each ball of dough.

5. Fill a deep pot with oil to a depth of about 3 inches. Heat the oil until it shimmers and reaches 350 degrees on a thermometer.

6. Drop the doughnuts, a few at a time, into the oil and fry until the outside of each is golden and the center is cooked through and not doughy, 7 to 10 minutes; they will be soft, almost pillowy, in texture. Strain the doughnuts, draining any excess oil, then immediately dunk them into the rose hip syrup.

7. Drain and serve the doughnuts with sour cream or yogurt, berries and jam on the side and with a little syrup drizzled over the doughnuts.

Each servings: 516 calories; 6 grams protein; 63 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 28 grams fat; 10 grams saturated fat; 136 mg. cholesterol; 247 mg. sodium.

--

Kushary (rice, lentils and pasta with tomatoes)

Total time: 2 hours, 15 minutes Servings: 3 cups each kushary and sauce

Note: While the tomatoes are cooking, start preparing the kushary. Clarified butter can be found at Trader Joe’s and select gourmet markets. Harissa can be found at Middle Eastern groceries.

Roasted tomato sauce

2 white onions, thinly sliced

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

2 1/4 pounds tomatoes (about 12 plum), cored and chopped

1 cup water

Salt

1. In a medium, heavy-bottom pot, cook the onions in the olive oil over medium heat until they start to turn a deep brown, about 45 minutes, stirring frequently.

2. Stir in the garlic and thyme and cook just until aromatic, 1 to 2 minutes.

3. Add the tomatoes and water and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook until the tomatoes soften completely and begin to break apart, about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and cool slightly.

4. Puree the tomato mixture in a blender until smooth. (Be careful not to fill the blender more than 1/3 of the way or steam may force the liquid to fly out of the blender. And always cover the lid with a towel when blending hot liquids to prevent splashes and spills.)

5. Season to taste with salt and keep in a warm place until ready to serve.

Kushary and assembly

1/2 cup basmati rice

1/4 cup straight cut macaroni

1/2 cup brown lentils

1 cup diced white onion

3 tablespoons oil, divided

2 tablespoons clarified butter

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Kosher salt

1 1/2 cups water or vegetable broth

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon harissa chile paste, or to taste

Roasted tomato sauce

1. Place the rice in a small bowl and soak in enough water to cover for 30 minutes. Drain well and set aside.

2. While the rice is soaking, bring a small saucepan of water to boil. Add the macaroni and cook just to al dente, about 7 minutes (this will vary depending on the brand and type of pasta). Drain and set aside.

3. Rinse the lentils, then drain and set aside.

4. In a medium, heavy-bottom pot with a lid, cook the onions in 2 tablespoons oil and clarified butter over medium-high heat just until they start to caramelize, 8 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

5. Stir in the rice and lentils and toast for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the cumin and 1 teaspoon salt and toast an additional 1 to 2 minutes.

6. Stir in the broth, loosely cover with the lid and bring to a simmer over high heat. Reduce the heat and gently simmer, covered, steaming the rice and lentils until they’re tender but firm, about 8 minutes. Remove the lid and continue to cook until remaining liquid is dissolved and the rice mix begins to crackle and toast on the bottom of the pan, stirring occasionally, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

7. Combine the butter, remaining tablespoon oil, harissa and a pinch of salt in a small saute pan over medium heat. Add the pasta and cook, stirring frequently, until the pasta is lightly toasted, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir into the rice mixture.

8. If serving immediately, place the kushary in a bowl and serve with a side of roasted tomato sauce to pour over the top. Otherwise, pour the kushary out onto a pan and spread in a thin layer to cool before storing.

Each one-half cup: 409 calories; 8 grams protein; 41 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams fiber; 25 grams fat; 7 grams saturated fat; 21 mg. cholesterol; 339 mg. sodium.

--

latimes.com/dailydish

More online

Video of Susan Feniger adjusting a recipe on the fly in our Test Kitchen. Plus: more photos of Street and a bonus cocktail recipe.