Fakhida bil forn

Maybe its all of the Masterchef I've been watching, but I kind of lost my cooking mojo. The last couple of weeks have been a greasy blur of takeaways and microwaves. Bad girl.

Anyway, here I am, so get over it. It is what it is.

Maria Kahlife's book on Middle Eastern food, is pretty much my favorite source. My employer is Iranian and I've had the most amazing food at her house, I suppose part of the appeal is the fact that unlike good old Spain or Mexico you can't just jump of a plane and pootle off to get the real stuff, I can't imagine traveling there for a holiday. The situation in the region is uneasier than ever, and it almost seems trite to mention that the political and social unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Libya and inevitably others, will hopefully improve the way of life and how the West perceives the Middle East. Lets hope so. Nobody likes change, but as the anarchist Bakunin put it, the urge to destroy is a creative urge.

Fakhida bil forn is pretty much a Lebanese meat and two veg. You marinade a leg of lamb in garlic, oil, lemon juice, cinnamon and allspice, then roast for a hour before throwing a few shallots and carrots into the pan. I's sliced and served on a bed of rice, which is made with more cinnamon and allspice, as well as lamb mince, onions and nuts. It's all very fragrant, spicy, a little greasy, and very satisfying.

I served it with Foul Medammas, a delicious Egyptian broad bean dish, and Naaz Khaatoon, a very herby Iranian aubergine dip.

Oh, and here is an amazing blog I've been reading, written by an American student in Egypt - he travels through the region making it seem so accessible, and above all, relevant.

http://foodjihad.com/

Shawarma dajaj, Muhammar, Shakshoukeh

Well I'm back, I don't want to gross anyone out, but I was pretty sick. Nasty! I spend New Year's Night playing cards with the boyfriend and watching whatever fireworks we could see out of the window. I heard that the way you greet the new year is the way you're going to spend it... so I'm in for some fun, I guess!!!!!!
Anyway, back in the present, I'm using Maria Khalife's Middle Eastern Cookbook again. I'm not sure what the extraordinary appeal of this book is that has me running back to it, but I suppose it just seems very exotic. So first off is shawarma - the slightly dodgy meat you buy in small tiny pieces from the kebab shop after getting crazy drunk on a school night! I always assumed that this was a Turkish dish. but this recipe is from Lebanon. Funny enough the serving suggestion in the book is to plate this up with pitta, salad, garlic dip and french fries (and maybe crank up the old Billy Idol CD?) I don't have any of those things so I'm making a couple of side dishes, to you know, go on the side.
You're meant to marinade this stuff overnight, but I think we all know that that stuff doesn't mean anything, right? Who's with me? I gave it an hour and in the mean time started in on the Muhammar which is from Bahrain and translates as Golden Rice - not as sexy as it sounds, perverts ;). It's the perfect opportunity for me to use up some of the funny ingredients that have been cluttering my cupboards, saffron, which I don't like, rose water, which tastes like soap, and cardamom which I just have way too much of. Interestingly there is also almost a cup of sugar in this, don't believe me? How about if I also told you that instead of just adding sugar to the rice, you're meant to melt the sugar until it turns golden brown (texture like sun) then pour in the water and cook the rice in that!
While the chicken is marinading, the oven is heating up and the rice parboils in caramel water, I start making the Shakshoukeh which cooks very quickly but is meant to be served cold. Despite the fancy unpronounceable name, this is just bell peppers julienned and fried with garlic, chilli (I used Birdseye, and you couldn't even taste it!) tomatoes and coriander seeds. I also threw a tin of chickpeas in. For some reason this simple assembly is attributed to Jordan.
Result: Well feast your eyes, this lot made my kitchen smell really nice :)
The Shawarma took about 40 minutes longer in the oven than the book claimed if would. This might also be the reason why it was pretty dry by the time it came out. My excuse for overcooking it was the totally unrealistic and bizarrely brown shawarma pictured in the book. For most part, mine stayed a uniform anaemic pale, and neither looked anything like the richly basted, moist stuff you get in the kebab shop. The only dominant flavour was the onion - there was enough of it! You almost couldn't taste any of the stuff I was expecting to make the meat lovely fragrant and delicious, the garlic, oregano, allspice, clove, nutmeg and sumac. If I ever make this again I'll definitely be a lot more heavyhanded with that crap.
The Muhammar didn't come out as yellow as in the book either, I must have not used enough saffron, oopsie! Still, I was expecting a stong sugar hit, (Pow! Right in the kisser!) but while this was definitely treading the line between pudding and side dish, the taste was amazing. Rich but mild enough to be a good base for the chicken, besides sweetness of the sugar you get a slight dustyness from the saffron but the cardamom and rose are just aromas. And I loved the method of parboiling the rice and then steaming it in the frying pan, I've never had such fluffy results!
The Shakshoukeh was alright, pretty good. Who cares?

Muhallabia

So last time we had Crapaud, and today it's Muhallabia. Stop giggling in the back there children! When you can compose yourselves, we'll carry on...

Ok, so like I've mentioned before I don't really like dessert, and I don't drink cow's milk, um... and I'm not that jazzed about nuts. And sugar is bad for you. So will this big gelatinous boob convince me to change my ways?

