Machane Yehuda is the pulse of culinary Jerusalem. I’m sure you’ve read that before if you’ve been reading my blog posts. Surrounding the two streets of the market itself are a number of stores that range from health food ingredients to kitchen utensils.

I was wandering through Machane Yehuda with some family late last night – late for the market, where only a few of the restaurants and shops remained open – and as I was leaving I spotted a row of ingredients on a shelf through the open door of a shop located just outside the market on Agrippas. Asian ingredients. Lots of them.

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I have discussed ingredient substitutions in classes, and I will probably go on mentioning them here in my blog. They’re not cheating, they don’t fundamentally detract from the recipe and they’re not wrong. Purists who click their tongues are nothing but elitist food snobs who can’t think in the kitchen the way a chef thinks. And anyone who disagrees with me so far should remember that many of the original, classic recipes bear no resemblance to their modern day counterparts.

Substitutions should redefine a dish, not sabotage it. Here’s a classic example. A la Florentine is a well-known preparation of with spinach and typically Mornay sauce. Whether your protein is chicken, mullet, pork or eggs, the preparation remains the same.

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