Initially all signs point to no. What the hell is Orange Blossom Water? In the back of the book there is a note to say that it can be found in major supermarkets, Middle Eastern and Turkish shops blah blah blah, yeah, maybe in Lebanon. I must have gone to five different stores and it was nowhere to be found, so I kind of put this dish on the back burner, it wasn't meant to be, I made my peace with the infuriating situation. Then a couple of days ago I finally saw a bottle in Planet Organic. They charged me a terrifying, tear-inducing amount for it, but if it's so expensive, it must really be worth it, right?

Maybe, lets see.

The smell of warm milk is really comforting and takes me back to my childhood when I was given some to drink at bedtime if I couldn't sleep. Years later I decided that milk is probably poisonous because of the lactose and stopped drinking it, but now I think it's time to stop the tantrum and get with the program!

I had a little swig of the Orange Blossom Water to see what all the fuss is about, there is almost no taste except maybe a slight bitterness, great, worth the effort.

Result: The bastard didn't set! I left it in the fridge for 24 hours and still didn't dare to try and turn it out. I followed the recipe to the letter, but the problem must be that '1 leaf of gelatine' is pretty vague.

To be fair, I've seen other recipes for this online that call for arrowroot as a thickener and it's served in little bowls and not rolling around on a plate, so I'm not too depressed about what is ultimately my failure!

The taste - I think the best description is that it smells and tastes like perfume. I once heard a story that one time my grandad was so hard up for booze that he drank a bottle of my grandmother's perfume, I don't know if that's true, but after trying this pudding it seems a lot more plausible. The smell of orange blossom and rose is almost overpowering, but if you manage to ignore it, the taste is quite pleasant. I was trying to put my finger on what it could be compared to, and it's just like custard. If it was warm and you had a thing against eggs, this could be your bag, baby. However, it must be said, that my brother, who's been known to have 4 spoons of sugar in his coffee, found this too sweet. Proceed with caution.

Saliq Dajaj

Alright? So this is my er... exciting journey into the unknown. I suppose I'm a competent cook, but not particularly adventurous. I stick to a few things I know how to cook, and depend on the staples in the cupboard for the usual tomato sauce/stew/risotto/pastabake kind of dishes. I wonder if I can pick up some new culinary skills by you know, using cookbooks. I can't really bake either, but that's totally not my fault, out oven is 'not really good'. Will I learn? Can an old dog change their spots? Are you calling me a dog?

I suppose people who don't cook very often can follow cookbook instructions to the letter, but I'm always tempted to make substitutions or additions to the ingredients list and have my own special way of timing everything. I'm now mature enough to know that all that stuff is there for a reason, and who the hell do I think I am to try and improve it? Anyway, so here is the first fairly cautious experiment. It's from the Middle Eastern Cookbook by Maria Khalife, I've Googled her and she is now a life coach in Bahrain, so she must know what she's talking about. The dish is Saliq Dajaj from Saudi Arabia. I doubt whether I will ever have the opportunity to visit the region personally, what a shame! But at least this should be a fairly authentic sample of the kinds of delights that await if I finally decide to run off with a genuine Mills & Boon sheik.

This looks pretty simple, everything is cooked in one pot and there are only 10 ingredients (I forgot to buy butter). Because I'm not sure anyone will join me for the forthcoming gastronomic treat I've decided to substitute the chicken for a small poussin and halved all the other ingredients.

Everything goes in the pot and we play the waiting game. It smells quite nice, I guess, but I'm a little worried that I've used too much water and the stock will not have enough flavour, especially since I'm drowning the whole thing in milk later on too. Well whatever happens I will have to take it with me to work for lunch tomorrow, and if it really doesn't taste of anything I can always put buttloads of Tabasco on it...

I tried the stock and it would be fair to call the taste MILD! If I was cooking for someone else at this point I would be tempted to throw a bunch of salt and other condiments in, but that would be cheating and just so arrogant! Lets see how it turns out.

Result: Soupy kind of rice pudding with chicken. Next time I would definitely not halve the spices and add a lot less liquid, but the poussin has a lot of flavour and overall it's not as bland as I thought it would be. Maybe a better word is 'delicate' and I only have reservations because I'm so used to burning the roof of my mouth off with very heavily flavoured food. My bother called it very nice, like Thai Green curry diluted in a pan of water. The boyfriend is a muy caliente Spaniard so this is pretty far from the kind of thing he would choose to eat. It's so frustrating when you have to prick and prod a prude to eat something that looks not even that bad! Anyway, he finished a bowl, and when I went to pack some up for lunch the next morning there was barely a portion left. The rice had soaked more of the liquid up overnight and it was more of a risotto than a soup, the taste was also intensified, I guess that's the benifit of leaving the bits of seed and bark floating around instead of fishing them out at the end of cooking. I also don't get the point of pouring melted butter on top to serve, the dish was already greasy enough thanks to all the schmaltz that came out of the poussin during cooking. So yeah, the punchline is that I would make this again, it's super easy and now that I have a half a kilo bag of cardamom seeds, should be a pretty cheap midweek meal.

And nobody got sick!